If you want to learn tips on losing belly fat, you need to learn what is REALLY making you fat in the first place. It is likely that there are several things that are keeping you fat. That’s the reason that I built this site. I want to help people learn how to break the continuous vicious cycle that is keeping you fat.
Every time that I see another advertisement for another diet book, I shudder. The diet industry is worth about $54 billion, yet there is a 95% failure rate among dieters. Why?
What does work?
We’ll look at each of these things in greater detail in a moment, but first, I want to tell you…why dieting is not suitable for losing bely fat.
“Diet doctors” assume that everyone is the same. They base their caloric recommendations on the “average” person’s needs. They say that men need more calories than women, which may be true, since men tend to have more muscle mass and women have more fatty tissues.
But, the truth is that no one is average. The average person does not exist. He or she is a theoretical mathematical equation. You and I are human beings. We can calculate the calories that we need to maintain our weight, but even that is not an absolute figure.
Suppose you are a woman that weighs 175 pounds. You would need 1750 calories per day to maintain that weight, if you did absolutely nothing. I don’t think that there is anyone that does absolutely nothing, all day long. But, let’s say that you sit at a desk all day and get little or no exercise. You need an extra 350 calories to support that level of activity. In other words, if you stuck to a 1750 calorie per day diet, you would lose weight, without increasing your activity level, at all. Yet, the dietary recommendations in the books that line the shelves of our homes and bookstores around the world will try to get you to eat 1000 calories per day or even less! It’s just crazy! I’m not sure how they ever came up with those figures.
It is a known fact that consuming less than 10 calories per pound will slow down your metabolism and “starvation” mode will kick in. Your body will start to burn muscle, instead of fat, because muscle requires more calories to sustain it. Your body wants to save the fat, because it thinks that your food supplies are limited. By burning muscle, your body knows that you will need fewer calories to survive this perceived food shortage. This is not appropriate for losing belly fat.
When you start eating more, muscle is not rebuilt unless you work at it. So, your resting metabolic rate will be lower. You want your resting metabolic rate to be higher. So, the first step is to take your current weight, multiply it by 10 and never consume fewer calories than that. If you maintain your same level of activity, you will lose weight, but it might take a little longer than you want. There are safe ways to speed it up that will also increase your metabolic rate.
The importance of exercise cannot be overstated, but some exercises are more beneficial than others. Here’s an example.
Once again, you are a woman that weighs 175 pounds and is relatively sedentary. If you start walking two miles every day and make sure to eat at least 1750 calories every day, then you will lose a pound every five days or so. If you don’t increase your activity level, at all, you’ll lose about a pound every 10 days, but the weight loss will be all fat. As you lose weight, you continue to cut calories, slightly, so that you will continue to lose weight. This is an almost painfully slow process. But, if you add in strength building exercises, like a little weight lifting every other day, you will increase your weight loss by increasing the amount of muscle tissue on your body. Muscle burns calories. Fat does not.
Tom Vento’s “Burn the Fat” program can help you learn how to burn fat, all over your body, by building muscle and increasing your metabolism. Click here to learn more about Tom’s program. He offers a free “E-course” that will tell you what you are doing wrong and how you can correct it. Tom has a full section focused on losing belly fat that’s wellworth a read.
Every cell of the body needs protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, dietary minerals and water. That’s why low-carb diets don’t work and low-fat diets don’t work. Any “extreme” diet plan like the cabbage diet or the grapefruit diet leads to malnutrition, to one degree or another. If you crave specific foods or always feel hungry, you are not giving your body the nutrition that it needs. But, today, it is hard to meet all of your nutritional requirements without supplementation, which brings us to the next topic…
In order to build muscle, your body needs essential fatty acids. Your brain cells need large quantities of omega-3 fatty acids on a daily basis. Unless you eat a lot of salmon or tons of kelp, you need supplementation.
In order to build a cell, your body needs every vitamin that you can think of, along with the dietary minerals. Research has shown that the nutrition content in the foods that we eat is lower than it was just 50 years ago. Over-farming has stripped the soil of the minerals that were at one time passed on to vegetables that grow in the ground.
Chicken and eggs were at one time a source of omega-3 fatty acids, but as chicken farmers brought their flocks indoors, the omega3 content of chicken and eggs was diminished. Years ago, the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 intake was 1:1, now it is sometimes as high as 20:1. Supplementation can increase your sense of fullness and reduce cravings.
You have probably heard of colon cleansers and detoxification. You might think that it is all a bunch of advertising hype, but the truth is they really work. We do not eat enough fiber. Fiber rids the body of toxins and improves digestion. There are parasites in our water supplies and they inhabit our digestive systems. They get the nutrients that we need. They are helping to keep us fat. Check out “Top Secret Fat Loss Secret” written by Dr Suzanne Gudakunst for more information about the plaque and critters in your gut that are keeping you fat. The link above will explain the process in more detail.
Water carries toxins out of the body. Every cell needs water. If you drink lots of caffeinated beverages or sodas, you are inhibiting your body’s ability to rid its self of toxins. You are actually walking around in a state of mild dehydration, at all times. This is causing lots of chronic health problems AND inhibiting your ability to lose weight.
The liver has many responsibilities. One of them is to covert store fat into energy. If you are not drinking enough purified water, then your liver is working overtime and will not be able to burn the fat. That is a medically proven fact. Drinking water significantly contributes to answering the question of how to lose belly fat effectively.
Christopher Guerriero has a great book that covers most of the things mentioned here and also helps you learn how to think differently. Your mind is the ultimate player in what, when and how much you eat. You don’t always eat because you are hungry. Often, you eat because your mind is telling you that you “want” something. You translate that into wanting food and you eat. Click this link to learn more about Christopher’s program, “Maximize Your Metabolism”. It is one of the most complete programs that I have ever seen and believe me; I’ve seen a lot of them, find out how to lose belly fat and maximize your metabolism.
I come from a fat family. Some of my family members believe that we are “doomed” because of our genes. I don’t agree, because I have taken control of my body and you can, too. You just needed some good information and hopefully I have provided some of that here. But, click on any of the links in this page and keep learning more. The more you know, the better your results will be.
