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- While you can't lose belly fat instantly, you can reduce it with a calorie deficit and exercise.
- Avoid refined sugars and carbs, processed foods, and sugary drinks including alcohol.
- You can expect a healthy amount of weight loss between 1-2 pounds a week through diet and exercise.
- Visit Insider's Health Reference library for more advice.
There's no real way to lose belly fat instantly, as much as you might want a quick-fix solution. Belly fat is often difficult to lose because it's different from other kinds of fat. The part that you can see and pinch is subcutaneous fat, which lies just under the skin, but it also includes visceral fat that surrounds the internal organs within the abdominal walls.
"Maintaining healthy levels of visceral fat is beneficial to your health," says Maricris Lapaix, a NASM-certified personal trainer and nutrition coach. Excessive visceral fat is a major contributor to cardiovascular diseases and other health conditions, so losing belly fat is important.
Can you lose belly fat in a week?
Diets and trends that claim to reduce belly fat within days are unrealistic and unhealthy. In terms of exercise, ab exercises can help tone your stomach, but you'll still need to lose weight overall to significantly reduce your stomach fat.
Since there's no way to control where your body loses weight, to lose belly fat you have to reduce overall body fat. "The best practices to lose belly fat will be a balance of an active lifestyle, a nutritious diet, and maintaining low stress levels," says Lapaix.
Here are the foods and exercises that can help you lose belly fat and when to expect results.
What foods help you lose belly fat?
In order to lose overall body fat, you'll need to be in a caloric deficit, which means you burn more calories than you consume.
"It is important to reduce the consumption of foods high in trans fat, refined carbs, and highly processed foods with added sugars," says Lapaix. However, avoiding food groups to burn belly fat is only a temporary solution caused by a caloric deficit, and the real key to keeping belly fat off in the long run is to create an individualized balanced diet that you can maintain long-term, she says.
"It is more important to select a sustainable diet and learn what foods work for you long-term versus a 'quick fix.' This is what leads to results and maintaining weight loss results," says Lapaix.
What exercises burn the most belly fat?
You can't control where you gain or lose weight. This is sometimes called "targeting weight loss" (also known as spot reduction) and it isn't realistic, says Lapix. For example, abdominal exercises alone aren't enough to get rid of or reduce belly fat.
"While it is common to hear about workout programs that target specific areas, you cannot pick the areas you'd like to target [for] weight loss," says Lapaix.
For example, resistance training focuses on developing muscles by lifting weights or using stuff like resistance bands. Whereas the main focus of aerobic training is to burn calories via cardio like running or jumping rope.
"A mix of resistance and aerobic training will be beneficial to increasing one's total body strength, and help reduce overall body fat," says Lapaix.
Additionally, having more muscle mass (i.e. the percentage of your body that is made of muscle) will increase how many calories your body naturally burns (this is also known as BMR).
Exercises that engage the whole body and build muscle are the best for reducing belly fat. Having more muscle mass (i.e. the percentage of your body that is made of muscle) will increase how many calories your body naturally burns (this is also known as BMR).
Results aren't instantaneous, so consistency is key. Additionally, it isn't a good idea to go from not working out at all to doing really intense workouts, says Lapix who recommends gradually adding on intensity to your workouts to avoid injury.
How fast can you realistically lose belly fat?
Reducing overall body fat will cut down on your belly fat. However, this isn't a process that happens overnight or even within days of starting on your weight loss journey. "A healthy amount of weight loss is one to two pounds per week," says Lapaix.
However, "there are many factors to consider with body composition, including age, gender, current weight, body fat, and muscle mass, to name a few," says Lapaix. "These will affect the rate at which someone loses weight, which nutritional plan to follow, and an appropriate activity level for them."
Combining exercise and a healthy diet is more effective than either of those factors alone, but other practices might also help in reducing belly fat, such as:
- Intermittent fasting
- Self-monitoring, like keeping a daily food diary
- Refraining from skipping breakfast
- Having enough sleep
According to Lapaix, higher stress levels can also cause body fat retention, so find healthy ways to manage stress, and avoid unhealthy behaviors like smoking and drinking.
Insider's takeaway:
Belly fat shouldn't be only a cosmetic concern -- an excess of visceral fat can increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and other health conditions.
To reduce belly fat engage in regular physical activity, eat a healthy diet, and manage your stress levels. You'll need to reduce overall body fat to reduce belly fat, which can take several weeks for noticeable results.
"Creating a sustainable lifestyle change with small and gradual changes to nutrition and physical activity will also keep stress levels down. This increases the likelihood of an individual keeping up all parts of their health and wellness journey," says Lapaix.