Toning the stomach is one of the most difficult tasks that a dieter will face. This is because you can lose weight via brute force methods such as fad diets, quick fixes and weight loss gimmicks but not all of the weight loss comes from losing fat. In fact a large portion of the weight loss may actually be the result of muscle and water loss.
When you are losing lots of muscles, you can be assured that you will not be able to achieve a toned stomach. In order to achieve a toned stomach, you need to lose fat and maintain your muscles. You need to go back to the fundamentals of healthy weight loss and incorporate these principles into your life to achieve the goal of a well-defined abdominal section.
Holistic approach is essential
It is extremely important that you have a holistic approach to losing belly fat. This means that you cannot focus on diet or exercise separately. In the same manner, an approach with drugs or diet pills will not work either. You have to practice a healthy lifestyle that incorporates all the factors that promote natural and effortless weight loss. These key fundamentals of losing weight include healthy nutrition, regular exercise, adequate sleep and supplementation. Another important consideration is stress management. You can follow any weight loss program out there that incorporates all of these factors. You will not only lose fat in the belly area but in all other areas of the body as well. The fat will come off and stay off.
Diet that you can sustain for a lifetime
You cannot be on a diet for a 2 or 3 month period. This stop-gap measure may allow you to lose some weight but it is very unlikely that you will be able to keep the weight off. This is because the weight will come back on faster than you lost it, once you come off the diet. That is why its best to get on a healthy eating plan. Get rid of all the unhealthy, processed and junk food. Follow an eating plan that you can sustain for the rest of your life. The weight loss may be slower than a fad diet but the excess pounds will consistently come off. You will also find that you will easily be able to keep the weight off because your healthy diet is part of your lifestyle.
Measure fat loss instead of weight loss
The only way to lose belly fat is by losing fat. As you consistently lose fat, you will eventually shed all the extra flab on the stomach. You will not be able to monitor this progress if you are monitoring the wrong measurement. As was already mentioned above, you could be losing muscle and water when you lose weight. Muscle and water loss is not going to help you in your effort to tone your stomach. You should use body fat calipers along with the weighing scales to measure your fat loss. Bodyfat calipers allow you to easily measure your bodyfat level. You will only lose stomach fat if your body fat levels are reducing. Interestingly, you can lose weight and yet not have much reduction in body fat levels. This is when you would have lost weight and yet end-up with a pooch belly.
Focus to losing 2 to 3 pounds of fat a week
This is one of the golden rules of healthy and sustainable weight loss. Makes sure that all of your weight loss is from fat loss. Also ensure that you are losing 2 to 3 pounds of weight per week. This is the upper limit of your body's ability to burn fat. People who claim to be losing more than 2 to 3 pounds a week are probably losing lots of muscle and water. This can be easily verified by using the body fat calipers. They will find that they are losing weight but the caliper reading is not reducing. Losing lots of muscles and water will not help in your efforts to tone your stomach. In fact, it will make the protruding belly look more pronounced.
Burn belly fat with these fundamental principles of weight loss
When you follow the above fundamental principles, you can be assured of healthy and sustainable weight loss. You will lose fat on your belly as well as on other parts of your body. The fat will come off slowly but consistently. The best part is that the fat comes off and stays off.
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