How to Lose the Belly Fat

We’ve all done it at some point, especially if you’re a woman. You look down when you’re sitting and what do you notice? That dreaded, puffy belly protruding over your clothing. It’s never a good feeling, that’s for sure. But if you really want to get serious about how to lose the belly fat, there are some key things to you should understand first before you blame yourself once again for overindulging in your favorite foods.

Get Your Metabolism Fired Up

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they want to start losing weight is the idea that they have to starve themselves. This simply isn’t so.

Starving yourself is counterproductive and actually slows down your metabolism.

Your metabolism is the thing you need to get regulated and speed up to burn more calories.

Be sure to find out the 5 foods you must never eat to lose belly fat.

Think of it as a fire. When a fire begins to slow down (hence, slowing the burn), you need to put more firewood on to keep the fire burning. Make sense?

Now, that’s not to say you need to go down a full meal or a heavy calorie snack, but something small and stable will be a good start.

When you eat at regular intervals throughout the days, you keep your metabolism fired up and you prevent yourself from feeling deprived or starved – two very important things in order to keep you on track with making new changes.

By eating regularly, you’ll get your metabolism working harder and you will be able to burn off calories more efficiently.

Simply put, you need to eat every 2 to 3 hours in order to keep your metabolic furnace going strong. Doesn’t that sound better than starving yourself?

Eating Regularly Helps Your Body Burn Fat

I know you may think that sounds crazy. And you may have tried this concept before.

But it will be very important to keep a record of what you’re eating until you learn what works for you and you set new patterns for yourself.

Back in prehistoric times, people weren’t always guaranteed a source of food. They had to hunt and gather and depending on the day, food may not always have been available. So the body became programmed to store fat as a life-saving reserve for those times when food was scarce.

Now that we live in a world where there seems to be food around every corner – especially unhealthy, processed, convenience foods – we almost have to step back and rethink how we look at food. Yes, food can be a wonderful treat. It can be soothing and comforting to the soul.

It can even bring people together around a table. But it’s important to think about the goal of food and how we use it as a tool to achieve, or defeat our goals.

Small Steps Lead To Big Changes

This small step of eating regularly will reprogram your body to know that is going to get food regularly.

Therefore, it will learn to not “hoard” that dreaded, bulgy fat and that is it safe to start releasing it.

You’ll begin to speed up your sluggish metabolism and undo a lot of previous damage causing by diets that don’t truly work.

Eating every few hours will also help maintain your muscles; this also helps burn more calories throughout the day.

After just a few weeks of starting this simple new step, you will have less cravings.

You’ll feel more energetic because your body is being nourished regularly, and you’ll have less inclination to overeat.

Think about your past dieting experiences.

How many times have you starved yourself thinking it would help you only to find out that you gobbled up way too much of the wrong foods in the end?

Overeating and binging happens for a reason. Think of this as a simple change that will help you work towards longterm weight loss and the reduction of belly fat.

Keep a Journal to Track Your Food

This may sound like adding work to your day.

But the simple idea of writing down everything, and I do mean everything that you eat and drink in a day is critical in the beginning to your success.

If you’re just starting out on the path to wanting to slim down, try recording everything you eat or drink for one full day, including the amount.

You may just be surprised to see where the hidden calories actually are.

You may even see immediately where some of the problems may lie. For example, do you like take out coffees?

Many if not all, contain very high amounts of sugar and fat – two things that add on to your belly fat.

With a few tweaks you could reduce many of those unnecessary calories.

Why It Works

Writing down your food and drink intake will show you where your pitfalls are.

Studies have shown that people who record their intakes in a food journal versus those who don’t are 64% more successful at keeping weight off than longterm.

It’s a simple thing to do that really makes a lasting impact in your weight loss results. Plus it keeps you accountable.

Think of it like a private coach who you can help keep you on track.

Be sure to write everything down that you eat and drink, no matter how insignificant it may be. This is because you’d be surprised at how many extra calories you’re taking in each day when you just have a “taste” or a “spoonful” of something.

Take a Moment to Meditate

With the stressful world that we live in today, we are constantly on the go…work, school, family, commitments of all sorts come at us continually.

All of that stress can really take it out of us and make us tired, exhausted and drained.

Too much stress also contributes to extra cortisol production. Cortisol is a hormone in the body that when too much of it is produced, extra fat gets built up in the belly area.

Meditation may sound complicated or time-consuming, but just taking literally five minutes each day will help you feel refreshed and recharged.

You don’t even have to know any fancy yoga moves!

Try and pick a time of day that works best for you. Maybe it’s five minutes of quiet in the bathroom or even your car.

Just be still and quiet and present in the moment. Try and close the door on your thoughts and release your stress.

To start, all you have to do is just close your eyes and deeply breathe long, slow breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.

If you can’t think of pleasant, calming thoughts, an easy suggestion is to literally count to five as you breathe in and count to five as you exhale.

It’s a great, simple and quick way to start de-stressing.

This will help your cortisol to lower and that will also help with belly fat reduction.