The Top 6 Ways to Burn Belly Fat

Over 50% of the population struggles with belly fat. Belly fat comes from inactivity, stress, and improper eating habits. The main issue with belly fat is the components of the disease it carries. The more fat you have in your body, the higher the chance of diseases like heart disease, artherscerlosis, diabetes, high blood pressure, and more. One of the best things about belly fat is that you can take control, lose it or at least get it to a healthier percentage. In today’s article, I will share the top six ways to get that stubborn belly fat off and keep it off.

Hot/Cold Therapy

It is no secret that hot and cold therapy has enormous benefits. For example, using a sauna can improve circulation, target belly fat, improve muscle recovery, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Cold showers and cold baths help support your immune system, target brown fat, help reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, and improve brain function. When you take a cold bath, they activate brown adipose fat muscles; once started, that release two hormones, irisin, and FGF21; these hormones help burn the white fat adipose tissue. The difference between brown and white fat is that brown fat is deep under the skin, closer to the muscle, and white fat is the visceral fat you can grab on your skin.

Using an infrared sauna 2-3 times a week for 15-30 minutes has been shown to help reduce belly fat. Combine this with a healthy exercise routine, and you will see longer-lasting benefits. Also, with cold exposure, taking a cold shower after intense cardio can help increase your fat metabolism.

If you do not have a sauna taking a hot bath can have some of the same benefits, I recommend doing a hot/cold contrast first thing in the morning to shock the nervous system. An example of this would be 1 minute hot to 30 seconds cold and do this for 5 to 8 minutes. Then, I recommend having a cold shower in the morning, doing 5-10 minutes of sauna after training, and then doing one more cold shower before bed. Doing this routine 2 - 3 day a week can help reduce belly fat.

HIIT cardio

High-intensity interval training is a distinctive way of spicing up your training. It is also a great way to burn belly fat; it combines steady-state cardio and high intensity in a short period. You can complete a HIIT workout in 10-45 min, depending on your goals and training regimen. I always recommend pairing it with your strength training because it gets the body warmed up properly and uses fat as energy much more quickly.

A study showed people performing HIIT three times a week for 20 minutes lost an average of 4.4 pounds in 12 weeks without any dietary changes.

High-intensity exercises can put you at risk of injury if you do not properly warm up before performing them, so ensure you warm up properly before any intense workout.

I recommend doing HIIT 3-4 days a week for 15-30 minutes following a nutrient-dense diet to see the best results.

**Before performing any exercises please warm up and stretch properly

Below is an example of a full-body HIIT workout and a way to use it as warmup:

Full Body Workout 15 minutes: Beginner

Perform each movement for 45 seconds and rest for 15 seconds (x2 rounds)

● Body weight squats

● Lunges

● Jumping jacks

● Mountain climbers

● Pushups

● Plank rows

● Bear crawl forward and back

Advanced: (Use Dumbbell)

Perform each exercise for 45 seconds and rest for 15 seconds (x2 rounds)

● Burpees or push up to stand

● Floor press

● Thrusters or squat jumps

● Weighted curtsy lunges

● Dumbbell rows

● Clean to press

● Dumbbell Russian Twist

Warmup up (Hot Start) 10 minutes

Five rounds:

● Brisk walk or run for 45 seconds

● Pushup to shoulder tap

● Body weight squats

Strength training

Strength training is a form of exercise that uses weight and resistance to create a stimulus in your muscles. This stimulus breaks down the muscle fibers and helps them become stronger. The more you work these muscles, the more of a fat-burning machine you become. Weight lifting by itself is not going to burn fat, but the more power you build and the better your diet becomes, the more efficient you will become at burning fat over time.

Combining strength training with the correct form of cardiovascular exercise will set you on the right path as a fat-burning machine.

You can build strength in various ways, from plyometric, calisthenics, compound weight lifting, bodybuilding, and weighted walking. I recommend starting with the simplest forms, especially if you are not an experienced lifter. The best way to perform these exercises is using a term called time under tension. This method will help you build muscle and create a more significant stimulus in your muscles. If you are interested, check out the example routine below. I recommend performing strength exercises 3-4 days a week for 30 minutes.

