Simple Steps to Losing Belly Fat

Losing belly fat will not only get you fabulous abs, but is important for your health. Excess belly fat has been linked to many health risks like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. It’s not just the surface belly fat that you can pinch or grab, but the deep fat that surrounds the abdominal muscles that is a cause for concern.

Regardless of why you want to flatten your stomach and shed your excess body fat, the goal is the same; get flat fab abs and show off your six pack abs. To get to this point you must make some changes to your current lifestyle. It’s not just about doing 500 crunches or 100 different abdominal exercises. While these types of exercises help to tighten and tone your abdominal muscles, you must first shed the belly fat if anyone is going to see the results of all your ab exercises effort.

5 Steps to Losing Belly Fat

Step 1 - Aerobics

Get out your walking shoes. That’s right. No need for an exercise mat in this first step. Losing belly fat requires activities that will burn body fat and excess calories. That means you have to include aerobic exercises to your weekly routine. You can take brisk walks or jogging, pop in an exercise DVD or use an elliptical or treadmill. There are hundreds of different ways you can get sweaty and burn fat and calories.

Aerobics require oxygen and fat needs oxygen to burn. So in order to rid your body fat add 3 to 4 days of aerobics for a minimum of 30 minutes. As you get adjusted to your aerobic workout, try adding more minutes and even another day or two. Before you know it you will begin to see the difference in your stomach and all areas of your body.

Step 2 - Food Choices to Losing Belly Fat

Take a look at the foods you are eating and start making some adjustments. Add some fat burning foods and metabolism boosting foods. Many foods offer nutrients that can help shed body fat and increase your metabolism for a higher calorie burn. Add protein to every meal for faster fat burning. Your proteins need to be lean cuts of meat, fishes, beans and even tofu and eggs offer high protein content.

Foods like citrus fruits and high fiber foods not only help burn belly fat but speeds up your metabolism. But adding these types of food alone won’t get the job done. You need to eat healthy as well and minimize the too sweet or too fatty foods. Your food choices need to be a lifestyle change and not just a short term diet plan. Of course you want to add veggies to your diet as well. Veggies offer lots of nutrients and very low calories. These types of foods make a great addition as they help you feel fuller faster and provide vitamins and minerals you need to be healthy.

Step 3 - Minimize Stress

Studies show that stress can cause excess belly fat. The reason for this is that when a person is stressed the body releases the stress hormone known as cortisol. When this happens your brain receives a signal that increases your appetite and fat production. This extra fat production generally ends up in the stomach area causing excess belly fat.

You want to look for ways to reduce your stress and according to experts one of the best ways to relieve stress is to exercise. Other methods to help minimize stress include deep breathing exercises, stretching exercises and relaxation therapy sessions. Another way to help reduce stress is breathing exercises.

Step 4 - Strength Training for Losing Belly Fat

Although aerobic exercises give you the higher calorie and fat burning benefits you need to also include strength training exercises. These types of workouts help build lean muscle mass and tone your body. The more lean muscles you have the higher your metabolism. This means you will burn more calories in a day. You can do weight lifting, resistance band exercises or use dumbbell weights to help build your muscles.

Building lean muscle does not mean you will bulk up like professional body builders. In order to achieve those results you would have to workout several hours each day and use extreme weights and resistance. So ladies don’t skip out on strength training because you think you will get too bulky. Your strength training will help to tighten and tone muscles giving you a nice firm body and flatten your stomach.

Step 5 - Get a Good Nights Sleep

Sleep is essential to your health and your body. By getting a good night sleep you are allowing your body to recoup from the day before. When you are well rested you are more alert, energized and able to make better choices. Your exercise routines will be more effective as you will be able to workout harder and longer. This means you will be losing belly fat faster.

In addition to the benefits of exercising better and eating right, sleep also helps maintain proper insulin levels. Your insulin production can be effected by improper sleep causing improper glucose levels. When your body produces too much insulin the body begins to store foods as fat. Just like with stress, this excess fat tends to settle in the stomach area. So to minimize fat storage and flatten your stomach, be sure to get to sleep on time and be well rested for the next day of fat burning activities.

Abdominal Exercises

In addition to the above steps for losing belly fat, don't forget to focus on your abdominal muscles. As you begin to shed your fat around the belly you will want to show off some tight and toned abs. There are many different abdominal exercises that will work all the ab muscles. Although all ab exercises are effective, some are more effective than others. So if you are short on time, pick those abdominal exercises that will get the job done in a shorter amount of time.

Check out these abdominal exercises with instructions and free exercise video demonstration to ensure you are doing your exercises correctly.