You need to realize that your belly is the first area where you will see large amounts of fat accumulate and it is the last area where you will lose it. That’s why you will sometimes see otherwise fit people with a little bit of a pouch. Even people who go to the gym regularly and mostly eat right can be concerned with their stomachs because every mistake is written there. How to lose your belly fat starts with the concept that you’ve got to be in pretty good shape to start with.

If you are 50 pounds over weight, you shouldn’t be concerned with how to lose your belly fat right now. Your present concern is losing the extra weight. A general combination of diet and cardio and strength training exercises is what you want to focus on.

If you are at your ideal weight or weigh 5 pounds more, then you can start worrying about how to lose your belly fat. At this point, you have a good chance of really tackling the problem.

Most people advocate sit ups or crunches to take off this last little bit. Indeed, sometimes “belly fat” isn’t fat at all but untoned muscles.

If you do have belly fat, a step up from sit ups and crunches is using a stability ball. Scientists at Sacramento State University in California took muscle fiber samples from people who regularly did crunches and people who regularly used a stability ball and found that the ball users had twice the muscle fiber. This $30 piece of equipment that you can buy at a sporting goods store is well worth the investment.

Next, consider exercises that bring your legs level to or above your waist. Many people have found that kickboxing is an excellent activity to give them flat stomachs. Not only are you getting a great cardio workout with kickboxing, but you are also moving your legs above your waist line. This is important, because it works out the muscles in your lower belly.

Dancing is also an activity that can help you get the perfect stomach. All kinds of dancing are good, but (and this one is mostly for the ladies), belly dancing specifically targets the muscles in that region. Join a belly dancing class at the local community center or just get video tapes that show you how to do it.

Don’t rely solely on cardio type activities though. You need to be building your muscle mass. Remember that muscle burns fat and when you have more muscle, you are burning fat all day long not just when you work out.

Many people focus on their stomachs as a sore point when they are really overweight all over. For them, I say “get in shape.” Only then will you lose the belly fat.

But, if you are fit, losing the tummy can be the result of doing specific exercises that target the problem area.

And, that’s how to lose your belly fat.

For beginners, these three lose belly fat exercise described here can help to get you started.

First, sit on the ball and place your hands on the ball for balance. Alternatively, place your hands behind your head which makes it more difficult but a better strength exercise.  Slowly begin to roll your hips in a circle towards the right, making small circles and then, as you get comfortable, larger circles.  Do 10 to 20 circles then repeat the exercise to the left. While it sounds simple, this exercise will be working all of the muscles of the stomach making it a perfect lose belly fat exercise.

The next lose belly fat exercise is called the Seated March. Sit on the ball with your spine straight and your abs in.  Begin a slow march, alternating lifting the right foot and then the left.  As you get comfortable with the movement, lift the knees higher and march faster. You can also add a bounce on the ball if you feel comfortable.  Repeat this exercise for 1 to 2 minutes.

The final beginner’s exercise I’m going to outline here is the Seated Balance. You will sit on the ball with your spine straight and your abs in.  Place the hands on the ball if you are a beginner or behind your head if you have more confidence and lift your right foot off the floor, holding it in the air for at least 5 seconds.  Lower and repeat on the left side.  Repeat 5 to 10 times.  Keep your abs in to help keep your balance.

All of these beginner’s lose belly fat exercise routines have you sitting on the ball. As you gain confidence with the stability ball, you will begin to do exercises that have you starting from the floor, from your knees, and even from lying on top of the ball. The manual that comes with the stability ball should describe many different exercises with illustrations to help you get the gist of what you are supposed to be doing.

If you are under 5’1, get an 18 inch ball. From 5’1 to 5’8, get a 22 inch ball. And, for those over 5’8, you’ll want to use a 26 inch ball.

The stability ball will give you many lose belly fat exercise ideas.

While you probably realize that excess fat is unhealthy, you should also know that where the fat is distributed is key to health. People who are fattest in the abdomen (the so called “apple shaped body”) have a greater risk of heart disease and diabetes than those with pear shapes (fattest in the hips, buttocks, and thighs).
You won’t be surprised to learn that the best way to lose abdominal fat is to eat right and exercise regularly. And there’s a growing body of evidence showing that the quickest way to burn off the fat from your belly is with a mix of weight-training and aerobic exercise.

One study tracked 30 obese women for six months. The women were assigned to either a control group, an aerobic exercise group, or a combined exercise group.The aerobic exercise group did a full hour of cardio exercise for six days a week. The combined exercise group did weight training on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and aerobic exercise on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

At the end of the six month period, the women in the aerobic group had lost 23.1 cm of abdimonal subcutaneous fat while the combined group lost 61.8 cm, nearly three times as much. The combined group also did better on the abdominal visceral fat measure with 93 cm lost compared to 82 for the aerobic only group. There was no change in the control group.

