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How To Reduce Belly Fat (2020)

Edited By Vaishali, Reviewed By Vardhan

Have you ever felt frustrated with your stubborn belly fat? It is fine to have any kind of body shape, fat or thin. But, excess fat around your belly can cause serious health issues. 

The fat around the stomach is known as visceral fat, causing fatal diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and colon cancer. 

Nevertheless, you need not worry about your belly fat and start working on it with the simple four-step formula:

Exercise - Diet - Enough sleep - No stress

This basic formula will help you reduce your visceral fat and the risk of diseases that it brings with itself. 

How To Reduce Belly Fat

But, sometimes, this formula is not enough to get rid of your belly fat. You need to change your habits and look for other alternatives to reduce your belly fat. Here are some of the tips that will help you reduce belly fat.

20 Hacks to Reduce Your Belly Fat

Say No to Trans Fat


Trans fat, also known as unsaturated fat, is not suitable for your health and affects your heart. 

Unsaturated fat decreases your good cholesterol and increases your bad cholesterol. When hydrogen is added to the vegetable oil, it solidifies at room temperature, and Trans fat gets formed. This type of oil is harmful to your body and increases your belly fat. 

Food that has hydrogenated oil is - popcorn, refrigerated food items like French Fries, Donuts, Cakes, Cookies, snacks like Potato Chips, solid cooking margarine, and Pizza. One should avoid these refrigerated foods and opt for homemade items made with non-hydrogenated oil to decrease their unhealthy fat. 

You should look for oil with less trans fat or non-hydrogenated oil like; olive oil, corn oil, avocado oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, and soybean oil. Moreover, less trans fat foods reduce the risk of heart diseases, obesity, and diabetes.

Less Alcohol, Less Fat


Alcohol consumption plays an essential part in your weight gain. Alcohol increases your calories and develops appetite. Calories from alcohol are known as empty calories because they do not contain any nutrition and increase your calories. 

Alcohol has twice the calories than any carbohydrates or fats. It is the extra calories that lead to your belly fat and the ability to increase your appetite. 

Alcohol hits your hunger hormones in the body. When you consume alcohol, your desire rises, and you opt for impulsive snacking or binge eating. These habits increase your fat and trigger your fat distribution. 

Alcohol reduces the body's ability to break down fat and increases body fat percentage, leading to weight gain. One should avoid alcohol intake because all alcohol types like beer, whiskey, vodka, rum contain calories, except red wine.

Drink Plenty of Water


Drinking water increases lipolysis in the body. Lipolysis is the process of burning fat in the body for energy. Water contributes to metabolism and helps the body to remove waste. Drinking plenty of water helps in the stool movement and urine production. It reduces the severe conditions of constipation and bloating. 

It is recommended to consume eight 8-ounce glasses per day. This is the least amount one should take in a day, but water intake depends on various conditions like; gender, age, health issues, physical activity, and tendency to sweat. 

One should analyze all the terms carefully and drink the water in a sufficient amount according to their requirements. Hydration helps the body to stay fit and help weight loss. 

You should drink some water before your meal, it allows you to eat fewer calories and helps in digestion. However, water is not recommended immediately after meals; it can have reverse effects on the body.

High Protein Diet


Protein decreases your appetite and reduces the level of your hunger hormone. Eating food with high protein like turkey, cottage cheese, tuna, salmon, spinach, eggs, peas, mushroom, curd, lentils, corn, oats, and broccoli, naturally reduces your calorie intake. 

A high protein diet also increases the metabolic rate. One should eat 25 to 30 grams of fat every day to reduce their weight and keep up healthy muscle mass. Protein is the king of nutrients and can help you keep a flawless-looking body. 

You should consume protein in small snacks and before meals. Taking small amounts of protein as a snack will stop you from overeating your meals. It will keep your tummy full, without the intake of calories. 

Combining both animal and plant proteins in your diet will help keep up your body's nutrition level. You should balance your meals with vegetables and fruits.

Strength Training


Strength training is a bunch of physical exercises that improve strength and endurance. It is executed using weights and props. The basic exercises of strength training include squat, hinge, push, pull, and core work. 

Strength training increases EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) or metabolism after the workout. Strength training increases muscle fat and decreases unhealthy fat.

If your muscle increases and fat changes by the same amount, the scale will remain the same, and weight may increase, but you will have healthy fat in your body, and your belly will reduce. You will look thinner even after the increase in weight. 

Although only strength training will not lead to fat cutting. You should always keep up a proper diet with exercise. You should have a proper schedule, including your cardio session and strength training session.

Magic of Apple Cider Vinegar


Apple cider vinegar is known as a magic drink for burning fat. You can mix a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in the water and have it in the morning, empty stomach. This will burn your belly fat. 

Apple cider vinegar suppresses fat accumulation and helps in reducing syndromes related to metabolism and obesity. It is essential always to use apple cider vinegar after dilution in water. 

You can use apple cider vinegar as a salad dressing as well. You can take two to three doses of apple cider vinegar in a day. You can have a small amount of apple cider vinegar or take a supplement before meals to reduce calories and burn fat. 

However, the massive doses of apple cider vinegar can have worse effects on your body. Always try to take small doses and make sure you do not suffer any bloating or acidic reflux after apple cider vinegar intake.

Reduce Anxiety


Stress and overeating work simultaneously on the body. Stress spoils all your efforts done for reducing the belly fat by increasing your appetite. We often end up eating many chocolates and cookies when we suffer breakups, rejections, losing jobs, and other life problems.

Well, there is a scientific reason causing us to eat more to reduce our stress. Anxiety heightens our sugar cravings, and we lose control of our strict diets. 

How can we stop this cycle of stress and increased weight? You can just focus on one single thing at a time. If you can attack the cause, then your problem will automatically get resolved. 

You can reduce stress and anxiety through meditation, talking to friends, yoga, writing a diary, watching movies, taking a long walk or drive, following your hobbies, and shopping. Before stressing yourself more about weight gain, remember that stress will only increase weight. 

Take a sound sleep every day


Everybody needs seven to eight hours of sleep every day. Sleeping less can cause stress and an increase in weight. Less sleep reduces the metabolism rate and slows down your digestion. Insufficient sleep lowers leptin levels, which causes the body to crave carbohydrates.

It has been found that people with short hours of sleep gain weight compared to people with enough hours of sleep. 

Also, seven to eight hours of sleep is essential and sound sleep without any disturbance is essential. We often get bad headaches and stress if we do not get sound sleep at night. The irregularity in sleep schedules can ruin all your hard work for reducing the belly fat. 

You should focus on your sleep patterns and ensure that you do not sleep for less than six hours and not more than ten hours. The long hours of sleep also cause an imbalance in meals, leading to weight gain.

Replace Sugar


You can easily cut your belly fat by reducing your sugar intake. Sugar has a lot of calories, especially products like pastries, cakes, chocolates, and shakes. 

But, it is not easy to altogether avoid the sugar and control your sweet tooth. Well, the solution is to replace sugar with healthy sweeteners. Stevia is the best natural sweetener, used in everything, from your tea to your baking. There are other sweeteners like xylitol, erythritol, and yacon syrup. 

Then, there are some readily available elements like maple syrup, molasses, and honey, which can replace sugar. This will have less effect on your weight gain than your sugar. Jaggery can also be used in your food instead of sugar, and it has a lot of nutrients that will help you in weight loss and provide health benefits.

Intermittent fasting


Intermittent fasting (IF) is a pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. It states the time of your meal and when to eat. Intermittent fasting includes sixteen hours of fasting and twenty-four hours of fasting per week, depending on the type of intermittent fasting you are opting for. This is known as a very effective method for reducing belly fat. 

The idea behind intermittent fasting is to reduce the intake of calories per week. This will help you to reduce your intake of calories and burn your belly fat faster. 

Much other inflammation fasting benefits like inflammation in; Insulin resistance, Inflammation, heart diseases, cancer, aging, and brain diseases. You can try for intermittent fasting and analyze how it works on your body.

Lose Weight | Lose Belly Fat | How To Lose Belly Fat

Track your nutrients and calories


Even if we try all the methods of reducing the belly fat. The biggest mistake we make is not maintaining a proper track record of your calories and nutrients. You should record your calorie intake per day and manage your meals according to it.

You can track your calories either manually or using any app on your phone. The apps are more comfortable and convenient to use. Some of the apps to track your calories and nutrients intake are; MyFitnessPal, Lose It, FatSecret, Cron-o-meter, and SparkPeople.

These apps will help you analyze your diet's loopholes and recommend necessary changes like protein introduction in your meals. You can try them today; these will help you keep track of your steps towards your goal.

Cook with coconut oil


Coconut itself has a lot of nutrition in it; the most crucial ingredient in the coconut is coconut oil, which provides impressive health benefits and healthy metabolism if used regularly in our daily routine. 

One tablespoon of coconut oil has only 120 calories and 14 grams of fat, including 12 grams of saturated fat and 2 gram of unsaturated fat. Unlike other oils that we use for cooking, there is no cholesterol in coconut oil, which makes it healthy. This oil helps us reduce our hunger for a more extended period as it helps us keep full. 

This oil mainly targets the belly part and cuts the belly fat faster and reduces weight. There are various types of coconut oil available in the market. Among them, extra virgin coconut oil is more popular because of its nutritional benefits. This oil boosts our metabolism as it is less processed.

Green tea


Green tea is well-known for its antioxidant properties as it detoxifies our body, which gives us better digestion and ultimately helps us reduce our belly fat. This is a natural way to meet the weight loss goal without using any supplements or drugs. 

Green tea has caffeine in it, which breaks down our fat, burns our body fat in no time, and improves our metabolism and gives us the stamina to work out for long hours. People who are overweight or obese should include this tea in their daily life.

You can consume green tea in detox water or as a hot tea. Having a healthy diet and regular exercise with 2 cups of green tea will give results in some days only. There are various variants of green tea available in the market, among them match green tea is the best for weight loss.

Take limited Carbs


Some amount of carbohydrates are available in every food we intake in our body. Carbs intake is vital for our body to work, as it stores energy, but you should take them in limited quantities. 

Carbs carry starch, sugar, and fiber with them. Two types of carbs are there in food: good carbs and bad carbs.

Good carbs are the one which has high amounts of fiber in them and used to store energy. Some of the foods which contain good carbs are products containing whole grain, whole wheat flour, vegetables, and fruits, etc. 

Bad carbs are the one which has low fiber, high starch, and sugar with them. Some of the foods which contain bad carbs are products made from white flour-like; cakes, cookies, and muffins. 

If you are going for weight reduction, you should focus mainly on fibrous foods and foods which contain good carbs and that too less amount of it. A diet with fewer carbs or no carbs will reduce our weight and meet our goal in less time.

So if you have a carb diet, you should only go for food containing good carbs as they are high in fiber, easy to digest, unprocessed, and prevents us from getting obese.

Take Soluble fiber


Two types of fibers are there in foods. The first is soluble, and another is insoluble. People generally don't check what kind of fiber is in their diet and consume it, but people who want to lose their weight should go only for the soluble fiber. 

Soluble fiber dissolves in the water and breaks easily and helps us to digest our food quickly. Unlike insoluble fiber, which doesn't break easily when it moves to our digestive tract. 

People suffering from constipation, which is a major cause for weight gain, should include soluble fibrous food in their diet as it helps the stool to pass quickly. 

Some of the foods with soluble fiber and the best options to reduce weight are oats, beans, Apples, Papaya, Strawberries, and citrus fruits. Brands like Oat Bran, Wheat Bran, and Rice Bran have ample amounts of soluble fiber, making them best for weight reduction. 

