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How to lose lower belly fat – easy 3-step guide
So ! You’ve lost some weight, and now everything’s great but you’ve still got a bit of tummy going on. Not just any tummy, lower tummy. Yes, how to lose lower belly fat has got to be one of the most searched weight loss topics around. Many people struggle with it, and for good reason !
It’s very stubborn, and very hard to completely get rid of. I’ll show you how, in the paragraphs below. It’s divided into 3 steps, so everyone can follow it. Some of these might seem obvious and like I’m repeating myself, but in truth these are the 3 things people have the most trouble with. So we’ll go over them one by one.
Let us first define what we’re trying to melt here. We’re talking about the kind of fat around your belly button, and a bit below that. The kind that is just under your skin, easy to pinch.
Step 1 – watch what you eat
I know, you’ve heard it before. But this needs to be done super stringent. You must be very exacting with this otherwise we’ll get nowhere. So since the lower belly is not a particularly easy spot to exercise and move around — unlike arms or legs, for example — we first have to eat better.
Cut out carbs completely.
Until now I’ve recommended just lowering the amount, if you want to lose weight, But for lower belly fat, cut them all out. So flour-based food like bread, pasta, muffins, bagels, and so on… they have to go. No, not even whole-grain flour, nor is corn-flour okay either. Drop potatoes, rice, quinoa, millet, and any other carb you can think of.
Why are we doing this ? Because for each gram of carb you eat, there’s a gram of body fat it won’t burn. You know your body needs calories to run. Between burning fat and burning carbs, it’d rather burn carbs. But since we’re trying to burn fat, we’re not going to give the body any other options.
You can opt for side dishes made entirely out of veggies, cooked in any way except fried.
Drop sugar and sugary foods and drinks
It’s got the same problem as carbohydrates, but this time it’s an empty carb. As in, while cereal-based carbs like four or rice bring fibers and a bit of vitamins, refined sugar brings absolutely nothing. Honey and cane sugar make up for this, but right here we’re not going to consume any of those.
Fruits are sugary as well, having fructose. They also have fibers and vitamins, so you could have the one fruit in the first part of the day, but aside from that skip them as well. Only for the duration of this stringent diet.
So milkshakes, chocolate, flavored yogurt, pancakes, bananas, soda, and pretty much anything sweet is not okay while you’re trying to lose belly fat. We need to give the body no other option.
Go exclusively for lean meat and veggies
Baked, steamed, boiled, on the grill. Never fried. No sauce like mayo or ketchup or mustard, we need just nutrition here.
Be wary of fats
Not all fats are bad, not all are good. Some make you fat like butter and lard and cooking oil or basically anything other than olive oil, but go easy on that too. And some help you lose weight, like fish oil and avocados and nuts&seeds, because they all have omega 3 and 9 which lower cholesterol and help you melt body fat.
Drink all the water !
Seriously, you’ll need the extra water for this. You need to flush out everything and help your insides clear out. It will also help you feel fuller and keep cravings at bay.
Step 2 – exercise
If you want to know how to lose lower belly fat, then you’ve got to know exercising is a must in this case, because that part of our body is incredibly stubborn. You need to work at it real hard.
So aside from all the cardio workouts you need — treadmill, elevated treadmill, jumping rope, stepper, running up and down stairs, swimming — there’s the abdominal workouts.
Let’s cover why we need cardio. It burns fat all around the body, more than any other kind of activity. It gets the blood flowing, gets your heart rate up, and it makes you sweat so so much. And that’s what we need, the sweat to release as much as possible. Aim for 15-20 minutes of cardio at the beginning of your workouts.
Now abdominal exercise.
While cardio will help melt fat, ab workouts will help tone the area and melt a bit of fat on their own. The classic crunch is great for this. But since this is lower belly fat, I’ll tell you my favorite exercise for this area.
Lay down flat on your back, arms and legs completely straight. Toes pointed. Place your hands under your behind, palms on the floor, your butt on the back of your hands. The point is that your butt is supposed to be at least a bit elevated.
Once you’re in position and comfortable slowly raise your legs (keep them straight, toes pointed) until they’re straight up(like you’d be sitting). Then, lower them back almost until you reach the floor but do not let them touch the floor, stop before that. It will be hard to do if it’s your first time, but with practice you’ll get great results and stamina.
If you get sore, that’s fine. We’re looking for that. You need to develop the muscles on your lower belly to you get it as flat as you want. Want to know how to fix sore muscles ? Work out more and they’ll get used to it.
Exercise on its own, and the diet will help you, but we need focused, topical help. On every ab day I use one of those waistbands that help you sweat more. I also use it on cardio days to make sure I get the extra help. You can find one here. That kind of waistband will help your body lose belly fat twice as fast.
When in the gym, ask a trainer for directions with the workouts. Explain your situation and you’ll get the help you need.
If you’re not comfortable going o the gym for cardio, but still want a proper workout at home, you can improvise. You can get your own tread mill, manual or not, and install it into a part of the house that you think would be most appropriate.
Why would I recommend this ? Well, for starters you’re not conditioned by the gym open hours. Most of them are not open 24/7. Then, there’s the comfort of having your own gym inside the house, where you can exercise with ease. And finally, it’s about saving money as well in the long run (ha, get it ?).
Get your own tread mill, and you have no real reason to visit the gym, because all you needed was the cardio workout. The weight training you can do with your own body, like sit-ups and crunches and so on.
Please do keep in mind than none of the above mentioned cardio trainers are mandatory. You’re not obligated to purchase any of them. You can lose weight without them, and without going to the gym as well. But it would be much harder and would take longer, since you won’t be burning the extra calories we need to burn to lose lower belly fat.
So it’s your call, I’m just putting those options on the table for you to consider. I for one am a big fan of the elliptical stepper, I use it more often than the tread mill alongside the waistband I mentioned earlier.
But you do you and decide according to your health, budget, how much of a problem lower belly fat is, and so on.
Step 3 – fasting, for good measure
We’ve covered this in more detail in an email in our newsletter, however for now know that intermittent fasting can help you lose lower belly fat faster. It gives your body no other options than to burn already-stored fat, from all around the body.
The point is that you must not eat anything, at all, for 24 hours. Water is alright, but any kind of food will undo the work we do. So how can we make this tolerable ? After all, 24 hours without food is kind of harsh, no ? It gets the job done, but let me tell you a secret. I recently discovered this and I was blown away by it. I’ve fasted before, yes, nothing new there. But I didn’t know this before. So what is it ?
Timing.
There’s a timing to fasting, and I did not know about it before. You see, most everyone fasts from sunrise to the next sunrise. So basically from 7am to 7am the next day. But you’re spending the majority of the day tired and unfed.
But if you fast from 6pm to 6 pm the following day ? It’s still no food, just water. But you get the sleep hours right in the middle and they’ll reset your hunger. Your body burns calories while you sleep. So you’re still fasting but you’re holding on much better.
Here’s a post you might also like – how to lose 20 pounds and develop habits that keep the weight off
Or check our advice and experience with losing weight as a couple.
Maybe you’re interested intermittent fasting for fat loss ?
