lose belly fat
HOW TO LOSE BELLY FAT – MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?
Whenever I talk about losing weight with friends, family or girls online, the main frustration is the belly. There are many different body types and if I look around most of the girls see the belly or the legs as problem zone. If I look at myself, I am with the first category. I am tall and whenever I gain weight, it is mostly focused on the upper body, mainly the belly and back. Even though I thought it was impossible, because I didn’t see any results in the beginning, my belly has been flatter than ever before. How? Hello hormones!
TRAINING ISN’T KEY!
When I think about losing belly fat by training, it always reminds me of those cheesy TV commercials and TelSell programs selling tools with names like ‘the ab master’ or ‘wonder abs’. If you have to believe them, you can train for only 15 minutes a day and your belly will transform in a sixpack in no-time! Keep dreaming, right? The fact is.. training isn’t the key for a flat belly!
BUT WHAT IS?
1. FOCUS ON FOOD
You can train your ass off by doing cardio and crunches, but the main focus should be the food. Sure working out is necessary to create strong abs, but when there is too much belly fat, you won’t see them coming through. No doubts you’ve heard about the hormone insuline before. This is produced when you eat food than contains a lot of sugar and/or carbs. The insuline stores itself in your body cells, in order to give energy for activities your doing. Whenever the balance is out the insuline stores itself as body fat. When you eat more of this energy (calories) than you burn by activities on an everyday bases (don’t worry, that one time going crazy with food won’t affect it) it turns into body fat. And most likely it stores itself first in the belly area.
2. SLEEP – THE EASIEST “METHOD”
Next to training and getting your food on point, sleep is an underrated method to reduce belly fat. When we don’t sleep enough, our leptin levels drop and ghrelin levels rise. Lep-what? These are two appetite-controlling hormones. Leptin tells your brain that you’re satisfied and ate enough, while ghrelin tells your brain when you’re hungry. Now, we want that leptin levels high and ghrelin levels low, right? When you lack enough sleep and the leptin levels dropped (“brain, I’m not full!”) and ghrelin levels raised (“brain, I’m hungry!”) we tend to eat more throughout the day. And which food do you crave when tired? Yes, sugar-packed ones! So sleep is key, to prevent yourself from sugar cravings.
3. STRESS LESS
Another hormone that effects belly fat is cortisol. A hormone that your body produces on a daily bases, but overproduce it whenever you’re stressing. On a long term this excess cortisol stores fat in the belly area and breaks down muscle. Too much cortisol also causes less sleep, waking up tired and this effects what I told above; cravings throughout the day. So take time to relax!
I really like digging in knowledge about food and fitness to share this with everyone who’s interested and above that: make it less complicated. Please note that I’m not an certified expert.
