Losing weight on the stomach

Introduction

Everyone knows them, the small problem areas on the body. The personal problem zones are usually the most persistent and are the last to be attacked when losing weight. A slim body center is the main goal of many people who want to lose weight. Is there a way to lose fat where I want to?

What are the options?

A famous sentence in the fitness scene is “Abs are made in the kitchen” – abdominal muscles are made in the kitchen. This actually means that the secret of a defined abdomen is healthy eating. At which parts of the body we lose weight first is genetically determined and cannot be controlled.

There is no way to lose weight at one specific point. The only way to lose weight on the stomach is to generally lower the body fat percentage. A diet in which fewer calories are consumed than the body uses daily leads to weight loss.

Even if the stomach is a problem area for many people, sooner or later the body will also go to these fat pads. An example of this is the points diet, in which the daily food intake and the associated calorie increase is significantly reduced by points. A reduction is also possible without sport.

However, it should be noted here that one should also do without the benefits such as strengthened muscles, increased physical performance and increased energy consumption due to muscles. Information on diets can be found here: Diet, Metabolic DietSport is a sensible measure to accelerate weight loss. We lose weight when our body burns more energy than we consume through food.

Endurance training or intensive interval units consume a large amount of energy. For example, we can consume up to 600kcal extra in one hour of moderate jogging, depending on body weight, thus increasing our nutritionally controlled calorie deficit. The higher the deficit, the faster we lose weight.

Strength training has another decisive advantage over endurance training: we build strong, lean muscles that burn energy even at rest and increase the daily energy turnover. As already mentioned, targeted abdominal exercises can strengthen the muscles in the middle of the body. But the big muscle groups such as legs, buttocks and back are real energy guzzlers.

Ideally, we do a whole body workout several times a week or split up into several days according to muscle groups and supplement the program with effective endurance training. If you want to lose body fat on your stomach and in general, you should first change your diet. If the body fat percentage has already been reduced considerably, targeted abdominal exercises can help to present a beautifully shaped, slim six-pack.

Classic exercises for this are sit-ups and crunches. They can be performed in different variations. You can choose the classic version and leave your legs on the floor or elevated, secluded or stretched into the air.

The head should be straight to the spine, the view is best towards the ceiling. The hands should be loosely crossed at the neck. Then lift your upper body slightly off the floor and return.

The exercise becomes especially effective if you do not lay your shoulders down again but keep them in the air. It is important not to work with momentum during the exercises. If you want to include not only the straight abdominal muscles but also the oblique abdominal muscles in the workout, you can do a slight rotation of the upper body towards the opposite knee.

Planks, i.e. forearm support, train not only the abdomen but also the entire trunk. In addition to these exercises using your own body weight, fitness studios also have machines for training the abdominal muscles. They should be carried out as a supplement after the studio staff have been instructed.

The rowing machine is a popular endurance training machine. Endurance training supports weight loss, as it increases the body’s energy metabolism. The greater the deficit to the amount of calories consumed, the faster the body uses its fat reserves and the lower the body fat percentage.

This can sooner or later lead to a reduction in the abdomen. Another advantage of the rowing machine is that it stimulates almost all muscle groups of the body. These include above all the back, trunk and leg muscles.

The abdominal muscles are also trained. When losing weight, the rowing machine can therefore be wonderfully integrated into the training. If you want to additionally stimulate the muscles of the abdomen and thus expose your abdominal muscles when the body fat percentage is low, you should also focus on specific abdominal exercises.

In order to present a taut body centre and reduce unhealthy abdominal fat around the internal organs as well as the subcutaneous fat tissue, the body fat percentage must be reduced. A crash diet or other types of short-term dietary changes will quickly achieve weight loss, but this is mostly water. When carbohydrates are removed, the body draws on the glycogen reserves in the muscles and liver, and thus simultaneously loses a considerable amount of water.

In order to burn fat, a prolonged reduction in calories is necessary. However, if you are already quite slim, you can achieve a flat stomach through a short-term diet by reducing the body’s water reserves. However, it must be remembered that water is stored again as soon as you return to a normal eating pattern.

In order to lose weight on the stomach, you have to make the body go to the fat reserves. Unfortunately, it is not possible to influence which fat pads are tackled first. In addition, care must be taken that when changing the diet, not too little protein is supplied with the food.

Strength training should also activate the body’s muscle groups so that the body does not start to lose muscle mass. This happens whenever there are not enough building blocks for the muscles, i.e. too little protein is taken in, or the muscles are not used, i.e. irritated.

If you want to lose weight overall and lose fat and not muscle mass, you have to change your diet. It is necessary to achieve a calorie deficit between the energy taken in and the energy consumed, but as already mentioned, the diet must contain the important building blocks of proteins and fats, without which the body cannot fulfil its vital functions. So the aim is not to eat less, but to eat the right thing. Therefore, a change in diet is also more successful in the long term than a diet to get closer to a slim, defined body.