Weight Loss Helpers

Abdominal fat, or the belly fat as is commonly called, not only looks unsightly, it also increases health risks associated with many serious illnesses, such as insulin resistance syndrome, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases, and even some types of cancers.

If you have excess belly fat, you would almost invariably be overweight/obese too. So, healthy weight loss is the best solution to losing belly fat.

But if you have ever been on a weight loss plan, you would have soon realized that one area that seems the most resistant to fat loss is the midsection. Despite religiously doing countless sit-ups and hours of aerobic activity, your belly fat just refuses to budge. Perhaps it’s time to pause, review your exercise-cum-diet plan, and understand what wrong you could be doing. Here are some facts relating to losing belly fat:

- You cannot spot-reduce fat selectively from belly, or for that matter from any specific part of the body – fat loss occurs systemically, i.e., from all over the body, when you create calorie deficit by burning calories through proper exercise and reducing calorie intake through diet. But your genes dictate your fat distribution pattern and decide where you lose fat first; so do not compare your fat loss chart with others.

- To achieve weight loss and lose belly fat successfully, it helps to get professional help to strategize your exercise/diet plan for your individual case. Because unplanned aerobic activity or doing hundreds of sit-ups alone is not going to help you lose belly fat effectively. In fact, it can do more harm than good. For example, too much of aerobics can cause muscle loss and make fat loss even more difficult due to reduced basal metabolic rate.

- What you need is a sensible combination of cardiovascular activity, abdominal strengthening exercises, weight training to increase muscle mass, along with a balanced and nutritive diet.

Cardio helps to burn fat, weight training helps to increase muscle mass and hence increase the basal metabolic rate, abdominal exercises help to tighten the abdominal muscles and give definition to your reducing belly, and diet control helps reduce calorie intake and create calorie deficit.

One of the best things you can do to improve the rate at which you lose belly fat is to combine all of the aspects of a healthy lifestyle. In other words, do cardiovascular exercises, do weight training exercises, and eat mostly healthy foods.

5 Diet tips for weight loss and belly fat loss

Here are some diet tips to lose your belly fat successfully:

- Distribute your total daily calorie intake over 5–6 small meals instead of 3 large meals. This helps to keep in check your blood glucose and blood insulin levels – two factors that play a key role in hunger activation as well as in fat storage.

- Make sure that your diet comprises 45–50% calories from non-refined, complex carbohydrates, 30% from high-quality proteins, and no more than 20–25% from healthy fats.

This translates to saying no to sodas, commercial bakery/fried items, whole-cream dairy products, red meat, alcohol, etc., and welcoming whole wheat, brown rice, oats, beans, legumes, lentils, soy, nuts, seeds, olive oil, etc., in your diet.

- Eat 6–8 servings of fruits and vegetables, which not only provide the much needed fiber but are also loaded with a variety of micronutrients like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc.

- Drink 8–10 glasses of water – water helps metabolize fat.

- Be done with your last meal at least 3 hours before bedtime.

Combine these with 30 minutes of a cardio exercise 5 times a week, weight training twice a week, and abdominal exercises like pilates, pelvic tilts/lifts and crunches twice/thrice a week, and you would be steering yourself on the way to a flat belly.