Full Body TUT workout (25-30 minutes)

10-12 minutes of a brisk walk on the treadmill or a bike

Four rounds of each exercise:

● Air squats: 10 reps with a 5-second negative

● Pushups: 10 reps with a 5-second negative

● Pull-ups: 6-10 reps with a 5-second negative

● Lunge jumps: 10 each leg with a 3-second negative between reps

● Sit-ups: 10 with a 4-second negative

● Resistance band rows: 8 on each side with a 4-second negative on each side

● Arm circles: 1 minute forward and backward

● Plank: 30-45 seconds

An enlightening new study of the molecular underpinnings of resistance exercise. The study, which involved mice and people, found that after weight training, muscles create and release little bubbles of genetic material that can flow to fat cells, jump-starting processes there related to fat burning.

The results add to mounting scientific evidence that resistance exercise has unique benefits for fat loss. However, they also underscore how extensive and interconnected the internal effects of exercise can be.

Fasting

Fasting has been around for ages, but it has taken the world by storm with intermittent fasting in recent years. This is very effective in helping people lose weight and burn fat. Fasting puts your body in a state of ketosis for a short period; during this time, your body uses stored fat instead of glucose.

There are many ways to incorporate fasting into your diet. Such as during a compressed eating window or having dinnertime to dinner times fast once a week. These methods are the most effective for longevity and body mass management. I recommend experimenting with what works best for you. The recommended fasting time for men is 12-16 hours; for women, it is 10-12 hours a day maximum. Anything longer than this can affect your hormones and cause adverse effects on your health. Incorporating some sort of fasting into your lifestyle can help with weight management and can be great for longevity and preventing cognitive decline.

Evidence accumulates that eating for 6 hours and fasting for 18 hours can trigger a metabolic switch from glucose-based to ketone-based energy, with increased stress resistance, longevity, and a decreased incidence of diseases, including cancer and obesity.

Eliminate seed oils and processed foods

Processed foods make up about 70 percent of the American diet. These foods contain harmful ingredients such as processed seed oils, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, gluten, soy, and much more. These ingredients have been shown to cause leaky gut, Alzheimer’s, type 2 diabetes, and, most importantly, obesity. In addition, eating processed foods puts you at a higher risk of putting on excess belly fat.

The main reason processed foods cause us to gain belly fat is because they contain refined carbohydrates or sugar combined with other ingredients. These two things affect the way our brain and body process foods. The artificial sweeteners and sugar combined can trick your brain into thinking you are still hungry after you are done eating. The way this works is through your insulin hormone. Eating processed foods constricts your insulin hormone to where it can communicate properly to your brain to tell its total, in turn, causes you to overconsume. So along with the addicting sweeteners, they put in the foods that have you returning for more and more.

Eliminating or creating alternatives to these foods can begin the process your body needs to start cleaning up any oxidized blood. You will see a massive change in your metabolism and weight by replacing these foods with more nutrient-dense foods and more water. I recommend reading labels and checking out the article below to see what foods you should avoid in the grocery store.

Top 7 foods to avoid in the grocery store

Eat Food that is more nutrient dense

It is nothing new that whole foods are the key to longevity. So implementing the correct amount of anti-oxidants, flavones, polyphenols, flavonoids, amino acids, and other essential nutrients in your diet will help you burn that stubborn belly fat. One thing I teach is to eat according to what your lifestyle demands. If you are an active person, make sure you are getting 0.8g to 0.9g per pound of weight in protein. 0.7 to 0.8g per pound in body weight in complex carbohydrates and 0.5 to 0.6g per pound of weight in good quality fat. This is just an estimate, but to find out what your baseline caloric intake is, multiply your weight by 17, and that will give your basal metabolic rate, which is the number of calories it will take to maintain where you are.

Bring in a variety of fruits and vegetables each week. Try to bring in as much variety as possible for the best benefits. A higher protein and fat diet can teach your body to use fat as the primary energy source instead of carbohydrates. I always recommend eating carbohydrates around your exercise routine. Because that is when your body uses the most glycogen, which is what you need for muscle growth, this helps your body keep burning fat and building muscle sustainably.

Body fat is one of the most stubborn and frustrating things about health; it takes forever to burn and seems pointless at times. But it will fall off by implementing the correct strategy and doing something because you love yourself—a health coach to help you establish a healthy plan and accountability.