At some point in your life, you may have looked down on your belly fat and said “I’m going to exercise”. While exercise does burn fat, it’s not enough to reduce the ones located at our waist. Even fitness experts agree that the best way to get sculpted abs would be to cut on carbs.
So how does one go about managing belly fat? The answer is a combination of diet and exercise. There’s also the possibility of medical intervention like liposuction procedures from places such as Vaser Lipo and Smart Lipo.
Here are a few proven facts about exercise and diet regimen that helps reduce belly fat.
1. Cut sugar from your diet.
One of the biggest fat contributors from our body is an excess of calories. The body in itself is a storage machine, and if there’s an excess of a substance it needs later on, it is stored as fat. Glucose and other forms of sugar are pure calories.
Removing certain foods from your diet will effectively stop the body from storing excess calories. Sadly, that’s all the good stuff – sweets, cakes, and soda. But that’s okay, because if removing food from your diet isn’t something you’d agree with, solution number 2 works just as good.
2. Burn more calories than you can eat.
If you have a strong love for cakes and all the sweet things in life, then removing belly fat will be a little more difficult. The answer is exercising more than you can eat. The body burns glucose for fuel so it stands to reason that exercising will burn readily available glucose.
The body also makes its own glucose in a process called gluconeogenesis. This process involves using fat stores that contain calories. If you exercise frequently, the body will be forced to rely on existing fat stores for fuel.
3. Eating more vegetables.
Vegetables generally contain more fiber and less sugars that’s why they’re a healthy dietary option. Eating vegetables should give you the feeling of fullness without worrying about excess calories. Couple this with regular exercise and your body goes into a state of caloric deficit.
Eating vegetables may not be as satisfying as eating bread and grains. To offset the hunger pangs, it’s recommended to eat 6 times a day in small portions. Drinking water can also help.
4. Crunches and other abdominal exercises.
One of the best isolation exercises to target belly fat is crunches. This is entirely different from sit ups – crunches are half-situps that have more emphasis on the upper and middle sections of the abdominal muscles. To get rid of lovehandles, scissor kicks are effective.
These exercises don’t require equipment or a gym membership. You can do this every other day to help the muscles develop. When your body has more muscles, it has a faster metabolism.
5. Drinking a lot of water.
Water has zero calories and does an effective job at making you fuller even before you start your meals. Water also dilutes acid present in the stomach that induces hunger pangs. It also helps flush out ketones, a by-product of fat metabolism, from your body.