How do you lose belly fat starts with developing a combined exercise plan that is strenuous. 30 minutes a few times a week won’t cut it. You need a full body training program combining cardiovascular and resistance exercises. You don’t need to do hundreds of crunches, sit ups or any of the complicated routines being touted by the “six pack abs” hype machine. The key to losing belly fat is to burn more calories than you eat. These fancy exercises don’t burn the kind of calories you need in order to be really successful.

Getting killer abs has a lot less to do with training and everything to do with lowering your total body fat. The next step is to eat the right foods. There is a lot of conflicting information on nutrition. From the Adkins “eat no carbs” people to those who eschew all fats, there are radicals on every side.

How do you lose belly fat starts with taking in enough protein to maintain muscle mass. At least 20 to 30 percent of your diet should come from fats. Then, you balance your carbs around the other two factors depending on whether you want to lose weight or not. And if you are trying to lose belly fat, you do want to lose weight. You must take in fewer calories than you burn.

How do you lose belly fat? Basically, if you lose the excess fat in your system, your belly will go away too.

There are several reasons why you have accumulated fat in your belly. The trick to “I want to lose my belly fat” lies in controlling the intake of the products which add to your belly fat while taking the precautionary measures that allow you to lose all of your belly fat fast.  You can get slim and slender.

There are several substantive suggestions I have to the dilemma “I want to lose my belly fat.”

1. Do sit ups.  Sit ups and crunches are the easiest and probably the most effective way to lose belly fat fast. You will achieve the desired results in no time. All fat is just stored energy.  Therefore, in order to lose belly fat, you need to burn more calories than you consume. In order to get the best results, you need to do sit ups which are the single most effective exercise. They work on almost all body types.

2. Next, cut out the fried stuff. In order to get washboard abs, you need to cut out some kinds of foods. Fried foods will put on belly fat faster than any other kind of caloric intake. Fried foods mostly contain empty calories which are poor in nutrient value.  They only provide you with calories which add to your belly fat.

3. Don’t snack between meals. Snacking is one of the best (or worst) ways to stack up that belly fat. And, late night eating is the worst kind of snacking.  When you consume your calories during the day, you have a chance to burn them off.  But, when you eat at night, you go to sleep and that food just sits in your stomach.  Additionally, when you eat at night, you tend to engage in mindless snacking.  You’ll start out with a whole bag of chips and after an hour of television, half is gone.  When you snack, you are not being mindful of your food which leads you to have to say “I want to lose my belly fat.”

4. Burn it off.  As I mentioned earlier, belly fat is unused energy.  It accumulates in the form of fat in the stomach area. If you want to get rid of belly fat, you have to burn off more calories than you take in.  All kinds of aerobic exercise is good for burning belly fat.  This can include walking, running, cycling, or working out on a cardio machine at the gym.  But even working basic activities like taking the stairs instead of the elevator at work or parking in the furthest lot when going to the mall can help.

If you find yourself saying “I want to lose my belly fat,” follow the four suggestions in this article and you will soon find yourself with the flat stomach that you have longed for.

The key is that you need to do a variety of kinds of exercises.  The best strategy is to do an hour of cardio exercises every other day and 45 minutes to an hour of strength training every other day.

Walking, running, cycling, and working out on cardio equipment at the gym all qualify as aerobic exercises.

To deal specifically with the question of how to lose lower belly fat, you need to realize that lower stomach fat is different than the rest of your abs.  Sit ups and ab workouts can help, but they will not get rid of it.  You need to do cardio in combination with your ab workouts.  You may not see results right away, but keep at it.

Besides sit ups, Hata Yoga can help with lower belly fat.  Vajrasana exercises involve you bending to the front of your knees which provides a great workout.  This kind of yoga should be done under the guidance of an instructor if you are a beginner.

In addition to normal “stomach exercises,” work with your legs.  Do exercises that require your legs to come level with or above your lower waist line.  This causes your lower abdominal muscles to work in order for you to keep your balance.  Kickboxing is a great example of a type of exercise that can keep your stomach completely flat.

Vigorous dancing can provide this kind of leg exercises.  In addition to helping you lose weight, it tones your legs and helps you to lose belly fat.  Belly dancing in particular will work to rid you fo belly fat.  You can either join a class or get videos to teach you the movements.

But cardio-type exercise alone will not answer the question “How to get rid of lower belly fat?”  Indeed, you must involve some weight training at least three times a week.

Remember that muscle mass burns fat.  When you put on muscle, your body is burning fat all day, not just when you exercise.  So, don’t neglect this aspect of losing your lower belly fat.

You have to get close to your ideal body weight in order to have the firm, flat stomach you desire.  Your lower belly fat will be among the last fat you lose.  If you are 50 pounds overweight, getting in shape should be your first goal, because your long term goal of losing lower belly fat will only happen when most of your other fat is gone.  So, if you are a pretty fit person who just has a little pouch, some specific types of exercises will work.  But, if you are overweight, it is going to take some long term work.

And that’s the answer to the question, “How to lose lower belly fat?”