Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Bodyweight Workout: Lose Stomach Fat & Love Handles The Right Way











Losing stomach fat and love handles is a struggle for you right? I can bet that you are thinking that you have tried almost every strategy in the book to try to get rid of your stubborn stomach fat, but you just never seem to get results, right?

I am sure you see hundreds of commercials and advertisements that make all kinds of wild miracle claims that you can get rid of your stomach fat in no time with their supposed magic pill or hyped up stomach melting supplement. How about all of the bogus infomercial abs-gadgets out there claiming you can eliminate your stomach fat in only 2-minutes a day just by throwing on some worthless "abdominal belt" around your belly, or sizzle away the abdominal fat and love handles by using their patented "ab-rocker-roller" thingymajig.

Please someone inject some sanity! I hope you have been insulted by these fraudulent scamsters and the gimmicks that they are pushing on you every day by trying to lure you into believing that a stomach fat reduction miracle is possible in 2 minutes/day.

So let us set the record straight and get past all of the gimmicks and scams and get right down to the reality and hard science regarding the strategies & techniques that really do help you to get rid of your stubborn stomach fat and keep it off for life!

1) The 1st important aspect that we will talk about is how you structure your workout programs. In order to stimulate stomach fat loss, you need to eliminate so much wasted time doing all the various abs exercises and hundreds of reps of sit ups, crunches, side bends, and torso twists in the hopes of "spot-reducing" your love handles and stomach fat.

I am sure by now that you know (if you have read any decent reputable fitness publications over the last decade) that spot-reduction is a myth and it simply DOES NOT occur. The truth is, you can't lose your stomach fat or love handles by doing exercises that target the abdominals or obliques. Unfortunately, although most people do understand this aspect by now (or at least they should), most still devote WAY too much of their workout time trying to isolate the stomach and love handles with hundreds of abs and obliques exercises.

Now don't get me wrong, a certain amount of abdominals and core exercises in general are great and they do help to strengthen and help you maintain a healthy back and core. But the truth is that exercises directly targeting the stomach and obliques should only be a small portion of your workout routines. To get the best fat loss results, the majority of your training time should be focused on big multi-joint exercises that work the largest muscle groups of the body like the legs, chest, and back.

That is one of the TRUE secrets for getting rid of that floppy stomach fat for life. Focusing the majority of your time on big multi-joint exercises for the largest portions of the body causes a large increase in your metabolic rate both during the workout, and for 1-2 days after the workout. This style of exercise also stimulates an increase in production of fat-burning hormones in your body. You just do not receive this type of metabolism boost and hormonal response by wasting all of your time with hundreds of "abdominals-pumping" and obliques exercises.

So you want to lose your stomach fat right? Well, get your butt under a barbell and do some squats, some deadlifts, some step-ups, some lunges, some chest and back exercises. It doesn't necessarily matter if it is barbells, dumbbells, or even bodyweight exercises... the focus should be on full body multi-joint exercises at a high intensity. Yes, that also means no 10-minute rest periods between sets while you "exercise your jaw" with half of the people at the gym.

If you want to lose your stomach fat for good, this requires some intensity and focus during your workouts! Anybody who tells you that you can eliminate your stomach fat with your butt parked on the couch watching TV with some "abdominal-belt" strapped to you, or doing only two minutes of crunching with your "ab-roller-rocker" is simply lying to you!

2) The second important aspect to eliminate your flabby stomach fat is your nutrition program. The first thing you should realize is that "dieting" only works against your body's instincts in your effort to lose the belly fat. The problem is, if you follow any of these gimmick diets like low-carb, or low-fat, the soup diet, or anything else that restricts 1 or more of the macro-nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fat), what usually happens is that you actually lose lean muscle and essentially lower your metabolic rate. This only makes you fatter in the long term, because when you start to eat normal again, you now have a lower caloric maintenance level due to the lowered metabolism.

I could go into even more details, but you are basically messing up the processes in your body related to your hormonal balance, the muscle glycogen process, blood sugar, insulin, etc. This stops your body fat loss dead in its tracks!

It's important to stop being suckered into the diet gimmicks, and understand that we are meant to eat a balanced diet full of a diverse variety of foods from healthy natural sources of proteins, carbohydrates, AND fats. This gives your body all of the macro-nutrients as well as all of the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and enzymes that the body needs to hum along as a well-oiled fat-burning machine!

I have dozens more strategies to help you lose your stubborn stomach fat faster... the natural way, but this article can only be so long, so look below to grab a free report encompassing some of my most effective fat-loss tips and strategies to help you lose that stomach fat and uncover those hidden six pack abs of yours.

By: Michael Geary

Grab your FREE report which reveals over 27 additional specific secrets for stomach fat loss and increasing your metabolism at Lose Stomach Fat & Love Handles Faster Michael Geary (CPT) is a recognized International Fitness Expert, contributing writer for Muscle & Fitness Hers Magazine, and author of the internationally-popular book, The Truth about 6-Pack Abdominals. Michael is also the owner of 4-Minute Workouts for Busy Men

Labels: