Losing Fat From Your Belly and Your Love Handles: Tips

     Often as a fitness professional I get asked for some advice on getting rid of more belly fat and whether or not you can do this by doing some abdominal exercises like sit ups and crunches. This an example of a typical gym myth and is one of the biggest mistakes people make when they are working out and want to lose weight.

Typical Question

"I want to do some extra work on my lower ab's, my big problem area is my belly fat and I want to tone up in the next month. I have read that a lot of belly weight can be controlled by your diet, I am sticking to the eating plan, however I just wanted to know if there is anything extra I can do to tone this area?"

Basically it is virtually impossible to spot reduce body fat through exercise. To put is as simply as possible doing more sit-ups, crunches or planks is not going to force your body to access and use the fat from that area or your body.I strongly believe that fat stored around the abdomen or the belly is primarily due to the actions of two vastly different hormones.

Hormone 1: Cortisol

The first is cortisol which is a stress hormone.Cortisol is released from the adrenal glands which are found just above the kidneys. This is released in times of stress. One of this hormones main jobs is to elevate blood glucose levels and it is part of the "fight or flight" response.This is your body's way of getting some extra emergency energy into the bloodstream when under physical, mental or even emotional stress. It is essentially an evolutionary survival mechanism that has ensured that was we could get a way from threats like big scary animals or if they were a bit smaller stand up and fight them.Stresses in modern life tend not to be as life threatening as maybe a few thousand years ago and are more likely to come in the form of work stress, finacial stress, traffic jams or even the end of a relationship or bereavement. The thing is though, that our bodies still react the same way. You can even be stressed from over-training or doing too much exercise.High levels of cortisol, which can be taken as high levels of stress (or lack of sleep) can contribute to the storage of fat around the belly. In addition to this stress can also stimulate your appetite and lead you eating more and more.

Tips To Reduce Stress and Lower Cortisol Exercise regularly but make sure that you don't over train.

Limit your workouts to no longer than 1 hour and have at least 2 days in the week where you don't do any exercise.

Get to bed by 10:30pm and sleep for about 8 hours.

Learn to relax and practice ways of relaxing either in the form of yoga, meditation or even by using relaxation mp3s or CDs.

Keep your blood sugar levels pretty steady by eating regularly and ensure that every meal contains some lean protein and some complex carbohydrates in the form of vegetables.

Hormone 2: Insulin

Insulin is responsible for storing bodyfat on your love handles. The job of insulin is to lower blood sugar (glucose) levels in response to a meal that contains sugar (carbohydrates).

When a rise in blood sugar levels is detected, especially if it's a rapid rise from sugary drink or sweet foods, then the pancreas kicks into action releasing insulin to get to work clearing up blood sugar levels and get them back down to safe levels.The problem is though that this sugar has to be either used up or stored.

To ensure that it is used up this basically forces the body to switch off any fat burning and go straight to glucose burning and any leftover glucose is sent to the liver to be stored as glycogen and eventually turned into fat.When insulin levels are absent or low due to eating a low carbohydrate meal, glucose (blood sugar) is not taken up by the muscle and liver and the body is forced into using fat as its primary energy source.

There is some more bad news especially if you are a woman.

Lower body fat reacts a bit differently than the rest of a fat on a woman's body. Have you ever noticed how lots of women have very lean upper bodies compared to their lower body.This is basically because the fat on the lower part of the body is a lot much more sensitive to increases in insulin than the upper body.

Even the tiniest spike in insulin will shut down a females ability to burn body fat on her lower body, although she may be able to still use fat as fuel from her upper body.

Tips to control blood sugar levels and insulin

Cut out highly processed foods including grains and sugar from your diet.

Eat protein with every meal

Eat healthy fats with every meal or consider taking a fish oil supplement and snacking on nuts between mealsGet some more sunshine or take a vitamin D supplement.

If you can manage to control both of these hormones through your diet and lifestyle as well as getting some regular beneficial exercise you will be well on your way to reducing your love handles and belly fat.

1. Prev:Wholesome Snacks You Can Eat When Trying To Lose Weight
2. Next:Amazing Advice On Getting Rid Of Tummy Fat Forever