Is this recognizable for you? You want a tighter stomach and less fat on, for example, your arms and legs. You wonder: “How am I supposed to do this?” By doing more cardio, eating less or doing strength training? I help you on the right path with this article. What is really the best way to burn fat?
TIP # 1: CHANGE YOUR DIET
No matter how you get used to it, a healthy diet is the most important way to burn belly fat. A healthy diet consists of mainly fresh foods and a lot of variation.
This is a list of the fresh foods sorted by most important:
- Vegetables (roots, tubers, leafy vegetables, sea vegetables)
- Fruit (maximum 3 pieces per day)
- Shellfish
- Eggs
- Fish
- Meat (more white than red)
- Nuts (seeds, seeds and sprouts)
- Mushrooms
- Legumes
- Cereals
Does this mean that you can never eat or eat something unhealthy? Of course not! It is even good to let you go one or two days a week.
So keep the 80% -20% rule ! 80% healthy food and 20% unhealthy (or where you can really enjoy).
TIP # 2: EAT UP TO 3 TIMES A DAY
Every healthy person is perfectly able to eat no more than 3 times a day. Nevertheless, we now have about 5 to 6 eating moments in a day. Then I have not even counted the high-calorie drinks that are consumed in between.
As a result, the body continuously receives an influx of carbohydrates (sugars), so that the body constantly draws its energy from these carbohydrates . In this way, the body no longer sees any need to use fats as an energy source. Your fat reserves remain perfectly intact, while you actually want to get rid of them!
So it is important to teach your body to burn on fats again. This process can get you started by eating less often .
Women benefit best from about 3 eating moments a day.
Men benefit the best at about 2 eating moments a day.
Do you get a dip or do you even get dizzy if you do not eat anything for a few hours?
Then you know for sure that your body will no longer be able to burn properly on fats and it will be time to do something about it! Adjusting your meal frequency is simply a matter of a few weeks to continue, but do it slowly if you suffer too much from dips or dizziness. (Diabetics should take this very carefully and only do so with the support of a doctor / specialist / orthomolecular therapist.)
You will have to learn your body (again) to burn more often on fats than on carbohydrates. Something that the primitive man always did and where our body is actually much more suitable.
Once you are used to fewer meals, you will find that for a period of 5 hours you can easily eat without food and even be able to skip a meal (which is perfectly healthy).
TIP # 3: AVOID CHRONIC STRESS
Do you do everything well to live healthy, but do you still have chronic stress? Then you will continue to struggle to burn belly fat, because chronic stress impedes many processes in the body.
Your hormone balance gets out of balance because too much of the hormone cortisol is produced. This hormone blocks fat burning ( source , source ) and provides more appetite ( source ). Doubly annoying!
Note: acute stress does no harm. In fact, acute stress is just healthy! With acute stress is meant that a certain stress stimulus does not last longer than a few minutes to a maximum of 2 hours. In chronic stress you talk about several hours of stress in a day.
Therefore ensure sufficient relaxation in the form of:
- Reading a quiet book or magazine
- Watching a smile movie
- Meditation (recommended)
- Move every 30 minutes for 1 minute with seated work
- Yoga
- Sauna
- Walking (especially in nature)
- Sex several times a week
TIP # 4: HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING (HIIT)
Sports such as running , cycling , swimming are all covered by cardio training. As you may have read earlier in this article, these are not effective ways to get rid of belly fat.
With high-intensity interval training, you can burn up to 7 times more fat than with cardio. With this form of sports, you spend less time, but you achieve faster results.
A study ( source ) done in women over a period of 15 weeks, shows that when women do a high-intensity interval training 3 times a week instead of cardio they:
Have received a significantly lower fat percentage.
Especially belly fat and fat around the legs have lost.
Another study over a period of 12 weeks shows that high-intensity training increases the muscle mass source ):
The group that did high-intensity interval training got 1 kilogram of muscle mass.
The group that did cardio training lost half a kilo of muscle mass.
Also, these and these studies show the same kind of results.
You may wonder how this comes about. Then I can explain simply:
More muscles means a higher fat burning at rest. Since you lose muscle during cardio training and in case of high intensity interval training, muscles grow, this helps on fat burning.
Your body needs to recover longer from the high intensity interval training, so you continue to burn calories after training.
You make more of the hormone testosterone and the growth hormone HGH, which benefits fat burning.
In short, if you do high intensity interval training 3 times a week, you will achieve MUCH more if you take equally long or even longer cardio training sessions.
TIP # 5: DRINK MAINLY WATER
Around 60% of the human body consists of water (and not coffee). It is therefore important to drink water (or tea). People who drink coffee, soft drinks or drinks with all kinds of additives throughout the day can not therefore expect them to get that flat belly they have been dreaming about for so long.
The general advice says that you should drink 1.5 to 2 liters of water daily for good health. Unfortunately this is an advice that has been withdrawn from the thumb, which lacks scientific evidence for this.
What has been proven is that if you drink, you can do it better right away. I am talking about bulk drinks !
So drink 2 large glasses of water in the morning and repeat this for the rest of the day when you get thirsty again. This means that one day you may drink 3 liters and another day only 1 liter. This is completely normal and the way to drink enough water.
TIP # 6: SLEEP ENOUGH
Every person needs between 6,5 hours and 8,5 hours of sleep per night. With a lack of sleep you run the risk of getting fatter. This is because your body will miss out on energy when there is too little sleep .
The body will try to get this energy from somewhere. The energy (calories) in food is the most obvious option. You get more appetite and therefore eat more quickly than is good for you.
If you find it difficult to fall asleep in the evening, make sure you darken it earlier in the evening, stop eating, turn off all screens and empty your head.
TIP # 7: LOOK FOR THE COLD
This last tip is also the least popular tip. Yet I want to give this to you, because looking up the cold has many benefits!
It is an acute stress stimulus , of which I said earlier that it is healthy. Acute stress challenges the body and that challenge makes the body stronger.
Moreover, briefly exposing yourself to intense cold is good for the development of brown fat . What then is brown fat will you think?
Your body has white and brown fat. White fat is, as it were, the “normal” fat. Brown fat has something extra. This fat contains many small mitochondria (power plants). They ensure that the body can warm up . The more brown fat you activate, the better your body can keep warm.
Of course, these mitochondria cost energy . So this means that by developing more brown fat, you will also get a higher fat burning.
How do you easily look for the cold?
By taking a cold shower! You do this by completely turning off the hot tap at the end of your shower. If you then stand between the 30 seconds and 60 seconds under the cold shower, you have the full effect! Longer than that is not necessary. Find out best diet plan to lose belly fat fast.