Maintaining a flat belly is one of the most challenging tasks faced by every figure conscious men and women. Eat out a few nights or indulge in your favorite desert for 3 days and your belly starts showing up. It is one of the most common places for fat storage and to lose belly fat you actually need to take special care. When you are planning to lose weight only from the stomach without losing the curves from other parts of your body, you need to take up a special regimen.
Following a normal weight loss diet is not suitable when you are looking for fat loss only from the stomach region. An overall diet plan will slim you down and will also dilute your curves. When it comes to losing only stomach fat, it is important that you opt for a diet that will help you to get rid of problems like bloating, water retention and will also cure any digestive issues. These problems can work as a major cause behind a bulging stomach and hence the objective of the diet should be to get rid of these problems.
There are also some exercises that target particularly the stomach fat and when you pair these exercises with a proper diet for belly fat loss you can actually get quick and effective results. First we will get into the diet and lifestyle changes that you need to make in order to lose the belly fat.
Diet changes for losing belly fat
- Take short meals: Instead of taking 2 or 3 big meals in the whole day, take 5-6 short meals, but keep a close watch at the total calorie you take in. Breaking down your total calorie intake into small meals will make it much easier for your digestive system to complete the digestion process. In addition to that, small meals at frequent intervals will also keep you filled and limit the unhealthy snacking habit.
- Include more fibers in your diet: Digestive fibers play a very important role in maintaining a good health of the digestive system. These fibers help in digestion and also promote the normal bowel movement giving you relief from problems like bloating and constipation. Vegetables and fruits are stuffed with dietary fibers, so include more of these in your daily diet in whatever form you prefer.
- Limit your animal protein intake: Proteins are must for the body but it is not really easy for your digestive system to handle heavy animal proteins. Moreover, eating more animal protein, like meat is often related to constipation which can make your stomach bulge out. So, keep the amount of animal proteins in your diet to minimum and rely more on plant based proteins like sprouts, pulses and beans.
- Replace meat and chicken with fish: Fish is a high quality animal protein, but the best thing about it is that, it is comparatively much lighter on your digestive system. Fish can be digested easily and the omega-3 fatty acids present in fishes like tuna and salmon also promotes fat burning during exercise. So, replacing the chicken or meat with fish in your diet can actually be helpful to lose the belly fat.
- Opt for healthy snacks: When you feel like snacking, instead of those soft drinks and potato chips bank on a handful of roasted almonds or sprouted chickpeas. These foods are tasty, will keep you filled and will not add any fat to the body. Keeping your snacks healthy is a key to get a flat stomach and a better digestive health.
- Reduce oil in your diet: Discard those deep fried foods from your diet today and change your regular cooking oil to olive oil. This will not only reduce the consumption of unhealthy fat but will also ensure a better digestive health that can be highly helpful to get a flat tummy.
- Limit the intake of sugar: Sugar is not good for your body in anyway. It slows down your digestion and also adds a lot of calorie to your body without providing any nutrition. Sugar or artificial sweeteners are also not good for your skin. It is best to limit your total sugar intake when you are trying to lose weight from stomach.
- Check the total salt intake: Salt consumption is directly related with water retention in the body. So, when you are trying to get rid of a bulging stomach, cutting down the total salt consumption can give you quick results.
Lifestyle changes to lose weight from stomach
- Chew your food properly: The human digestive system relies on step by step digestion and the process starts right from the mouth. When you do not chew your food properly, the task for your stomach becomes much heavier which is often a cause of bloating and indigestion. So, take your time while eating and chew your food properly before gulping it down.
- Fight stress: When you are trying to lose fat from the stomach you have to ensure that your digestive system is working at its best. A stressed out day can easily dampen your digestive system giving rise to problems like bloating and indigestion. So, keep stress away to maintain a healthy digestive system.
- Drink more water but in proper time: This is a cardinal rule of weight loss from the stomach. Water helps in flushing out the toxins from the stomach and it also helps in digestion. So, always make it a point to drink sufficient amount of water at frequent intervals to ensure a better overall health and proper functioning of the digestive system. Also make it a habit to not to drink water while having your food. Drink water 20 minutes before a meal and then only again after 30 minutes of the meal. Drinking water with food is often a primary reason of bloating.
- Maintain the right gap between your meals and bed time: This is another point that you need to keep in mind when you are trying to lose stomach fat. There should be a minimum gap of 3 hours between any big meal and your bed time. The gap between a short meal and bed time should be at least 1.50 hours. Having your food and then jumping to bed immediately will not only add to the problems like indigestion and bloating but will also slow down the metabolism rate of your body.
- Watch what you eat after sunset: Our body follows a natural clock and whatever you eat after sunset, the body tends to store it more than burning it out. So, make it a point to not to have a heavy meal after sunset and take care of whatever you take after 5pm in the evening.
Having given a clear idea about the diet and lifestyle changes one need to make for losing fat from the stomach only, now let us get to the exercises that burns the stomach fat specifically. While the above changes can give you great results in losing weight from stomach, you can never get the best results without proper exercises. Here are the exercises that are most effective in losing stomach weight,
Cardio exercises
Before you start with any particular exercise that targets particularly the stomach region, opt for 10 minutes cardio exercises to warm up. This will ensure better effects of the next exercises. Jogging, running, cycling or skipping all can be simple cardio exercises that can work best to lose the fat from your belly region. Once you are done with cardio, move on to these targeted exercise,
Side plank
Side plank can be very effective to burn the tummy fat and to tone the tummy muscles. Side plank is simple to do and it can be highly effective to give you targeted results for losing belly weight. Start with 3 sets of 5 reps and then increase as you go. There are also a number of variations of side plank, like side plank with tummy drop that can give effective results.
Crunches
When it comes to losing only your stomach weight there can be hardly any exercise more effective than crunches. Do sufficient repetitions of crunches along with the common variations of it, like the crunch cycling to lose weight from the stomach.
Bridge
Bridge is another exercise that helps in burning the tummy fat and toning the stomach region. Once you reach the top position in bridge, hold it for at least 30 seconds before coming down. Start with 5 reps and increase as you go.
Arch
This exercise is known for its effectiveness in toning the stomach muscles, helping you to lose weight from the belly region only. It is best for the beginners to start the arch from a flat position. You need to hold the top position for at least 30 seconds before coming down. Perform at least 3 repetitions at a time.
Belly dancing
Belly dancing is not actually an exercise but it can be another very effective way to lose weight particularly from the stomach region and also to get a toned belly. The moves of this dancing style mostly involves movement of the stomach muscles which helps in burning the stomach fat, sculpting the muscles of this region.
