There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.
The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.
Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.
To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.
For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.
Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.
There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you work them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.
If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.
Aloha
2006-10-17 06:22:08
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answer #1
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answered by Anonymous
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How to lose bellyfat
Losing fat is not an easy task, but gaining fat is very easy. You need to keep a check on the diet and do workouts for your abs to lose tummy fat. You also need to do aerobic exercises like swimming, jogging etc. Here are some points to keep in mind to lose belly fat:· Consume less sugar, processed foods and sodium. · Eat fiber rich foods like green leafy vegetables.· The diet should contain protein, carbohydrates and little fat.· Drink plenty of water and fruit juices.· Eat in small quantities for five to six times a day. · Do at least 30-60 minutes cardiovascular exercises at least 4 times a week. · Do strength training and ab exercises at least 3 times a week.
Tummy fat is not good for the body as it increases the chances of many diseases like diabetes, heart attack etc. A whole body workout is required to lose weight from your tummy, spot reduction is a myth, you cannot lose fat by doing stomach crunches or ab workouts only. A complete workout, which includes cardiovascular exercises, helps improve metabolism and you will be able to lose tummy fat quickly. Try to lose weight naturally by doing hard work and controlling your diet.
2006-10-17 02:00:01
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answer #2
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answered by Anonymous
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Unfortunately only a combination of diet and cardiovascular exercise will reduce fat. You might think about trying The Movie Star Diet. I lost 50 pounds with it after only five months, and I couldn't be happier. I've tried a lot of different diets (Atkins, South Beach, and Weight Watchers, etc.) and none of them worked anywhere near as well as this one. It's definitely worth a shot if you really want to see a difference in a short time.
2006-10-17 02:31:16
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answer #3
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answered by Anonymous
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Any exercise will reduce the amount of fat in your body. You should know that it is not possible to 'target' any one area and only reduce the fat there (unless that is the only you have excess fat). Any exercise you do will reduce the amount of fat in your body, everywhere you have fat.
You can work out with weights to reduce fat faster. Doing this will increase muscle, which burns fat even when you're resting.
2006-10-17 01:59:45
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answer #4
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answered by bhalrog72 2
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Sit-ups and crunches (half sit-ups) will strengthen your tummy muscles to help flatten your stomach, as long as you hold your tummy in while doing them. To reduce the fat however you need to include aerobic exercises to burn calories as well. Don't expect this to happen in just a few weeks. The tummy is the hardest part of the body to firm up. Be consistent!
2006-10-17 02:03:02
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answer #5
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answered by rosecitylady 5
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Here is what you need to do, if you are serious about losing weight and keeping it off. Eat 6 small meals a day about every 4 hours. Here what that will do for you, your metabolism will increase (i.e. Loose weight) and you will have more engry. If you go on a diet and eat less, your metabolism will slow down and store to fat. That is why diets dont work. Only the size of your fist, carbs (examples:baked potato, pasta, oatmeal, beans, corn, melon, apples, fat free yogurt, whole wheat breads)in one and protien (examples:chicken breast, swordfish, shrimp, turkey breast) in the other. You can also eat vegetables and salads with any meal, they dont have none or little fat). 30min cardo exercise every day. Any of these(examples: walking, jogging, swimming,running, biking, ect), Monday cardo, tues upper body (arms: curls, tricep extensions,pull ups, front press)(abdominals: leg pull crunch, leg raises), (chest: bench press, butterfly, pullover)(shoulders: front press, arm pullover, cross county skier machine)(back:seated row, lat pull downs, back extension)(YOU DONT HAVE TO DO IN ONE DAY, mix it up) wed cardo, thurs lower body (legs: leg pull,leg press, squats, lounges) fri cardo, sat upper. Sunday eat anything you want and dont exercising, you do this on sunday so your body doesnt go into starvation mode. YOU NEED TO TAKE SUNDAY OFF. If you stilck with this you will have a great body. also drink aleast 8oz of water daily! Stay away from Mcdonals, Wendys, ect because there is nothing good for you on the menu's even the salads are bad (beaon bits, cheeze, dressing, ect) Good Luck :)
2006-10-17 19:36:56
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answer #6
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answered by tampabayfriends 5
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Sit ups strengthen abdominal muscles... nothing more. If you want to lose fat, you have to burn more calories than you take in. Here's more:
Losing weight really is as simple as basic addition and subtraction. If the calories you eat add up to more than what you burn in a given time period, you will gain weight. Conversely, if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. Depending on your size and activity level, the number of calories will vary quite a bit. The secret is finding your “break even” calorie intake level. For most people, the “ball park” figure will be around 1800 to 2000 calories per day. If you are larger than average, this number will be higher, lower if you are smaller than average. Metabolic rate can have an effect on these numbers as well. Exercise plays an important role also, as this can increase the number of calories you burn by quite a bit as well as increasing your metabolic rate.
If you want a generally healthy diet that’s easy to follow and avoids hunger, the one I recommend will do the job very well. You can fill up and still lose weight. Eat lots of fresh vegetables as they contain very few calories yet are full of good nutrition. The less you cook them, the more nutrition they retain. Stick with whole grains, as they tend to be better for you and don’t turn to sugar as readily as processed grains do. For example, whole grain bread is much better for you than plain white bread. Eat a variety of fruit on a daily basis. Avoid empty carbs, fats, and sugars…. Examples: junk food and soda. If you feel you need protein to build muscle, add some chicken or fish to your diet. Avoid beef and dairy products, the cons outweigh the pros.
If you can’t get your mind into the ‘eat to live; don’t live to eat’ mode, you should probably read this short article on the psychology behind overeating:
http://www.geocities.com/seabulls69/weightloss.html
Healthy links:
Calorie calculator:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calories.htm
BMI calculator:
http://chetday.com/bodymassindex.htm
Protein, fats, and carbs info:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/changingshape5.htm
General health info:
http://www.burnthefat.com/
http://www.drmcdougall.com
http://chetday.com/dailyexercise.htm
http://www.phifoundation.org
2006-10-17 01:58:40
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answer #7
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answered by Mr. Peachy® 7
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Sit-ups don't particularly reduce stomach fat. It obviously builds muscle so it can be more visible when your body fat is lowered.
2016-03-28 12:50:59
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answer #8
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answered by Anonymous
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No, they don't reduce fat, they firm the abdominal muscles. To reduce fat you need to do cardio exercise (which will burn fat over the entire body).
You can't spot reduce/slim...but you can spot tone/firm.
2006-10-17 02:13:13
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answer #9
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answered by . 7
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You can't spot reduce fat. Do cardio. Pilates are also good to tone the abs.
2006-10-17 01:59:02
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answer #10
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answered by adrianne 5
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