awesome tips for losing Belle fat- the right way
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how do i lose belly fat without using a workout like The Five Minute Ab Shredder 3000’?
Relax, in just a second I’m about to give you three awesome tips which you can use to drop belly fat, the right way, for years and years.
Burning Fat Takes Time
Real quick, before we dive into the awesome tips for losing belly fat the right way, I want to very plainly say that losing belly fat takes time.
How much time?
Well, this depends on the person and will involve many factors such as:
How much body do you have to lose
What does your current diet look like
How stressed out are you throughout the day
How much quality sleep do you get each night
What is your current workout routine (or lack therof)
And more.
To illustrate this point I’m going to show you a quick comparison photo of me.
The photo on the left is from 2009. I was about 13% bodyfat.
The photo on the right is from 2018. Here, I’m hovering just about 7% bodyfat.
So, as you can see I actually gained weight, but lost belly fat…over the span of 9 years.
Why did this take so long?
Because losing belly fat is long term game.
Now, losing belly fat likely won’t take you 9 years (and it didn’t take me that long either).
The point I’m trying to make here is to give this process time. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t have six pack abs after 3 weeks.
Alright, now that I’ve taken way to long to talk about spot-reducing and setting expectations about losing belly fat, lets move onto to three tips for losing belly fat which you can start using today.
Three Awesome Tips For Losing Belly Fat—The Right Way
I’ll expand on each of these, but the three tips are:
Tip #1→ Use meal replacement protein shakes
Tip #2→ Get better sleep
Tip #3→ Exercise
Replacing Meals With Protein Shakes
“Abs are made in the kitchen”
Losing weight is about eating less calories than you burn.
Unfortunately, folks like to over complicate this idea with super strict meal plans that are highly unrealistic, diets that are downright miserable, and a host of other reasons.
Why?
I have no idea.
I like to keep dieting as simple as possible (actually I like to keep everything as simple as possible, but that’s another topic for another day).
And you should too.
So, here’s what I recommend:
To start off choose one meal per day, and replace that meal with a homemade protein shake.
That’s it.
Don’t over think the protein shake either:
Step 1→ Add 1–2 scoops of whey protein, frozen fruit, almond milk, maybe an avocado or coconut cream to a blender
Step 2→ Blend
Step 3→ Enjoy
Remember, the goal here is convience, while also starting to reduce the amount of calories you are taking in each day.
Protein shakes are convenient, keep you full, and don’t contain a tremendous amount of calories.
These are wins all around, and will help you to start moving the needle downward on your quest to banish belly fat.
Get More (and better) Sleep
Sleep is actually a big factor when it comes to losing body fat.
Getting less sleep is associated with increased body fat .
In short, if you want to lose belly fat, you’re going to need to step-up your sleep game.
Ideally, you should aim for 7–9 hours of sleep per night. This will change from person to person, but that is the going range right now.
Also, you’ll want to do everything in your power to make sure that the sleep you do get is of the highest quality possible.
You can do this by:
Sleeping in a room as dark as a cave
Eliminating the use of electronics at least 45 minutes before you jump in bed
There’s a lot of other tactics you can use to increase sleep, but the two mentioned above are good places to start.
Exercise Is Good
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that adults get 150 minutes of exercise per week.
This is equal to 30 minutes, 5 days per week.
However, the biggest reason that people say they don’t exercise is due to a lack of time.
Life gets crazy, I get that.
So, to accommodate for being busy humans (which we are), the ACSM says that adults should shoot for 150 minutes of exercise OR 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week.
The latter is only 15 minutes, 5 days per week.
This seems more reasonable for busy people.
Regardless of your available time, these are good. Which brings up a good question:
For fat loss should you do high intensity interval training or long slow cardio workouts?
Let me preface this answer by saying that exercise helps with fat loss, but most of the magic happens in the kitchen and the bedroom ←- when you sleep.
Your diet and how much you sleep play a bigger role on fat loss than exercise. That doesn’t mean exercising isn’t important though. Because it is.
These three things aren’t individual factors. They all help each other, and are all important players in the fat loss game.
But back to the question at hand.
I say both.
High intensity interval training is great for burning a lot of calories after you are done working out (revs up your metabolism).
Long slow cardio is great for burning many calories during the exercise, because of the length.
So, my recommendation is to mix up both aspects.
Personally, I like to either sprint or go for a brisk walk. To me, jogging isn’t taht enjoyable and sort of falls into my category of demi-exercise.
It’s not quite a walk, and it certainty isn’t a sprint.
But, if you enjoy jogging, do that for your long slow cardio.
However, if you’re like me and don’t enjoy jogging, but still want to get in long slow cardio days, I suggest using brisk power walking instead.
But, again the choice is yours.
Sample One Week Exercise Template
To help you get those exercise juices flowing, I’ve outlined a sample one-week exercise template which you can follow.
This template can be followed as it’s written, or changed in many different ways to fit your life and schedule. Again, this is simply to help you get started.
Day 1 → 20 minute high intensity interval session
Day 2 → Brisk walk (or jog) for 20–45 minutes
Day 3→ Brisk walk (no jog) for 20–45 minutes
Day 4→ 20 minute high intensity interval session
Day 5 → Brisk walk (or jog) for 20–45 minutes
Day 6 → Free day. Just get out there and move for a while. Do whatever you enjoy most (ie…roller blading, yoga, pilates, zumba, ultimate frisbee…etc)
Day 7 → Rest or short walk for about 20–30 minutes
Again, this template can be tweaked, you can add weight training, you can totally change it all together. The idea is to help you get started exercising, without over complicating anything.
Quick Recap On Burning Belly Fat Quickly
We covered a lot of ground in this answer.
If you’re looking for more specifics into any of these topics I’ll provide links, at the end, to other Quora answers of mine that you may find helpful.
But, just to quickly recap what we talked about:
Spot-reducing belly fat is marketing hype. It doesn’t exist.
Fat loss takes some time. Please have patience with the process.
Diet, sleep, and exercise are the 3 big players in how fast you lose belly fat.
I hope this answer is helpful, and I appreciate you taking the time to read it.
Thank you
- Writer
