5 Effective Tips to Help you Lose That Stubborn Belly Fat

From the Tummy Tuck to the latest diet trends, losing that persistent stomach fat often feel like a fool’s errand. Unfortunately, it’s not just achieving that body beautiful either, those excess kilos around your waistline could indicate some very severe health risks.

The internet is full of advice on losing weight and it can be confusing and overwhelming, so we’ve come up with some simple, yet proven, top tips to get rid of that belly fat and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Changing your mindset

Lower belly fat is terrible for your long term health and very difficult to lose. This is where a healthy mindset can really help; staying positive long term is key to achieving your weight loss goals.

Developing a growth mindset will create the mental space required to successfully implement a healthy lifestyle while maintaining a fixed mindset only reinforces limits on your capabilities.

As a long term strategy, rather than focusing on losing kilos quickly, a growth mindset is about setting an intention and understanding you’re committed.

• Listen to your body and learn what it really needs, rather than assuming.
• Make a commitment to yourself and your long term health goals.
• Develop a growth mindset.
• Set smaller, short term goals around food and exercise to maximise success and encourage commitment.
• Don’t give yourself a hard time if you miss goals, just reset your intention.
• Take time every day to reaffirm your intentions about yourself.
• When negative thoughts sneak in you need positive affirmation.

Online resources

According to a 2016 report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), diabetes is on the rise. No longer a disease of predominantly rich nations, the prevalence of diabetes is steadily increasing globally and across all demographics.

Diabetes of all types can lead to complications in many parts of the body and can increase the overall risk of dying prematurely. Possible complications include heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, leg amputation, vision loss and nerve damage.

The WHO report tells us that, globally, an estimated 422 million adults were living with diabetes in 2014, compared to 108 million in 1980. The global prevalence (age-standardized) of diabetes has nearly doubled since 1980, rising from 4.7% to 8.5% in the adult population. This reflects an increase in associated risk factors such as being overweight or obese.

Diabetes Australia has some great resources on how to prevent type 2 diabetes and the warning signs that you may be headed that way. These sites may seem like a cursory tool to help with weight loss but they are just a starting block; the catalyst to you becoming healthy.

• Read WHO report on The Global Burden of Diabetes
• In 2014 there were 422 million people with diabetes.
• People can help prevent type 2 diabetes through exercise and diet.
• Being overweight or obese is strongly linked to diabetes.
• Adults with diabetes historically have two or three times higher rate of cardiovascular disease.

Diet and exercise

This may sound like pretty vanilla advice but it’s also still most effective weight loss technique; change your diet and exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle and you will see results. Though it may take time to see those results around your midsection, it will happen. People can get put off by cardio and salad but that’s not what it means. It’s important to find what you like to do for exercise whether it be a dance class or lifting weights and then just do it and if you can’t bear to give up some of your favourite food then start by using portion control as a measure.

You can’t target a particular area to lose weight, so focus on the whole.

It doesn’t matter if you hate cardio, you can still lose weight lifting weights.

If you don’t want to work out at the gym there are some great free apps for home workouts.

If you want to lose weight and be healthy for the long term, patience is key.

Create healthy habits

You don’t need an iron will to get rid of that excess weight around your tummy shouldn’t feel bad if you crave a chocolate muffin after a workout while your mate happily grabs a carrot juice. It’s all about changing and developing different habits with some persistence and a little time.

It’s generally assumed that habits usually take several weeks to change. You need to constantly reinforce your desire to change in order to retrain your brain. As frustrating as that will inevitably be, once again it comes back to having a little patience in order to change these negative habits.

When it comes to reducing tummy fat, besides using stimulant-free fat burner supplements, here we’re specifically talking about exercise and diet, so mindfully removing food triggers and finding something healthy to replace it with would be a good starting point. For example, not going to the supermarket hungry or avoiding certain junk food isles, or going to a farmers market instead of a regular supermarket will help you develop better food norms. Get into the habit of putting on your gym clothes too, even if you don’t feel like working out. Chances are you’ll change your mind if you’re ready to go and eventually the gym will become a habit too.

• Identify what you need to change.
• Find a healthy replacement for an unhealthy habit.
• Remove the culprit triggers
• Changing a habit is difficult, so be persistent.
• Start a healthy lifestyle journal to keep you on track.

Tummy tuck

The Tummy tuck, or Abdominoplasty, is a solution for loose skin in both men and women following significant weight loss. Aside from the obvious aesthetic rewards, it can also help repair damage to lower stomach muscles, restore other abdominal functions and ease persistent back pain.

Excessive loose skin is often the outcome of serious weight loss comes with its own, often significant, medical problems. Using your health fund to cover costs can significantly decrease the financial burden on you if you have a good policy, so this is definitely something to consider if you think it’s an option.

If you decide on a Tummy Tuck here are some important things you need to do:

• Find a skilled surgeon with a great reputation.
• Educate yourself about potential complications.
• Make sure you’re done with the weight loss side of your journey.
• Be prepared for life after surgery and stick to all the healthy changes you’ve already made in your life.
• Have at least one in-depth, consultation where you can ask lots of questions.

The reason there’s so many health and weight loss tips out there isn’t because people are looking for something new, it’s because we all need reassurance; that push, that little bit of encouragement to keep going. Losing that tummy fat isn’t impossible it’s just so damn difficult and having a community behind you – whether it’s online, family or a training buddy- is just as important as anything else on our list when it comes to successfully finding better health and getting rid of that stomach fat.