Figuring out how to lose belly fat if you are a female all on your own is an uphill battle that you probably will not win – there are simply too many options on the market.
Should you have surgery? Should you run on a treadmill all day? Should you do high intensity cardio all day? Should you buy that ab rocker? Should you take diet pills? Should you lift weights?
The options and opinions are endless.
And this is why most women fail to lose belly fat. Not because there isn’t enough information, because there is too much information.
Now let’s face it: the more time you spend analyzing all the different programs and experts, the less time you have for getting rid of that stomach pooch.
And I’m pretty sure you are fed up with having to hide your belly fat behind baggy clothing – clothing that will never let you feel sexy.
So here’s the deal: in this tutorial I am going to show you how to lose belly fat in the shortest amount of time possible.
All you have to do is take action.
The Pillars Of Belly Fat
Why do most women fail to lose belly fat? Because they don’t understand all the underlying factors that contribute to the problem.
And if you don’t understand the cause of your problem, you will never be able to deal with it effectively. Even worse, you are more likely to get duped by bogus solutions over and over again.
Also, knowing the underlying the causes of excess belly fat will allow you to modify your routine based on your particular lifestyle.
Understanding principles is more important than understanding minutiae.
As long as you “get” the big picture, all the smaller details will fall into place.
So what exactly causes the accumulation of belly fat?
- Excess subcutaneous (under skin) fat
- Excess visceral (around organs) fat
- A lack of abdominal muscle tone
- Water retention
Ok, the last two don’t really contribute to belly fat, but they do make your belly look bigger.
This is one of the reasons why you see so many “thin” women with stomach pooches – they don’t address all the issues.
So if you want that flat stomach ASAP, you have to attack all of these issues in parallel.
Excess Subcutaneous Fat
Your body has the ability to store endless amounts of fat under your skin. Because of this, excess subcutaneous fat tends to be one of the most important contributing factors.
Even if you were to ignore everything else, simply getting rid of excess body fat would create a significant difference.
The good news is that you do not need any type of weird berry or expensive supplement to get rid of body fat. All you need is the right exercise and diet program.
How To Lose Belly Fat For Females With Exercise
Simply eating like a bird will not cut it here. You need to exercise if you want the fastest and most permanent results possible. Otherwise, you could end up losing a lot of weight only to notice that your stomach pooch is still there.
Ironically, the best type of exercise for losing belly fat does not directly tone your abs. Rather, you need to do total body exercises that will force you to burn a lot of calories.
This massive caloric burn will eventually make your body release its trapped stores of belly fat.
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to force your body to lose belly fat first. All you can do is create the biggest caloric deficit possible and wait until the bulge goes away.
And this is yet another reason why so many women fail miserably! They do a bunch of crunches all day, don’t burn enough calories and then wonder why their belly fat is still there.
It’s not possible to spot reduce fat – but you can firm up your belly faster than other areas. More on this later…
So what is the best way to exercise your entire body?
With resistance training done in circuits. You need to target the biggest muscles in your body in the shortest amount of time possible. This is best accomplished with circuits.
You will do a sequence of exercises, one after another without any rest in between. Once you finish the sequence, you can rest.
Here is a sample circuit you could potentially follow:
- Exercise #1: dumbbell bench press
- Exercise #2: dumbbell rows, alternating
- Exercise #3: wide stance squats
For the biggest caloric burn, do 8-12 repetitions for each set. And once you get accustomed to circuit training you can use lower repetition ranges.
Just make sure not to lift too heavy too soon if you are just getting started here. Perfect your exercises first, and then start to crank up the intensity.
You should aim to do 2-3 resistance training workouts per week and rest according to levels of soreness.
I Want To Learn How To Lose Belly Fat – Not Lift Weights Like A Bodybuilder!
Ironically, women that lift weights have the potential to be smaller than women that don’t.
Recall that fat cells occupy a lot more space than muscle cells. And you need muscle to burn off the maximum amount of fat.
It’s much better to acquire a smaller volume tissue (muscle) so that you can burn off the larger volume tissue (fat).
