Women are able to lose belly fat and tone their muscles by participating in regular exercise and making healthy eating choices. Women have a more difficult time losing weight than men because they have a natural tendency to have a slower resting metabolism, meaning they burn fewer calories throughout the day.
Body Fat Loss
To lose belly fat, women must create a caloric deficit by burning more calories than they consume over a period of time. You burn more calories by increasing your overall metabolism and exercising regularly, and you consume fewer calories by making healthy eating and drinking choices.
Muscle Tone
Increasing muscle tone requires consistent weight training. Women have a tendency to be hesitant to weight train for fear of bulking up, but they don't possess the required amount of growth hormone and testosterone necessary to build significant muscle mass. Lifting weights consistently will increase and tone lean muscle and will also increase your overall metabolism, contributing to more calories burned and thus more fat loss.
Training
To lose fat and increase muscle tone, you need to participate in a consistent exercise routine that consists of both cardiovascular training and weight training. Complete cardiovascular exercise at 30 minutes to 60 minutes each session for four to six days per week to burn a significant amount of calories. Cardiovascular workouts include jogging, swimming, biking and riding the elliptical machine at the gym. Weight training should be completed two or three days a week, with a day of rest between sessions to allow your muscles to rest and recover.
Considerations
While you can lose body fat by burning more calories than you consume, it is impossible to choose where that body fat is taken from. If you're interested in targeting your belly area, you will need to focus on the steps it takes to lose overall body fat. As you do lose body fat, you will see improvements everywhere, including at your belly area.
Losing Fat at the Stomach
While you're unable to target the stomach directly for weight loss, you can work to lose belly fat by making efforts to lose overall body fat with exercise and eating healthy, and then tone abdominal muscles with regular abdominal training. Abdominal workouts won't cause you to lose fat, but they will improve muscle definition. Do abdominal workouts on the same days that you complete your weight training workouts, allowing a day of rest in between. Complete three sets of a maximum number of reps for each exercise. The American Council on Exercise says that the bicycle crunch and the straight leg crunch are among the best to target the muscles of the belly.
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