You want to lose belly fat more than anything, but nothing you’ve tried seems to work. In this article, I will cover two fundamental principles of fat loss that you must follow if you want to start making real progress once and for all.
First, let’s dispel some misunderstanding regarding fat loss. Sure, there are plenty of TV, and radio ads that tell you how easy it is to lose your belly fat. You just have to swallow their pills, or use their ab gadget. The fat will melt away virtually overnight.
It’s hard for me to comprehend that anyone would actually believe this stuff. But then again, I’ve been involved with fitness for almost 20 years, and I understand what it takes to lose fat. Some of you may be just starting out, and you may not know the truth about fat loss. Maybe you’ve heard too much conjecture, and too much hype, and it’s becoming hard and harder to separate fact from fiction.
Don’t be duped by the overly sensationalized commercials. These fraudulent marketers and the scams that try to pass themselves off as legitimate ways to lose body fat are only out to take your money. They are shoveling garbage down your throat by trying to get you to believe that a fat reduction miracle is possible overnight.
You have to get educated about what it takes to lose belly fat, so you don’t end up losing your money instead. So let’s get past all of the bull and get right down to the hard science of what it really takes to lose your stubborn belly fat and keep it off for life. Here are the two principles that will take your fat loss to new levels.
The first important principle we’ll discuss is workout structure. What I’m about to tell you may sound counter intuitive, but bear with me for a moment. If you want to stimulate fat-loss from your abdominal area, you need to STOP wasting your time doing abdominal exercises. You read that right. You must stop doing hundreds of reps of crunches, leg lifts, and torso twists in the hopes of “spot-reducing” your belly and love handles.
Simply put, spot-reduction doesn’t work. I can’t say it any simpler than that. The truth is, you don’t lose belly fat by doing abdominal exercises. Unfortunately, even though the majority of people understand this (or at least they should), they will still spend WAY too much of their time trying to target the stomach with a ton of abs exercises.
I’m not saying that you have to eliminate abs exercises completely from your exercise routine. On the contrary. A certain amount of abdominal work is beneficial since it does help to strengthen your core and helps you maintain a healthy back. However, direct ab work should only be a minimal part of your workout routine.
The majority of your time should be spent focusing on multi-joint exercises that work the largest muscle groups of the body such as the legs, chest, and back. That’s the true secret for getting rid of that belly fat for good. You need to focus on the big multi-joint exercises such as squats, deadlifts, presses and rows.
The reason multi-joint exercises are an excellent choice for fat loss is because they work the largest portions of your body and greatly increase your metabolic rate both during the workout, and for 24-48 hours after the workout. That means that you will not only burn fat during your workout, but will continue to do so for a day or two afterward.
Additionally, this stimulates an increase in fat-burning hormones inside your body. You don’t get this type of metabolic and hormonal response doing endless sets and reps of crunches or leg raises.
So you really want to lose belly fat? Then get your butt under a barbell and do some squats. While you’re at it, do some deadlifts (any variation), some rows such as bent over barbell rows, and presses such as bench and military presses. If you don’t have access to a barbell, as in a home gym type of environment, then use dumbbells, or even bodyweight exercises.
The focus needs to be on big multi-joint exercises at a high intensity. It doesn’t matter what type of equipment, if any, you use.
Now that you know more about structuring your workouts to ensure that fat loss occurs, let’s move on to the second principle…
The second important principle to becoming leaner revolves around nutrition. You must begin to re-think the way you view food and diets in general.
First of all, you need to realize is that most of today’s popular “diets” end up working against your fat loss efforts.
You have to understand that if you follow any one of these fad diets, such as the low-carb diet, low-fat diets, the grapefruit diet, the soup diet, or anything else that restricts one or more of the macro-nutrients (i.e. protein, carbs, and fat), it will cause you to lose lean muscle. This is not what you want as this lowers your metabolism.
And besides, no one can live off of these faddish diets for any length of time and they end up making you fatter in the long run, once you start to eat normal again.
The main reason why fad diets don’t work is because you end up devastating the processes related to the hormonal balance in your body such as the muscle glycogen process, insulin, blood sugar, etc. This will inevitably stop your fat loss before it even gets off the ground.
The best advice I give anyone seeking to lose belly fat is to stop falling for the fad diet gimmicks. I tell them that they have to understand that as humans, we are meant to eat a balanced and diverse diet full of a wide array of foods from healthy natural sources of proteins, carbs, AND YES, even fats. This will give your body all the macro-nutrients as well as the micro-nutrients (i.e. vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and enzymes) that your body needs to run as the well-oiled fat-burning machine it is meant to be.
Bottom line–stick to the two basic principles that I’ve covered in this article and you will begin to make serious progress in your efforts to lose belly fat. Sure, there are many more fat loss strategies that I could mention but, the two I’ve outlined are a great starting point.
By: Egan C.
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If you’re interested in discovering even more secret techniques and nutrition strategies for helping you to FINALLY lose all of that stubborn belly fat, visit my website at permanent-weight-loss.info today!
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