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Here are other benefits resistance training provides:
- Increased fat burning hormone production (testosterone, growth hormone)
- Increased catecholamine production (burns fat, provides energy)
- Additional caloric burn days after the workout
- Increased insulin sensitivity which translates into lower blood sugar
Now I want you to focus on #3.
Note that resistance training can make your body burn additional calories for days on end after your workout. This benefit alone makes resistance training far superior to other exercise modalities when it comes to losing belly fat efficiently.
So please don’t spend all day on that boring treadmill.
How To Lose Stomach Fat For Women With Nutrition
Exercise alone is not enough here. Even with the caloric burn resistance training provides, it’s still very easy to “out eat” the amount of exercise you will be doing.
So it’s absolutely critical that you focus on nutrition for the best results. The bottom line is that being in a caloric surplus or deficit will ultimately dictate how much fat your stomach releases.
You have to burn more calories than you eat or your body will never change. There is no way around this.
Unfortunately, there are 123,456,904,124,628 diets you could potentially follow. Which one is best?
You need to follow a high nutrient, balanced diet that allows you sustain a caloric deficit with ease.
Any type of diet that knocks out entire food groups will be unsustainable. And this is not what you are looking for. You need something you can stick with for the long haul so that you can finally lose that belly fat once and for all.
And don’t be tricked by all the diets that simply produce a lot of water weight loss – it all comes back really fast.
So how do you implement balance?
Every time you assemble a meal include the following: carbohydrates, protein, vegetables and fat.
It’s really that simple.
Make sure your carbohydrates are low in sugar and high in fiber, your protein is low in animal saturated fat, your vegetables have the darkest colors and your fat comes from all the different sources.
Don’t just eat omega-3 fats all day! Get a mix of monounsaturated, plant saturated, omega-3 and omega-6 fats.
Yes, modern diets are usually low in omega-3 fats, but this doesn’t mean you should overemphasize them.
Just make sure you have one serving of omega-3 fat per day. All you need is a handful of walnuts, a handful of flaxseeds or some wild fish. Popping a bunch of pills is not the answer here – there are negative side effects.
But eating healthy and balanced meals is not enough. You also have to control caloric intake. Now the good news is that assembling meals as outlined above will automatically reduce your drive to consume excess calories.
So if you are really overweight, don’t worry too much about portion control. Just get the ball rolling by eating healthy.
Now if you want a bullet proof strategy, simply keep a log of what you eat for two weeks. Then downward adjust the quantity of food you eat depending on how quickly you are losing belly fat.
As a starting point, I recommend one palm-sized portion of protein, one palm-sized portion of carbs, one tablespoon-sized portion of fat and as many vegetables as you can tolerate in each meal.
A simple trick to accelerate your results is to simply cover half of your plate with vegetables every time you eat.
By the way, beans and legumes digest much slower than whole grains. So don’t buy into all the hype about whole grains being “healthy.”
Transiting away from whole grains and consuming more beans and legumes will get you better results.
Excess Visceral Fat
In addition to fat under your skin, there is also fat that surrounds the organs in your stomach. It’s called visceral fat.
Having too much of it can prevent you from having a flat stomach even if the rest of your body is relatively thin.
Most importantly, because it’s so close to your vital organs it’s extremely unhealthy.
An extreme example of visceral fat is the “beer belly.” Because of the way beer calories are metabolized, excessive drinking makes your belly bulge from within.
So how do you get rid of visceral fat?
Well, overall body fat loss will help, but diet has the biggest impact.
Ironically, eating more healthy fats helps you get rid of visceral fat. And make sure you stay away from animal saturated fat and trans fats because they contribute to visceral fat accumulation.
You see, eating healthy fats makes the membranes of your cells more permeable. This means that a higher percentage of what you eat will get shuffled away from belly fat cells and towards your active cells (brain, organs, muscle, etc.).
In other words, you will starve your fatty tissues while simultaneously feeding your active tissues.
Also, keeping your blood sugar low by eating balanced meals with slow digesting carbs is another powerful tool here.
Too much sugar will also promote visceral fat accumulation.
Abdominal Muscle Tone
Regardless of how badly you want to figure out how to lose belly fat, if your abdominal muscles are not toned you will never get the flat stomach look.
