Stop Eating These Foods if You Want to Lose Belly Fat

If you want to lose belly fat then you need to stop eating some of the foods you eat on a regular basis. It really is that simple. However, some of the foods you currently eat might not be on your radar as foods you need to lose those love handles! 

Some people may want to simply lose lower belly fat or lose weight quickly, but the truth of the matter is that you need to eliminate these foods from your diet AND take the right training approach, at the same time. Let us start with the training approach before getting to the foods. This will help put you in the right mindset for getting rid of your body fat. Thats right, I said body fat and not belly fat and I did so deliberately.

The Training Approach to Losing Body Fat

If you want to lose lower belly fat, then you simply have to wake up to the reality that you cannot spot reduce body fat. What is spot reducing? Spot reducing is that thing you see people trying to do at the gym all the time. You know what I mean, they come into the gym and spend an entire 30 minutes working their abdominal muscles doing exercises like crunches, reverse crunches, oblique twists and the like. 

Its not that there is anything bad about these exercises per se, but it is unnecessary to spend so much time working on your abs in the hope that youll get rid of that stubborn belly fat faster. The truth is that stubborn belly fat is simply stubborn body fat and the only way that you can reduce it faster is to reduce your overall body fat percentage at the same time.

Why are the traditional abdominal exercises ineffective in getting rid of body fat? Simple: they target only one small area of the body. The abdominal muscles are definitely important muscles that make up your core, but so are your lower back muscles, quads, hamstrings and back muscles. See where I am going with this? Your best approach to losing weight and body fat quickly is to train your entire body.

Doing so activates more muscles groups and actually increases your metabolism. Metabolism is key to burning belly fat or the rest of your body fat. The more efficient your body is in burning the calories you consume, the more efficient it will be in burning your body fat for energy. The approach of the guy in this video below is indicative of what Im getting at here:

What did you see or learn from the above video? In a very straightforward and simple approach, this guy shows you how to eliminate overall body fat by doing 100 continuous squats per day. Why does he do this? Squats are the foundation for your entire exercise program. Squats engage your quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, back and abs, all at the same time. 

Notice that his approach is to do body squats, which is actually body weight squats or squats without a weighted bar on his shoulders. He points out two very important pieces of information in this video that you should note here:

1) Doing squats increases your metabolism because they force you to use the largest muscle groups in the whole body. Your quads and your glutes are the two largest groups and they work together for many important muscle functions. The more squats you do, the more stubborn belly fat you will burn because you will be reducing all of your body fat. You cannot expect your lower belly fat to disappear any quicker than the rest of your body fat. If you start with that expectation, you will feel like a failure very quickly. Be patient and wait for it, the six-pack abs you are seeking will come in time.

2) Squats increase your testosterone which is essential for building muscle. The more lean muscle you have, the better your body will be in burning body fat and the more weight you will lose. Not only will you increase the size of your muscles in your legs, but also in your abdominal region as well. If you want well-defined six-pack abs, then you need full looking muscles that POP when you flex. Your midsection will also look smaller as the rest of your muscles grow. Building strong shoulders, chest back and quads will give your body that hourglass shape where your waist will look small.

Water Intake

When trying to burn lower belly fat or any stubborn belly fat, for that matter, you need to increase the amount of water that you drink. Not having enough water in your system will actually cause your body to react in the opposite manner than what you want and you will actually end up retaining water in your lower stomach fat region, looking more bloated than fit! 

How much water should you drink? Well, there is plenty of disagreement on this subject, but even the most conservative expert will tell you that you need a good eight cups per day. Thats a minimum of 64 ounces, but you should probably drink more. In fact, drinking double that amount is probably better! That amounts to about four 32 oz. glasses of water per day. Think about all of the times that you go to the convenience store to get tea or soda. 

Just substituting water in those instances will make it possible for you to increase your consumption. Ellington Darden, Ph.D., notes that most people should super hydrate their systems for rapid fat loss. In fact, he recommends taking it to the next level. In his approach, the water that you consume must be ICE COLD. Why? In his estimation, ice cold water forces the body to burn more calories because the body must first warm up the water before it can be circulated. In other words, the calories you spend warming up the water inside your belly will help you reach that much needed caloric deficit needed to lose body fat and lose weight.

Drinking plain old water is the easiest approach, but I also know that many of you will have trouble consuming so much water without any flavor. There are a number of different approaches you can take to increase your water consumption, like the one seen in this video, but its not necessary to add anything to your water to make it work. 

Remember, fat is a water soluble substance, so water is necessary to make the fat dissolve. By simple virtue of the fact that you have adequate amounts of water in your system, you will be able to burn your belly fat faster than you would if you were not properly hydrated. All of your vital organs, including your central nervous system, require adequate hydration, so dont skimp on the water!

If you simply cannot manage to gulp down that much water, try drinking white tea. White tea actually has the ability to inhibit the formation of new fat cells and shrink the size and amount of existing fat cells. Adding two glasses of this to your water intake might eliminate some of the boredom you may experience from drinking so much water. You dont have to detox because you will be able to do this naturally through the water contained in your tea.