For those who want to lose belly fat there are a variety of different exercises you can use, but also a selection of bad pieces of advice out there that won’t work that should be avoided. Here you can learn to separate the wheat from the chaff, the best exercises to lose belly fat and the tips that won’t work.

Firstly, ‘targeted’ exercises that focus specifically on the stomach muscles such as sit ups or crunches won’t be any use for losing weight around the stomach. The reason for this is that you can’t target fat loss – so exercising a specific area will be no more conducive to losing fat in that place than will doing any other exercise. In short then, press ups are just as likely to burn belly fat as are sit ups.

Neither press ups or sit ups are the best exercises to lose belly fat however as they involve relatively short sets of repetition done at low volume with relatively high resistance. This is good for building muscle but not for stripping fat and while you can target muscle building, having a strong stomach will not necessarily equate to a toned one.

Instead then the best exercises to lose belly fat will need to be cardiovascular – those that require extended periods of exertion so forcing the body to draw on reserves of fats and carbs to burn for energy. Examples of cardiovascular exercises are running, swimming, skipping, cycling, shadow boxing, dancing etc. Going to a circuits class or a jog around the block are great ways to burn fat. Make sure the workouts are fairly intensive so that you break a sweat and by doing this regularly, say three or four times a week, your body will begin to cannibalise its own fat for the energy. Make your sessions around forty minutes long which is long enough to require the burning of fat but not so long as to cause the body to burn muscle.

The order that you burn your fat is largely genetic, so if you’re an unlucky woman you may well lose any fat in your boobs and bum before you lose it on your stomach. Likewise for men you might find that you don’t burn any fat on your stomach until the rest of you is fully thin. On the other hand it may be the first lot to go so really it’s just a matter of staying persistent until the fat leaves.

It is crucial obviously that while you train to burn your fat you should also minimise your intake of new fat. As well as finding the best exercises to lose belly fat then you also need to keep a healthy diet with low fat and simple carbohydrates (such as sugar) in order to stop piling the pounds back on. Also avoid beer.

Once you’ve achieved a slim waistline then can you start to build muscle on your stomach to firm up those abs. This is when it’s useful to do sit ups and crunches etc, and once you’ve built muscle around all of your body (though you can, you shouldn’t just focus muscle building in one area either) it will begin to burn fat for you keeping you at your new slim build.

Mack LeMouse

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