Exercises to lose belly fat are probably the number one myth in the fitness world. The fact is that ab exercises don’t make you lose belly fat. Exercises can only stimulate your muscle to growth. What makes you lose belly fat is doing exercise in general and the more calories you burn the more fat you will burn.
Doing ab crunches may be hard but it is an exercise that doesn’t burn a lot of calories, like most exercises that isolate just one muscle group.
The best type of exercise to do if you want o lose belly fat is to start weight training. Now I know what you are thinking… if you are a girl its “I don’t want to look like a bodybuilder and have a man’s voice!” and if you are a guy you are thinking “I don’t want to look like a bodybuilder, I just wanna look lean!“.
Don’t worry boys and girls, muscle is not that easy to grow and you only get too much muscle if you do a massive amount of anabolic steroids. Losing fat is also not easy and it doesn’t happen by magic or with magic pills.
The most important thing is to have the right mindset for six pack abs and be healthy. For this you need to realize that what most people tell you about losing weight is false. This goes for what your gym buddies say and this goes for what supplement companies say. Corporate America molds people into the mindset that you have to buy their products… over and over again. They don’t really have an interest in you getting healthier or thinner, they prefer repeat customers that come back and buy their products over and over with their hard earned cash.
You need to go past the marketing BS and start educating yourself about how to get healthy… and you will be surprised that you don’t need supplements to be healthy or look good.
Like I was saying, the best way to lose belly fat and other fat is to do weight training. Why weight training? What about cardio?
Cardio burns a little more calories during the workout, but it just accelerates your metabolism for just 2 hours after the workout. Weight lifting keeps your metabolic rate up for 48 to 72 hours after the workout. This means that after you do a good weight training workout you will be burning calories while you sleep, while you sit and while you go about your day. This goes on from 48 to 72 hours after the workout and you end up getting much more calories burnt that when you are running on the treadmill for an hour and a half 4 times a week.
Another interesting thing is that when you do a real weight training workout you can burn as more calories than the average person burns off in acardio session.
Another advantage of training with weights is that you will gain some muscle. That extra muscle will make you metabolic rate go up, because muscle requires calories to be maintained.
Lets get something strait: Muscle and fat don’t grow by themselves. Muscle grows when you exercise correctly and eat healthy. Fat grows when you eat junk and don’t exercise.
The myth of doing exercises to lose belly fat is related to the myth of losing localized fat with specific exercises. This is impossible and does not exist.
The body stores fat in its own way, when you gain fat it is stored all around your body; around your mid section, legs, buttocks, neck, arms, etc. Men get fatter around the midsection and women get more fat on the hips. The bad news for all the people that want to know how to lose weight and fat is that the belly flab is the last fat to go and it is the most stubborn one.
I have talked about how to get a six pack and how to lose belly fat in other articles and there you can read some more information on the subject.
The best exercises to increase your metabolic rate are compound exercises. Compound exercises are the ones that use more than one group of muscles at the same time, these will make breathing like you are doingcardio.
Manny people have the idea that they need to do thousands of crunches to have good abs. While crunches are good to develop the ab muscles they are not going to take care of the fat that is hiding your abs. Most people already have developed abs under the fat layer, and if you have been doing compound exercises then you have well developed abs underneath your fat for sure!
Hi….good article….just wanted to ask a few questions. what do you mean by a “real weight training workout”. I started going to the gym recently because i was fed up of looking in the mirror and seeing a pop belly on what you might call an athletic body, i just dont understand it, the rest of my body is fine then the stomach just looks like a balloon…. so for the past week, i have been running on treadmill at random incline, increasing the speed gradually….then i do bout an hour to an hour and a half weight training session. which brings me to my other question of…i dont think what i am doing at the moment can be classed as compound exercises….i focus mainly on the free weights….for my chest and arms….so they are not exactly working different muscle groups at the same time…are there any examples of compound exercises….what would you say about my current regime of doing 30mins treadmill then weight training (bench press, bicep curl, dumbells etc).
i also read in one of your other articles as well about bloated stomach and intestines…i think i am suffering from that, i feel that there is belly fat but at the same time i feel as though my stomach is like a balloon especially after eating..it just seems to expand even just by drinking water hence i might lose the fat in the long run (hopefully) but how would i decrease the balloon shape look of stomach itself…..i have started to eat smaller portions more times a day rather than 3 big portions – would that work?
in terms of diet, i m starting to eat more healthier, my diet incorporates white spaghetti, white rice, potatoes, ovened chicken (not organic), meat balls, diced steak, fish, eggs (sometimes fried with olive oil, sometimes boiled) and fruit and veg – you might be thinking this diet is not the healthiest but from what i used to eat, its definitely an improvement, would you recommend any changes. in addition, you say to avoid fast food but is that completely or is it still alright like once in a while maybe if you’re out with friends or hanging out with girlfriend? and what bout the odd beer or two during the weekend?
and finally, you say stomach fat is stubborn, how long would you estimate it to take to lose it, if one remains disciplined in terms of diet and exercises?
i understand you are busy and am sort of asking for the world with these questions but any advice given will be much appreciated….
thanks
Hey Richard! Its great that you are changing your exercise and eating habits!
A few examples of compound exercises are squats, bench press, deadlifts and pull ups. These build mass and work various muscles at the same time. If you keep a good pace and always go until failure in the 6 to 12 repetition range you will be doing good.
As for the inflated belly it is a common problem nowadays. You said you are eating a better and that is great, but try to get the carbs down. Remember that soft drinks are also carbs, because of all the sugar or the corn syrup in them.
Try to cut down your carbs to see how it feels, cut down especially in refined carbs. Most of the time an inflated belly is because you are eating too much carbs.
I am going to write some articles about the Metabolic Typing Diet soon, check out the book because it will help you find the right diet for your particular metabolism.