Getting Rid of Stubborn Belly Fat

Ok, this is blog request #1, and I'm hoping to get some more to help people learn a little :). I knew mainly what I was going to talk about here, but thought I'd type into Google "How to get rid of stubborn belly fat". Some of the articles I found were filled with a bunch of BS and then tried to sell you some magic drug, others were filled with some more BS and tried to sell some ab machine thing, and some were actually written by people who knew what they're talking about were based on studies, and were helpful.

I guess I'll start off by depressing everyone when I say that there's really not a good way to just target belly fat and make it magically disappear (or other localized fat like those nice deposits on my upper thighs...); that's what liposuction is for. Didn't you ever notice all of those 5'8" 20 something year olds that weigh 120 on Dr. 90210 that have 1 area on their bodies that still has fat? That's proof you can't really spot train well by yourself. Anyway, I degress.

So those expensive ab things on TV, regular ab crunches, crazy amounts of cardio a day, etc are not going to help you. The only thing that the ab machines and crunches are going to do is tone / strengthen your underlying ab muscles which in some cases may even make your abs stick out more. Also, lots of cardio at the same intensity may even burn some of your muscle off, which obviously isn't good since the more muscle you have, the more fat you burn during the day.

The secret to losing "belly fat" or other areas of fat is to reduce the overall fat in your body. By reducing your overall fat, you'll lose it in the problem areas as well. The best way to reduce fat is to get on a healthy diet (i.e. no simple carbs, minimal sugar, none of those pre-packaged food things, and an increase in protein), full body strength training, and interval training. Make yourself get on a plan that you can stick to (no one is going to stick to a super strict diet forever) and just slowly try to take a few things out like sugars and starches and try to replace it with something healthier with some more protein. For example, instead of eating that donut, try a couple lightly salted rice cakes with a couple teaspoons of peanut butter, or even try the protein pudding recipe in my forum (I've found the brand / flavor is really the key here... I've had luck with Designer Whey - Chocolate Peanut Caramel, and Pure Protein - Chocolate). It's good for a post-workout snack. Also, remember to add more lean protein / vegetables instead of that Wendy's cheeseburger.

For your workout, instead of doing so much cardio, try to add some more strength training and try to hit every muscle group at least 2x/week. To really work on your mid-section, do some core training instead of just ab exercises. It will really target all the muscles around the middle of your body including the deeper ones that will help improve your posture, hold your belly in, and make you look slimmer. One trick to make your mid-section look smaller is to work on your shoulders to get them bigger. This will have a visual slimming effect. When you do your cardio, instead of spending 60 minutes at the same intensity, try intervals where you do moderate intensity for 2-3 minutes, then high intensity for 1 minute and repeat. This will keep your body guessing and will help get you in better shape, and you can even cut down your overall cardio time as well to work in that strength training. Good luck!... It's a tough one.