Sometimes what we are searching for is not what we need.
While searching for gold, a now very famous man found a market hungry for hard-wearing work clothes and made a multi-million dollar company selling denim outfits.
Marilyn Manson tried to become a horror story writer for years.
Richard Branson started off selling rock records and now runs an intergalactic space travel business.
Trying to find an exercise to reduce tummy fat is like kicking your chicken because they are not laying eggs.
This photo blows my mind
Often we search through the television, but we don’t even know what we are searching for – we are literally waiting for something that is entertaining enough to make us not click away from it.
The point I am trying to make here is that so often in life we think that we know what we want, but we don’t know how to get it so we guess.
Obviously if you are going for a job interview you are going to guess that the right thing to do is to dress up nicely, do your hair, put on some nice cologne, brush your teeth and be looking like a GQ model.
But what if you show up and the guy interviewing you is in a bush shirt with a baseball cap on and Cat boots?
He is going to think you are a pretty boy, a city slicker who doesn’t know one end of a shovel from the other and will likely give the job to someone he feels looks more like a hard worker.
What Does This Have To Do With Reducing Tummy Fat?
Everything really.
So often, as a “fitness guy”, I get asked these questions such as the title of this article. I have to respond the same way each time because otherwise I am just shortchanging the people who have taken the time to recognize that I know a few tricks and they have the balls to actually ask me – which is rare these days indeed.
I haven’t drawn this article out to try and put you to sleep with analogies or metaphors, but I just want to point out that in fitness often you think you know something, but you need to know more.
Asking the question “What is the best exercise to reduce belly fat” is a prime example.
This might be news, but let me explain,
Fat Loss Has Little To Do With Specific Exercises
The way your body loses or stores fat is like this:
If your total daily calorie expenditure works out that you need 2000 calories per day to maintain your current weight and physical make up, then if you eat slightly more than that every day and keep your exercise the same, you will put on weight over time.
If you consume slightly less every day over time you will lose body fat.
I am not advocating calorie counting, but I think everyone who has an interest in their body should know how many calories they require each day to stay the same and roughly what foods make up that amount of calories.
I recommend counting calories for a few days just so you get used to knowing what sort of meals have what sort of calories, only because as humans we are such fallible creatures.
When your body tells you are hungry, you probably are not actually in need of nutrients to give you energy, you are more likely bored, stressed, tired, restless, emotionally moody, hurting for some reason or you are just plain loving the tastes in your mouth and the feeling of eating – not the nutrients that you need.
If you listen to your body to know when to eat you will always be eating because often we “could eat”.
This means we aren’t hungry, but we aren’t full, so we “could eat”, and often we do.
So, to create fat loss you must have a calorie deficit in your system, on average over the week.
This means that one day you can eat normally, one day you can starve yourself and the next day have a bit of a binge and in theory at the end of the week you should be a bit leaner, but like anything the drama is in the details.
You watch a bodybuilding video about food weighing and you will see what I mean.
However for the average guy or gal who is keen to lose a few pounds and get into shape, you don’t need all of that – you just need to reduce you calories a bit, change some foods and exercise more often.
When you are performing exercise, all you are doing is using up some of the calories you have consumed that day, so if you are already eating below what you need to maintain your current weight, plus you exercise, that is when you start getting mind blowing results.
The next question you are probably wondering is…
So Which Exercises Burn The Most Calories?
Funny you should ask that – because as someone who wants to burn as many calories as possible, you don’t want to spend hours on end in the gym and then find out you have been burning a quarter of what you could have been.
To put it simply, the exercises that burn the most calories, and therefore the most stomach fat, are ones where you use your whole body and you have to work hard to do.
An example of a bad fat loss exercise would be an ab machine because you are only using a few muscles to do these workouts. Plus your range of motion is very little, and often you are only lifting a small portion of your body weight.
The actual “work” that your body does is very little.
An example of a good fat loss exercise would be the clean and press. This is where you take a barbell or dumbbells, pick them up off the floor and press them over your head, then repeat.
Think for a second how much work this is for your body.
First you have to bend over, pick up the weights, then squat yourself up, thrust the weights up to shoulder height and then press them over head.
This is using your whole body as one unit and forcing you to work hard.
Most exercises that use your whole body are a great way to burn fat, but here is a list of the best ones:
- Swimming
- Running or Jogging
- HIIT
- Boxing or Kickboxing
- Body weight training
- Compound weight lifting exercises
- Skipping
If you include these sort of exercises into your workout then you can expect to burn far more body fat than if you had focused on things such as ab machines, bicep curls and stepping machines.
For your own sake and sanity, make sure you don’t get roped into stupid scams that will just make your wallet thinner and your face looking sad.
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