Total Pageviews

Friday 20 December 2013

Ways to lose belly fat?

There's no such thing as spot fat reduction. Doing crunches will not burn fat in your midsection nor will squats, deadlifts, lunges, etc. burn fat in only your legs. If your total caloric consumption is more than what you burn, you will slowly gain fat. However, that does not mean you can starve yourself for a short while to lose fat quickly. If your caloric intake is too low, your body will eat away at lean muscle first and store more fat as an energy reserve. You're suppose to be able to pinch a little fat on your sides anyway.

If you must lose a little weight, cut back a little bit on your caloric intake and increase your cardio activity, particularly running (I know ellipticals are very popular with women but they are not as intensive as regular running and so will result in you burning calories at a lower rate). If you're eating a lot of simple carbs (sugar, white/potato bread, etc.), replacing as many of them as possible with complex carbs (starchy vegetables, legumes, whole-grain wheat, etc.) will help a lot. Make sure any bread or bread products you eat specifically say "whole-grain wheat" and not things like wheat flour, enriched wheat (which contribute to insulin resistance which means that glucose won't be absorbed as much and instead be stored as fat) and so on . This means that the entire grain (in this case, the wheat kernel) was used in the milling process, including the most fibrous part, the bran. When looking on a nutrition label, you can actually subtract the amount the amount of calories in the food contributed from insoluble fiber (if you haven't learned in chem class yet, that's 4 calories per gram). Complex carbs will take more energy to metabolize and so burn more calories in the process. Green leafy vegetables are also high in fiber in addition to have many vitamins and minerals (dark green lettuce only, don't bother with iceberg lettuce or lettuce that is otherwise white or very light green, it has virtually no nutritional value). And of course, you know to stay away from saturated fats and trans fats (anything with partially hydrogenated oil, mono/diglycerides, margarine, or shortening. Red meat an dairy have trans fat as well, but these foods are good to eat in moderation for other reasons that I won't go into because I've written too much already lol.) Don't be afraid to put on a little muscle either. Aside from toning, it will increase your metabolism, allowing you to eat more.

No comments:

Post a Comment