Most people that have been putting effort into losing tummy fat for some time must have heard about ‘the most recommended’ method to do it: 30-60 minutes steady pace cardio for 3-5 times a week while maintaining your heart rate at the suggested level. Without a doubt, that will lead to countless hours on stationary bike or treadmill.
Can all of those exercises end your problem? Obviously, the answer is NOT. The main reson for this is your body can adjust itself to your regular steady pace exercises, thus after some time, your exercise will gradually lose its benefits. This is why people who are doing steady pace cardio are forced to increase their duration over and over again.
The second reason: human body is designed to perform physical activity in burst of exertion followed by recovery; this is also known as stop-and-go movement. For example, try comparing a sprinter who focus on stop-and-go exercise and a marathoner who focus on endurance exercise; the sprinter is more lean and muscular looking right?
So, how to lose tummy fat? When trying to lose fat, you can’t pick specific area in your body; instead you must pick well designed full body resistance training program with high intensity cardio program that complemented with good nutrition intake. This also applied if you want to shed the fat on other spot of your body; read more about it at get rid of arm fat.
These will reduce your body fat percentage and shed all those excess fat on your tummy and all over your body in general. For women, achieving 16-18% body fat is sufficient to achieve flat sexy tummy; men, on the other hand, have to achieve 10% body fat to get their six pack abs visible.
I did mention about resistance training as the answer for the question “how to lose tummy fat”, but rest assured that you will not get overly bulked up like a bodybuilder; besides, women don’t have much testosterone to begin with, so it is really difficult for women to get bulky. The goal of the training is to become leaner and more muscular while increasing your metabolic rate in order to accelerate the fat burning process.
The training is varied from only using your bodyweight such as bodyweight squat and pushups to the one that using dumbbell or kettlebell. Remember to choose the weight that provide enough challenge for you for maximum result; don’t worry, you won’t get bulky. Check an idea of a kettlebell complex:
- One arm swing
- One arm snatch, keep the bell over head
- One arm overhead squat
- Bell back down to bottom, then one arm split snatch
- Bell back down to bottom, then one arm clean and press
You can also get different result by modifying the way you do your workout; check a few ideas for that at exercise program for weight loss purpose.
The second answer for the question “how to lose tummy fat” is high intensity cardio program. This is different from typical cardio that do nothing than wasting your time. You will have to put more effort, but the result will pay for that.
One doable high intensity cardio is wind sprints. You need to find open field or park and try 50, 75, and 100 yard all out wind sprints. Do this 6-20 times with 1-2 minutes rest between each sprint. This exercise is aiming to work the biggest muscle groups in your body, increase your metabolism, raising your muscle building hormones, and make the fat burning process even faster. Wind sprints is a good example, but if you are shy or can’t afford to find good field, there are many other high intensity exercises that you can do at home.
The third answer for the question “how to lose tummy fat” will be good nutrition knowledge. To put it shortly, you’ll need to put these into priority:
- Fruit and vegetables
- Enough high quality protein in each meal
- Consume enough high fiber foods for appetite control purpose
- Fat from healthy source such as avocado, virgin oil, nut, seeds, fish oil, etc
- Unprocessed foods, preferably the one that directly from the nature
- High nutrient density foods
Once you discover the real answer, you can say goodbye to the boring cardio routines that most people believe, get out from your ‘hamster wheel’, and start shed that excess body fat to achieve flat tummy and lean body. I suggest you read further about the exercise program and nutrition guidelines that fulfill this purpose at a review of the truth about six pack abs.