5 Tips To Effectively Lose Belly Fat

by Zara Mohammed, Lifestyle Columnist

Published in Lifestyle on 28^th August, 2018

Having excess weight around your midriff not only makes you feel uncomfortable in your clothes and potentially unattractive, it also affects your health. If you can pinch more than an inch keep reading to discover 5 ways to effectively lose your belly fat.

Why is Extra Abdominal Weight a Health Problem?

If you are sporting a "spare tyre" a "muffin top" or a "beer belly" you should be more concerned about the effects this could be having on your health than how it makes your wardrobe look and feel on you.

Your extra belly fat could be causing you to be more at risk of some serious health issues, like Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Disease, and even some types of Cancers. This is because the extra weight around your midriff may mean that you are storing deeper visceral fat around your organs, and this is what can lead to these more serious problems.

There is never a better time to start addressing your health issues than right now though. So here are 5 Tips to help you effectively start losing your belly fat.

Cut Out The Sugar

This is quite possibly the best and most effective way you can start making an immediate impact on your waistline, but it is not as simple as it may sound. Sugar is everywhere. The more you start to become aware of the ingredients labels on your food the more you will realise that there is sugar hidden in most of the products you buy and consume, and this can make cutting out sugar completely a real challenge.

Start by cutting out or cutting down the obvious things like chocolate, sweets and sugary drinks. Then grow your awareness of the sugar content in the everyday products you buy at the supermarket, and begin choosing healthier alternatives.

Don't forget that sugar is very addictive, and so if you are a high consumer of sugar in your everyday life, you may find it difficult at first and you may even experience cravings and withdrawal symptoms, especially if you decide to go cold turkey and cut out sugar completely straight away.

Get More Exercise

It might seem fairly obvious that exercising will help you to reduce your waistline, but incorporating more exercise into your life doesn't necessarily mean hiring a personal fitness trainer and taking out a gym membership. There are plenty of other ways that you can increase your fitness.

Changing little things in your lifestyle will help you to get more exercise naturally throughout the day.

Check out these ideas:

Opt to walk or cycle instead of taking a bus or driving
Take the stairs instead of escalators and lifts
Alter the way you walk so that you improve your posture and distribute your weight more evenly and quicken up your pace. These things can help to tone your muscles and help develop your core muscles.

Getting more exercise is easy when you start to consciously look for more way to get it throughout the day by being more physically active.

Track What You Eat

It is easy to lose track of what you actually eating on a daily basis when you don't keep a record of your meals. Calories can quickly build up. You might also not be eating as balanced a diet as you think you are, and those snacks in between meals, no matter how "healthy" you think they are, could be sabotaging your attempts to lose weight.

When you track what you eat everyday you are more able to play around with your diet and figure out what works best for you.

Here are some ideas to think about for your diet:

Try reducing your carb intake for an instant boost in weight loss.
Eat more protein as a long-term strategy to reduce belly fat.
Eat foods that are rich in fiber to promote the movement of food through your digestive system.
Drink plenty of water throughout the day to keep yourself well hydrated and also help to keep your appetite at bay, because sometimes we eat because we think we are feeling peckish when really all our body needs is some hydration.

Cut Down Alcohol

Drinking occasionally isn't going to have a horrible effect on your health, but let's face it, most of us like to have a bit of a binge at the end of the week, and some of us even enjoy alcohol on a daily basis.

Cutting it out, or at least cutting down on drinking alcohol, and being a bit more conscious of the kinds of alcohol you consume, can have a dramatic effect on your waistline.

Did you know?

It was found in a study of more than 2,000 people that daily drinkers who drank an average of less than one drink per day, when compared to those who drank less frequently but binged (consumed more alcohol) when they did, actually had less belly fat.

Could this mean that you weekend bingers are at more risk than those of you who enjoy a small glass of something every other day with a meal?

Reduce Your Stress Levels

This might be a surprising one to some of you. Reducing the amount of stress you experience in your everyday life can help to improve your waistline. This is especially true for women.

Did you know?

It is said that stress can make you gain belly fat! It triggers the adrenal glands to produce cortisol, which is also known as the stress hormone. Research has shown that high cortisol levels can cause an increase in your appetite, which in turn can lead to fat being stored in your abdomen. And women whose waistlines are more than they should be tend to produce more cortisol when stressed, which in turn increases abdominal stored fat.

Here are some effective ways that you engage in pleasurable activities in order to reduce your daily stress levels: