Lose The Belly Fat Blues

Belly fat is a bad bad thing. Nothing can swing your good mood to the blues more quickly than a sharp glance down to where the toes of your sandals should be only to spy your old nemesis, the jelly belly lurking between you and your perky toenail polish. One of the main reasons we are so fixated about losing fat from our belly is that it is right out there in front of ... well ...in front of everything really. We sort of lead with our belly and it is a constant shaming reminder that we are not fit and slim and healthy.

Being the bit of us where we secure our trousers, skirts and undies, we are confronted with our belly fat facts, not just every day, but lots and lots of times through each day. Not to worry. Belly fat does not have to be forever.

This is how lose the belly fat blues in a 3 part harmony.

Part 1: Immediately straighten up.
Chin up, chest out, suck the guts in, straighten the spine. Make those rusty old ab muscles do a bit of work. Yes, abdominal muscles are no myth and believe me, even if you can't see them you are going to feel them after a couple of days of good posture and tummy squeezing. Plus, if you have your chin up, as well as losing the not-so-fetching round shouldered look that makes your stomach look even bigger, you won't even see your belly. Bonus points!

Part 2: Get walking.
Walk as fast as you are comfortably able for at least 30 minutes a day. You don't start to burn fat from your body's reserves until you have walked briskly for at least 20 minutes, so the longer you can walk for within reason the better. Aim to go from 30 minutes to 1 hour per day, with only 1 day off a week.

Get into the habit of going at the same time and to the same place each day. Have a contingency plan for wet weather walking, so you don't end up missing your exercise and feeding your belly fat monster instead.

Your body will ache from regular walking; muscles and joints will protest quite a bit. But you will wobble a lot less after just 6 short weeks. Your belly fat will shrink. It's worth the discomfort for the reward, don't you think?

Now in the first 6 weeks, you are just going to feel firmer and lose weight all over, so don't expect a concave stomach to emerge (submerge?) anytime soon. You will be losing fat in proportion and it's all good.

Part 3: Stop feeding your belly fat monster.
Cut out most of the saturated fats from your daily diet. Saturated fats should make up a maximum of 10% of what you eat. You can healthily consume a further 20% from unsaturated fats, but you have to make the shift if you want to ditch your belly fat.

Now, you are never going to achieve six pack abs with good posture, some brisk walking and a reasonable diet. To get the body of a body builder or fitness model, you have to be totally dedicated to sculpting your body. You need a long term low fat, low carb diet with lashings of cardio and strength training exercises. The reason so many people admire six pack abs and indeed covert them is because of their relative rarity.

Worry about that later. Let's just make a very good beginning by losing the belly fat blues.

Your Fat Loss Efforts Are Going To Fail

Sooner or later, (sooner for most of us), the fat loss efforts that you put in are going to fail. You may be cruising along, quite happy with your diet and exercise efforts; nutritious food, invigorating workouts, healthy glowing skin....then from seemingly out of nowhere the bathroom scale and its devious sidekick, the full length bedroom mirror, give you, well, a kick in the side. Ugh!

The scale and the mirror will not deceive you very much or very often. It could be that you are a bit bloated; maybe have a bit of water retention. But it could also be your fat loss failure wake up call. Maybe you've been cheating too much on your diet and exercise program. Don't get me wrong - we all cheat, but the ones who get caught are generally the ones who cheat more often and more spectacularly.

Maybe you're taking the exercise too easy. If you are not at least a little puffed during and after your daily workout, you have been slack with your calorie burning efforts. (You are still doing a daily 45 minute to 1 hour workout with just one rest day a week, aren't you? Aren't you???)

How about your calorie intake? Are you recording all you eat in your food and exercise diary? Are your portions truly controlled or are you employing good ol' guesswork? You know, even professionals in the health and fitness industry like nutritionists and dietitians will underestimate their portions if they don't measure them accurately once in awhile as a benchmark. Calorie amnesia is a major cause of fat loss failure.

The bottom line is that your fat loss efforts have failed. Now what?

Your response to this question is crucial. You can give up, like so many before you. Give up and be overweight, unhappy and frustrated. Back where you started or worse. People really fail only when they make the choice to give up.

Not an attractive choice.

Look, the secret is, don't see fat loss failure as insurmountable defeat. It will happen. It happens to everyone. It happens way more than once.

You don't let failure in other areas of your life stop you from your eventual triumph, do you? Try to remember how hard it once was to tie a shoelace, write a sentence, drive a car. You learned these things, despite initial failure and frustration because they were vitally important to you. You have to make fat loss for a healthy mind and body a top, if not the top, priority in your personal life. See failure as an opportunity to review and reconsider your tactics.

You will fail in your fat loss efforts, but you must rise from the ashes and be the majestic phoenix, not the pathetic chicken.