#127 13 Strategies That Will Help You Lose Belly Fat
If you need to lose belly fat, or even if you’re just having trouble losing those last few kilos, these strategies are guaranteed to work!
- Keep A Food Diary
This can get a bit tedious, but is worth it. I recommend writing down everything you eat for exactly 1 week (including the weekend) and including drinks and snacks. Review how you went at the end of the week. It will help you identify where you are going wrong and when you are most likely to eat bad foods. Come up with a plan on how you going to tackle these.
- Pay Attention To What You Eat
Don’t sit there eating mindlessly; be aware of what you are putting in your mouth. Research has shown that people who watch TV while they eat, consume around 300 calories more than those who don’t watch TV.
- Don’t Be Tricked By “Healthy” Foods
Just because it’s “healthy” doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have lots and lots of calories in it. The worst culprits these days are smoothies, smoothie bowls, juices, raw treats, etc. They are still very high in calories so should be limited or kept as treats.
- Eat Slowly
It takes 20 minutes for you to realize that you are feeling full. Take your time when eating your food and you’ll end up eating less. If you eat really quickly and end up eating too much, you’ll feel full and bloated 30 minutes later.
- Put Away Snacks
When grabbing snacks from a container or box, take out how much you need (even measure it out if you can!) and put the rest away so you are not tempted to continue eating. And never eat from the container – you’ll end up eating a lot more!
- Have A Fruit Bowl
Having a fruit bowl can come in handy when you’re in a rush and need to grab a healthy snack, or even if you’re at home and feel like a snack. You’ll be more likely to have a piece of fruit when it’s staring at you from the table, rather than going out of your way to have something naughty.
- Use Smaller Plates
This one’s to do with portion sizes. For some reason we think that we need to completely fill our plates. If you use large plates, you’re more likely to eat more! Buy some small plates and try eating from these. Check out my portion size guide for more tips.
- Smoothies
Smoothies are SO tasty and so easy. They are also a much better option than fruit juice, which has a lot sugar and not as much fiber. Smoothies are also great when you’re in a rush. You can whip one up the night before and have it on the run. My favourite smoothie is ½ banana, 1 cup berries, 1 scoop protein powder, 1 cup unsweetened almond milk, 1 tablespoon chia seeds and 1 tablespoon peanut butter.
- Limit Deep-Fried Food
Deep fried food contains lots and lots of calories and little nutrients. Even though they taste delicious! I’m not saying to never eat them, because I’m sure that won’t happen. But keep it as a treat, just like you would chocolate.
- Limit Eating Out
When you eat out, you not only spend more money, but you eat a lot more calories than you would expect, even if you choose the healthy options. What’s more, you’ll be much more tempted to choose the unhealthy options, or finish with dessert.
- No Soft Drink
Soft drink is one of the biggest contributors to obesity and heart disease in the United States (and probably other countries too!). Soft drink is FULL of calories and offers no nutrition value whatsoever. Afterwards, you’ll end up feeling lethargic, hungry and with a craving more sweet food. If there is one thing to cut out completely, it’s soft drink.
- Walk Everyday
Many people don’t realize, but walking is actually a great fat burning activity. Sure it won’t burn as many calories as other forms of exercise, but it WILL burn calories, and WILL use fat as the main fuel source. Read more here on why I love walking to help get lean.
- Lift Weights
Having muscle means you will burn LOTS more calories, even while you’re sleeping. It will be much easier for you drop belly fat and should be the key focus in your exercise regime. This doesn’t mean that you need to be lifting heavy. You could do a body weight circuit or stick to carrying a lighter weight with high reps.
If you’re looking for something more specific, check out my 3 Steps To A Flat Stomach ebook! It includes an 8 week workout program with the most effective workouts to get you lean and toned. It also includes an 8 week clean eating nutrition program – no 2 days are the same! xx
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Rachael is an Australian born certified personal trainer and nutritionist who holds a Bachelor degree in Science.
After struggling for years to find an exercise and diet program that is tailored to women striving for lean and toned body with no bulk she designed her Lean Legs Program. This program is tailored to each body type and focused on helping women get toned but feminine bodies, without getting bulky.
Her mission is to empower women and help them stay in shape in a healthy and balanced way.
Hi Rachael, I recently found your website and have been obsessively reading your blog posts. I like to think that I am a fitness information junky unfortunately all that info hasn’t helped me see the results I desire. I was pretty overweight and have through lots of cardio lost almost all the pounds that I need to, I have been counting my macros for about three months now and have seen good signs. My problem is that I am now skinny fat, even with doing body weight/ weights off and on. My trouble with losing those last few pounds and transforming my body has proven harder than losing 15 pounds, I’ve done Tone it up for a few months now but i keep searching for a plan that I gel with, because I have a fear of bulking up. My family has a history of bulking, especially us girls plus I’m pretty sure I’m a mesomorph. I gain my weight in upper thigh and lower waist mid section area and I can’t seem to get the last squishy look to budge. Here’s my question, sorry this is so long.
Do I lift super heavy, I read somewhere that lifting heavy will burn the last few pounds away, and then see if that dose the trick. And if I bulk up then focus on leaning out?
I know I can’t just do cardio, which is my main focus right now. I don’t know really what to do and don’t want to waist my time doing the wrong thing, but that just means I’m doing nothing. I eat very healthy mostly clean prot and veggies, I have been very low calorie for some time now and have been slowly adding in more nutrient foods and learning to eat healthy good carbs, whereas before I was afraid of all carbs and fruit sugar limiting almost everything in those areas to nothing.
What would you do if you were me? I’m not fat by any means just un toned and unsure how to lean out my waist and thighs. Any advice would be helpful, I’d love to get your ebooks but right now money’s tight, any advice in the meantime whilst I save up would be appreciated. Thanks for dedicating a website to women and telling the truth about hormones and muscle I’ve found your articles very refreshing as opposed to those body building websites.
Hi lovely! Thanks for your kind words :) Well you could do heavy lifting if you want to – it will definitely help you tone up your tummy and lose the belly fat, but it definitely won’t slim down your thighs and will likely make them bigger. If you’re OK with this, then it might be worth doing. But losing muscle is harder than gaining it so will take a while for your legs to slim down again. I think it would be better to do the lighter style resistance workouts (do the free workouts on my blog!) and perhaps add in 1-2 non bulking HIIT workouts to help shed the belly fat quicker without bulking your legs. I hope that helps! Good luck :) xx