Lose Tummy Fat Fast – Standard Cardio Is Not The Answer
If you’ve been trying to shed your tummy fat for a while, you may have discovered the traditional ways to do it: three or five times of 30-60 minutes low intensity cardio per week while keeping your heart rate at the pre-defined target zone. Without a doubt, that will lead to countless hours on stationary bike or treadmill.
So, does being “hamster on the wheel” solve the problem? Obviously, the answer is NOT. The first reason for this is your body can adapt itself to your regular activities, so after a few sessions on the treadmill, it will made a few “adjustment” and soon you’ll find that your exercise will have very little effect or even no effect at all. That’s why people that doing steady low intensity cardio will have to increase their duration again and again.
The second reason: human body is designed to perform physical activity in burst of exertion followed by recovery; this is also known as stop-and-go movement. For example, try comparing a sprinter who focus on stop-and-go exercise and a marathoner who focus on endurance exercise; the sprinter is more lean and muscular looking right?
So, how to lose tummy fat? In every effort to lose fat, focusing at specific spot on your body is a hugge mistake; here’s how to do it right: full body training program, high intensity interval cardio, and good eating habit that focus on nutritious foods. This also applied if you want to shed the fat on other spot of your body; read more about it at arm fat – how to lose it.
These will reduce your body fat percentage and shed all those excess fat on your tummy and all over your body in general. For women, achieving 16-18% body fat is sufficient to achieve flat sexy tummy; men, on the other hand, have to achieve 10% body fat to get their six pack abs visible.
I did mention about resistance training as the answer for the question “how to lose tummy fat”, but rest assured that you will not get overly bulked up like a bodybuilder; besides, women don’t have much testosterone to begin with, so it is really difficult for women to get bulky. The aim of this training is to help you become leaner and muscular while boosting your metabolic rate so your body can burn fat faster.
The training is varied from only using your bodyweight such as bodyweight squat and pushups to the one that using dumbbell or kettlebell. Remember to choose the weight that provide enough challenge for you for maximum result; don’t worry, you won’t get bulky. Here’s an example of a dumbbell complex:
- Upright row with each arm separately, then together.
- Front lunge with one leg, then the other.
- Back lunge with one leg, then the other.
- Curl to overhead press.
- Keep dumbbells at shoulders and squat.
You can also get different result by modifying the way you do your workout; check a few ideas for that at exercise program for weight loss purpose.
The second answer for the question “how to lose tummy fat” is high intensity cardio program. This will create more significant result than the standard cardio that only consume your precious time. You’ll need extra effort, but the result will be astonishing.
One doable high intensity cardio is wind sprints. You need to find open field or park and try 50, 75, and 100 yard all out wind sprints. Do this 6-20 times with 1-2 minutes rest between each sprint. This exercise is aiming to work the biggest muscle groups in your body, increase your metabolism, raising your muscle building hormones, and make the fat burning process even faster. Of course, there are many other indoor high intensity cardio that can be done at home.
The third answer for the question “how to lose tummy fat” will be good nutrition knowledge. To put it shortly, you’ll need to put these into priority:
- Fruit and vegetables
- Proper portion of high quality protein throughout the day
- High fiber food; this is necessary for appetite control
- Fat from healthy source such as avocado, virgin oil, nut, seeds, fish oil, etc
- Foods that as natural as possible and preferably unprocessed
- High nutrient density foods
Once you discover the real answer, you can say goodbye to the boring cardio routines that most people believe, get out from your ‘hamster wheel’, and start shed that excess body fat to achieve flat tummy and lean body. I suggest you read further about the exercise program and nutrition guidelines that fulfill this purpose at another look at the Truth about Abs.
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