See how easily you can loose belly fat
It’s widely known that in order to loose weight, you need to consumer fewer calories than your body uses. But to loose belly fat in particular, we need to delve a bit deeper and look at our food choices in more detail.
A simple calorie deficit in our daily diets will lead to weight loss. This is a fact that I guarantee. However, indiscriminate weight loss should not be our aim - instead, changing our body composition by maintaining lean muscle and losing fat is the ideal that we should focus on. This is quite simple when we make intelligent food choices.
Drink Lots of Water
The facts: Over 80% of our body is made from water and the effects of dehydration can be noticed with as little as a 2% loss of liquid from our bodies.
80% is a large amount, and 2% is a tiny threshold so when you aim to run your body as a fat burning machine, you need to ensure that you are extremely well hydrated.
The best way to keep well hydrated is to drink plenty of water - 8 cups a days is the absolute minimum but I personally drink over a gallon per day.
To start with, when you increase your liquid intake, you will need the toilet much more regularly then you do now. After a while you’re bladder will adapt to this though so stick with it!
A final benefit of taking on more water is that any retained water will be released. In the same way that your body holds on to fat when it foresees a shortage, your body retains water when it isn’t getting enough too. This is often stored around the belly and has a liquid-like feel (unlike normal belly fat) and is released once you are getting an adequate amount of water.
Carbohydrates you must eat
There are certain carbohydrates (carbs) you must eat if you want to loose belly fat and these are typically green and hated by children worldwide!
Green vegetables should be eaten as often as possible as they contain valuable minerals and vitamins such as potassium as well as antioxidants and fibre which keeps you feeling full.
Some examples of the carbs you should be eating are:
- Lettuce
- Cabbage
- Sprouts
- Broccoli
- Spinach
- Rocket
- Peas
- Broad Beans
- Green Beans
- Runner Beans
The choice is yours, just make sure you’re eating them!
Carbohydrates you MUST NOT eat
Sugar is the enemy! While this is not true all the time, in most cases sugar is bad. Sugars (also know as simple carbs) unsurprisingly have a massive impact on your blood sugar levels which in turn switches on the fat storage mechanisms in your body and switches off the belly fat burning ones.
In addition to this, the high and low spikes in your blood sugar levels that are caused by sugar also make you hungry sooner.
Simple carbs and sugars include candy, chocolate and soda but are also found in other foods too such as pasta, white rice and fruits.
While these latter food aren’t as bad for you, they can still be substituted for their wholemeal alternatives in order to help you lose fat more easily and faster.
Proteins
The main point about eating protein is that you must eat enough of it. A good protein source should be eaten at every meal of the day. Simple!
Examples of protein include the following:
- Meats
- Fish
- Cheese
- Eggs
- Milk
- Protein shakes
Fats
As I discussed in a previous article, fats are not bad and are actually essential if you want to lose fat. You do have to be careful however, as fats are high in calories.
I aim to eat around 50% of all my calories from fat and have them split equally between polyunsaturated, monounsaturated and saturated fats
As a site note saturated fats get a bad reputation where they are in fact actually vital for the body. To stay safe however, it’s best to keep away from the processed saturated fats as these can be particularly nasty. An example of this is where hydrogen gas is bubbled through fat to make hydrogenated fats - not exactly natural.
For your fat sources I recommend the following:
Monounsaturated Fats
- Olive oil
- Nuts
- Seeds
Polyunsaturated Fats (especially Omega 3 fats)
- Oily fish
- Cod Liver oil
- Flax oil/seeds
Saturated Fats
- Meat
- Eggs
