How to Lose Stomach Pouch

Fitness experts say that the first thing to come if you over eat and don't exercise is the stomach pouch and it's the last thing to go when you start dieting and exercising. The answer to losing your stomach pouch is a combination of health eating habits, regular exercise and some supplements to support your goal. Track your weight along with your workout and diet regimen to ensure that you are doing the right thing. It is also important that you set realistic and healthy goals of losing the fat around your belly region.

Healthy Diet

The secret to following a diet plan over a period of time is to have flexibility in your menu. For example, if you feel like eating ice cream one day do not stop yourself, however, eat a small portion and compensate the next day by consuming less calories. If you want to know how to lose a stomach pouch you need to educate yourself on which foods are good and what you need to avoid. The table given below will give you a rough idea about which foods to avoid and which foods to include in your diet.

Avoid	Include
Burgers	Spinach
Pizza	Celery
Chocolate	Carrots
Beef	Fish
Pork	Chicken
Cookies	Cantaloupe
Fries	Orange

Divide your day into six halves and eat a small meal in every half instead of eating 2 big meals. When you eat small meals it is easier for the body to digest the food. Have at least 2 portions of vegetables and 2 portions of fruits every day. Fibrous food like vegetables and fruits will fill your stomach and won't add to your fat stores. Include fat burning foods like broccoli, cabbage, asparagus, watermelon, beet root in your diet. Ensure that you drink lots of water to help the body flush out toxins. Stay away from processed carbohydrates i.e soda drinks, and, cut down on your alcohol intake.

Regular exercise is the key to losing belly fat, include a combination of resistance training and cardio exercises. One of the reasons people stop exercising is that they get bored of doing the same routines day in and day out. So the key is to add variations to your workout routine. If you're planning to lose belly fat schedule two days of cardio exercises, two days of abdominal exercises and two days of resistance training. Here is a table explaining a weekly exercise plan.

Weekly Plan
Day One	Cardio Exercises
Day Two	Upper Body
Day Three	Abs exercises
Day Four	Cardio Exercises
Day Five	Lower Body
Day Six	Abs Exercises

Cardio Exercises
Start day one with 40-50 minutes of cardio exercises like a treadmill and cross trainer, if you don't have a gym membership jog for 20-25 minutes and cycle for 20-25 minutes. Begin at a slow pace and increase it for the last 5-8 minutes, this will increase your stamina and help you burn the stored fats. Repeat the cardio routine on the fourth day with aerobic exercises or routines like swimming and stair stepper. To keep the interest levels up, make use of different cardio routines each week, you can include dance routines like Zumba or Kickboxing routines in your cardio plan.

Resistance Training
You have 2 days of resistance training so divide the routine into upper body exercises and lower body exercises. Exercise your upper body muscles like the chest, back, shoulders, and biceps on day two of the workout plan. You can do a bench press, lat pulldown, over head press, and bicep curls to stimulate your muscles. If you prefer working out at home you can do different variations of push ups, and pull ups to work your upper body. On day five you can do lower body exercises like squats, lunges calf raises, etc. Make sure you follow the correct form and technique when you are doing resistance training to avoid cramps and injuries.

Abdominal Exercises
In your weekly plan do abdominal exercises on day three and day six. Remember that the abdominals are muscles so you need to treat them like muscles and stimulate them with weights. Use weight plates when you are doing exercises like crunches and reverse crunches. If you are a beginner, start without the weights and then slowly work your way up. For toning the abdominal muscles inculcate exercises like crunches, reverse crunches, leg raises, oblique crunches, and plank. These are some of the best exercises to burn belly fat.

One last tip, make sure you maintain healthy lifestyle habits like sleeping on time and avoiding late nights, refrain from drinking alcohol after 1900 hours and cut back on your smoking and coffee drinking. If you follow these basics you will be able to get rid of the belly fat.