These foods have fewer calories in them, keeping us full for a more extended period and helping the food pass through our system quickly.

Start your exercise with a cardio


If we are taking our healthy diet and we also combine training in it, then it will not only reduce your excess fat, but also it will make you fit for your whole life. 

A person should always start their exercise with a cardio session as it increases our heart rate, pumps our blood, makes us sweat, and burns more calories than other exercises in less time. 

Heavy workouts in the gym increase our chances of getting hurt, but with cardio we are safe.  One can go for any kind of activity for their cardio routine, like swimming, jogging, dancing, or cycling. 

But if you want to lose your weight fast, you should always go for high impact activities, including running, jumping, burpees, jumping jacks, and high knee jumps. Cardio exercises are best for whole body workout as it targets your upper body and your lower body.

Chew Your food correctly


It is always recommended to eat your food slowly and chew properly. There is a scientific reason behind it - chewing until 'no lumps remain' fasten the digestion process. 

It will make sure that you burn more calories and faster. Chewing properly reduces bloating and inflammation. 

The best method to eat appropriately is to bite count. You should focus on chewing properly and not gulping down your food to ensure that your body grabs all the nutritional value of food. 

You will see significant changes in bloating and stressing after you start chewing your food correctly.

Replace fruit juice with raw fruits


Whenever we go on a diet, we involve fruits in our diet, but the biggest mistake we do is taking fruit juices instead of the fruit. If we consume fruits in its liquid form, we remove all the nutrients in the fruits. 

Fresh fruits contain a lot of fiber in them, which helps in weight reduction, but juices remove all the fiber. Fresh fruits hydrate our body, are high in fiber, very low in calories, and quickly fill us. 

Fruit juices remove the pulp and many of the seeds which had nutrients in them. Even doctors recommend starting with one fruit as this will give fiber to our body, which will make it easy to digest. 

When we take fruit juices, we tend to take packed juices that carry a lot of sugar in them or we add sugar in our fresh homemade juices. To avoid extra sugar, we should always prefer fresh fruits as they are full of nutrients and help in sugar control.

Take probiotic diet

 

Probiotics are bacteria that are beneficial for your body and helps you in digesting the food faster. They are also responsible for better immune systems. They are also called good bacteria.' 

You can find probiotics in supplements and fermented food. There are two different types of probiotic bacteria: Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. 

Food like Kimchi, Sauerkraut, Fermented vegetables, Chobani, Yoplait, Fage Greek Yogurt, and Voskos Greek Yogurt are probiotic foods and help you reduce the calories you take from food. 

Include fatty fish to your diet


Fish contains healthy fats, iodine, and the right amount of protein. It increases healthy fat in the body. Fishes like Salmon, Tuna, Pacific Cod, Trout, Sardines, and Mackerel are very beneficial for weight loss. These fishes contain Omega-3 fatty acids, which help the body to stay fit and manage the weight. 

If you take fish in a meal, it will give you protein and help you eat fewer calories. 

Fish is also rich in Iodine, which helps the body to fasten the metabolism and burn calories. Also, including fish in your meals twice a week can reduce the risk of fatal diseases. It is always a smart choice to have fish in your meal from the perspective of both nutritional value and calorie intake.

All these hacks can have different results on different bodies; you need to analyze the results and then follow the hacks in your routine.

The most important way to reduce your belly fat is to change your lifestyle and adopt healthy habits. The real secret to a perfect body is determination, patience, and hard work. Just relax and enjoy your journey towards a more vigorous routine with fewer diseases.

Opt for a fit lifestyle, belly fat will automatically get reduced.

Vaishali

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About the Author

She is a budding copy editor as well as a freelance content writer. So far, she has proofread around 500+ articles, indicating her stronghold on the profession. If she's not in front of her laptop, you'll probably find her watching Netflix. She has a very keen interest in beauty and personal care products. She likes to stay updated about the latest beauty products in the market. Know More About Vaishali


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