Excess belly fat increases your risk of suffering from a wide variety of health problems, such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and some forms of cancer. That means losing belly fat can not only make you feel better about your physical appearance, it can also make you healthier overall. If you want to get serious about losing stomach flab, you'll need to learn some basic belly busting rules.
Exercise
Sit-ups may help strengthen your ab muscles, but you can't significantly reduce the belly fat on top of those muscles through "spot reducing" alone. Instead, you'll have to work out your whole body with cardiovascular exercise and strength training to lose belly fat. The Department of Health and Human Services suggests doing about 75 minutes of vigorous activity or 150 minutes of moderately paced aerobic activity per week, though to lose significant amounts of belly fat you may need to do more than the minimum recommended amount per week.
Diet
Exercise is just one component to losing belly fat -- you also need to eat a healthy diet. That means avoiding fatty processed foods like potato chips and cookies and replacing unhealthy saturated fats and trans fats with polyunsaturated fats. Eat plenty of whole grains, dairy and fish and don't skimp on essential fresh fruits and vegetables. Plan healthy meals using the food pyramid and governmental dietary guidelines, and reduce your overall caloric intake by eating less calories and fat grams.
Stress Reduction
Stress can play a part in the accumulation of belly fat, explains Mehmet Oz, MD, author of the book "YOU on a Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management." When stress causes your body to anticipate a crisis, it begins depositing fat cells into your belly. To avoid stress-related stomach fat, Oz suggests trying meditation, yoga or massage. If you tend to eat when stressed, trade in unhealthy munchies for healthier snacks like fruit, cheese, crackers and nuts.
Further Considerations
Certain lifestyle habits can make it harder to lose belly fat. Calories from alcohol may lead to more visceral abdominal fat, because alcohol consumption inhibits fat burning in your belly. To avoid belly fat buildup from excess alcohol, keep your alcohol consumption at no more than one cocktail per day. Nicotine also inhibits abdominal fat-burning, which often causes smokers to have more visceral stomach fat than nonsmokers.
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