Most women with lax abdominal muscles have the “lordosis” appearance – the lower back curves inward and the belly protrudes outwards.
Unfortunately, even if you lose a lot of belly fat the excess protruding will create the image of having a pooch.
So the best strategy here is to lose overall body and belly fat while simultaneously firming up the muscles in your abdominal wall.
But there is a catch…
The important catch: you can’t just work on the “six pack” muscles, the muscles you can see. You have to work on the deep and hidden stabilizing muscles.
If you don’t, you could end up with some serious lower back issues and the lordosis will not go away.
This is yet another reason why so many women fail to lose belly fat. They do crunches all day – neglecting the deep stabilizing muscles – and end up with lower back pain and a lax abdominal wall.
Also, any type of abdominal exercise that causes discomfort in your lower back must be eliminated.
If your ab exercises cause back pain and you “work through it” you could end up with some major damage. You see, when you feel back pain it means that your abs/core have stopped engaging. It’s like pulling the plug. And once they stop engaging your lower backs start to absorb the load.
If this happens often the consequences could be dire. A single injury to your lower back could completely reverse all of your progress.
How?
Because exercise will become very painful and you will not be able to do squatting movements. Recall that squats activate a lot of muscle and burn a lot of calories.
Now I don’t want to scare you here. It’s just really important that you understand this concept because modern day environments destroy lower backs.
Your body was not made to sit down all day. And the last thing you need is a crazy ab program that causes more damage.
So how do you get the gains without the pain?
First, you have to focus on your transverse abdominus. This muscle pulls everything in, it helps reverse lordosis.
A great exercise for it is the plank combined with a stomach vacuum (pulling the belly button in).
Second, you have to progress slowly if you feel any pain. Start out with easier exercises and slowly work your way up. As your core/abdominal muscles get stronger they will be able to absorb larger loads.
So start small to finish big.
Finally, don’t have separate abdominal workouts – this is too inefficient.
Instead, position your ab exercises towards the end of your circuits. Going back to our original circuit, here is a potential format you could follow:
- Exercise #1: dumbbell bench press
- Exercise #2: dumbbell rows, alternating
- Exercise #3: wide stance squats
- Exercise #4: planks with stomach vacuum
Water Retention
Water retention can be a pain if you are really serious about figuring out how to lose belly fat once and for all. But the good news is that it won’t make your belly that much bigger.
Rather, it will make it look smoother – less toned.
Disclaimer: standard rules don’t apply with hormones (i.e., menstrual cycles). Some women do actually get bloated towards the end of the month.
Either way, there are some things you can do here.
First, stay away from sodium. Avoid processed foods and drink lots of water. Ironically, drinking more water helps your body flush out water.
Second, have some caffeine in natural form if you need to shed water ASAP. I recommend loose leaf green tea or South American yerba mate.
Both will help you shed excess water while simultaneously giving you more energy.
Now there are some natural diuretics you can take (i.e., dandelion, xpel), but I would recommend using teas first. Then, if the teas aren’t strong enough consider natural diuretics.
And remember that these strategies are for short-term results (i.e., for an event). The long term solution is to stay away from processed, high sodium food.
How To Lose Belly Fat For Females The Fast Way
You have a wedding coming up tomorrow, you can’t fit into your dress and you needed results yesterday.
What can you do?
The answer: rotate your consumption of carbohydrates.
Of all the different macronutrients, carbohydrates have the biggest influence on your levels of insulin and blood sugar.
But you can’t simply cut out carbohydrates from your diet because it’s not sustainable – too many negative side effects. So the next best thing is to cycle them in and out of your diet.
Cycle them out of your diet on the days you aren’t resistance training.
And cycle them into your diet on the days that you are.
It’s really this simple.
Now the tricky part involves finding the right amounts for you. Some women can tolerate really low levels of carbohydrates, others can’t.
So experiment here to find the right combination for your body.
Parting Advice
If you are serious about learning how to lose your belly fat and you are a woman you have to take action on the advice in this guide.
Without action the belly fat will never go away.
So just get started with your workouts and start eating clean. Once you get moving the motivation will flood your body.
And let me know if you need any help!
CLICK HERE to discover how to get a sexy and flat stomach!
