How to Lose Stomach Fat

The most effective way for how to lose stomach fat is not complicated. Here's what it takes to get a leaner midsection.

One thing I want to clarify right off the bat is that there's really no such thing as stomach fat, as your stomach is a digestive organ and fat does not accumulate in your stomach. When we're talking about stomach fat, we're really talking about belly fat or abdominal fat. With that being said, let's get into the details of how to lose belly fat.

One of the first places that many people - especially men - store body fat is around their midsection. And even though the midsection area is often the first place that fat gets stored when people gain it, it's often the last place that fat comes off when people lose it. This is why many people get frustrated when trying to lose belly fat. But don't get discouraged if you have stubborn abdominal fat to lose. You will lose it as long as you follow an effective fat burning program.

An effective fat burning program involves creating a calorie deficit using a combination of fat burning nutrition and exercise (both aerobic exercise and weight training). Belly fat is stored energy, and to get rid of it you have to burn more energy (calories) than you consume.

Fat burning nutrition does not involve going on a very low calorie diet. When trying to lose belly fat, far too many people make the mistake of drastically reducing their calories. If you go on a very low calorie diet, you'll end up losing much more water weight and muscle than body fat, and you'll most likely end up gaining back any body fat that you do lose once you go off of your very low calorie diet and go back to your old eating habits.

Fat burning nutrition involves cutting back on calories, not drastically reducing them. It involves following a healthy eating plan that creates a calorie deficit without starvation. Fat burning nutrition is also a personalized way of eating that's based on you as an individual - your body type, your genetics, your metabolism - and what mix of protein, carbohydrate and fat works best for you.

With regard to exercise, both aerobic exercise and weight training are equally important when it comes to losing abdominal fat. Aerobic exercise burns calories. Weight training builds lean muscle mass. The more lean muscle mass you have the higher your metabolism will be, and a higher metabolism will cause your body to burn more calories 24/7.

And for any of you ladies reading this, don't be worried that if you start lifting weights you're going to build big, bulky muscles. Women don't have enough of the hormone testosterone (a key hormone for building muscle) to develop big, bulky muscles. Weight lifting will give you a strong, firm, toned body, not a big, bulky body.

What about doing ab exercises? Isn't this a good way to "burn off" fat from the midsection? No, it isn't. It's impossible to "burn off" fat from a specific area of your body by selectively exercising that area. When you lose fat, you're unable to choose the area in which the fat loss will occur. Your body determines which fat stores it will use, and it uses fat stores over your entire body, not just one area. Exercising a specific area of your body will build and strengthen the underlying muscle, but it will have no direct effect on fat loss in that area.

In conclusion, when it comes to how to lose stomach fat, the formula is actually pretty simple. If you consistently follow a fat burning program that combines fat burning nutrition, aerobic exercise and weight training, you'll not only lose belly fat, you'll improve your overall health and fitness.