There is no quick fix for losing belly fat, but there is no single method either, although fad diets and extreme exercise routines seem to disagree. If you take what is said in these programs and consider it typical of the collective wisdom about losing belly fat, then the following paragraphs may surprise you.
Why would you want to lose belly fat in a way that was completely at odds with typical diet philosophies?
For starters, typical diet philosophies are temporary. You can’t get a flat stomach or lose belly fat permanently if you follow a fad diet or extreme exercise program. There are 2 reasons:
- Fad diets or extreme exercises often don’t work well with your body and can damage it, which you may not be ready for.
- Because of this, you don’t stick to the diet and end up back where you started and usually with less muscle mass, thus a slower metabolism, thus yo-yo dieting.
You can go and research for yourself the number of new diets popping up every couple of months or the number of new “lose weight fast” fitness programs hitting your social networking sites. Each one promises fantastic weight loss and fat burning, but few deliver because they forget the most important thing.
They forget that someone has to actually follow the diet or the program.
How do you lose fat the complete opposite way?
You do it by following these simple rules:
- Don’t give up on processed food, beer or wine.
- Do not spend more than 2 hours a week exercising.
- Don’t spend large amounts of money on gym memberships or equipment.
- Don’t spend money on special diet foods.
- Do not reduce your daily diet by more than 10%
As you can see, this is a long list of things you should not do. So what can you proactively do to lose belly fat?
- Exercise 4 times a week, for no more than 30 minutes each time.
- Build short, high-intensity interval training into your exercise plan.
- Keep up with any weight training or running you can do, but do it at home.
- eat 4 times a day
- Adapt your diet gradually in steps, eliminating things like processed foods and beer slowly, but you don’t have to stop consuming them.
- Only reduce what you eat in total up to 10%, and no more
- Get 7-8 hours of sleep at night and drink at least 2 liters of water a day.
The key is to vary your exercise routine and change your diet in such a way that you get used to smaller changes and can develop and become familiar with new habits.
The secret weapon in losing belly fat is motivation and habit building. Once you develop good habits that help you lose belly fat, you don’t have to consciously force yourself to follow the plan. You will do it almost automatically.