If you’re wondering how to burn belly fat and have even considered taking diet pills or fat burners, you should try to do it the all natural way before taking extreme measures.
It’s not really natural for us to carry all that weight on our midsections, so getting back to a more natural state is one sure way to watch the fat go away, almost as a byproduct of our actions.
It doesn’t have to be an all out war to kill your stomach fat. Just make these 10 all-natural adjustments and it should effortlessly come off.
Natural Ways to Burn Belly Fat and Keep it Off for Good
1. Drink More Water
This is perhaps the most easiest and effortless way to lose belly fat, and it’s a problem for countless Americans.
There is a dehydration epidemic going on, and if we all just drank more water, and got closer to the amount that we actually need each day, there would be less obesity, fewer digestive problems, and more people that are awake and alert throughout the day.
But here’s the kicker: because it’s only involves drinking water it’s pretty easy, and easy things are easy to forget to do. If you’re conditioned to not drink enough water it can be pretty tough to make a change.
But stick with it and soon you’ll reach new levels of hydration and reduced levels of belly fat.
2. Aim for Total Body Fat
Trying to spot treat your stomach fat is one sure way to drive yourself up the wall. It may be the one area that you really care about the most, but you have to trust that if you aim for overall body fat loss, the stomach fat will have to go at some point too.
Fixating on a trouble spot is one way to keep it around for the long term, because what we put our focus on grows. A problem is only as hard as we make it out to be, so if you’re constantly thinking that your belly fat is the hardest thing to get rid of, you’ll prove yourself right time and time again.
Get a scale that measures your body fat percentage and aim to get that down to a level that is right for your gender. Keep this in mind: if you want to see your abs guys will have to get to around 10% body fat, while women need to get below 19% or so.
3. Get Sound Sleep
This is perhaps the easiest and hardest thing to do for most of us. Doing things in your sleep can’t get much easier, but finding the time in our busy lives to get more sleep can be a challenge.
The real struggle is that your deepest and most cleansing sleep comes from getting to bed earlier in the evening. For most that is just not an option, and others are so entrenched in their late nights that they can’t fathom going to bed at 10pm or earlier.
But science has repeatedly shown the link between getting deep sleep on a consistent basis and having less belly fat. You’ll be stressed out less, and you’ll wake up feeling refreshed and ready to greet the day, with more energy throughout the day.
The body also repairs itself at night, so you’re helping yourself in many different ways just by snoozing.
4. Do High Intensity Interval Training
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is where you go hard out for anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute, followed by periods of rest where you go very low intensity.
The beauty of this aerobic workout is that you spend a fraction of the time but the theory is that you’re getting results from this workout that last long into the next day.
They say that if you spend 40 minutes on a stationary bike just doing a low intensity aerobic workout, you’re only burning fat during that 40 minutes.
But with an HIIT workout lasting only 10-20 minutes you end up burning fat the entire day, and long after you’ve finished the workout. The process is pretty particular, so you’ll need to study up on it.
It involves getting your heart rate up to a certain level during the high intensity parts, and getting it back down during the low intensity parts, so you’ll need to get a heart rate monitor to effectively do this.
5. Mind Your Vitamins
It’s hard to make the connection between your belly fat and a vitamin deficiency, but there’s a high chance that if you’re struggling to lose fat you may be running short on several key vitamins needed for fat loss. The first of these is Vitamin D, often referred to as the Happy Vitamin.
Feeling good is key to losing fat of all types, and if you don’t have sufficient amounts of Vitamin D you could be inhibiting your ability to feel good and feel like being active. The key is getting more exposure to sunlight so that your body can make its own supply.
You’ll also want to make sure that you’re taking in enough natural sources of vitamins so that your body has all of the building blocks it needs to function at its best. You should be eating foods high in Vitamin C, as well as Vitamin E if you want to give yourself the best shot at losing that stubborn fat.
It’s best to get these vitamins from the foods you eat, rather than using a multivitamin, but if you find that you need to fill in the gaps go with a whole foods multivitamin, since it will be using food sources rather than using synthetic vitamins.
6. Get Healthy Fats Into Your System
Thanks to the no-fat and low-fat craze of the 90s and into the 2000s you’ll still find plenty of low and nonfat items at the grocery store.
This instilled the wrong view on fats and labeled all fats as bad. But the body needs healthy fat in order to burn fat, so if you’ve taken to cutting out fat in your diet, it’s time to let some of it back in.
Go for foods that contain high levels of the fats we’re after: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. The fat you want to continue to keep out is the saturated fat. Good sources of healthy fats include avocados, olive oil, salmon, and peanut butter.
These foods will actually help your fat loss efforts, so don’t be afraid of them.
7. Cut Back on Alcohol
Alcohol of all types is full of sugar, and sugar leads to fat. If you’ve managed to cut the sugar out of your life but still indulge in regular alcoholic beverages, you could be sabotaging yourself and not even know it.
You may see a study now and then that says one alcoholic drink a day is good for the body because it helps you relax, or it thins the blood. But what those studies don’t talk about is the cumulative effect that has on the body, and whether or not you’d be better off in the stomach area by not having that drink each day.
8. Avoid the Unnatural
Our modern world presents us with many things that just aren’t natural for the human body to have to deal with. Large portion sizes, sedentary lifestyles, high levels of stress, massive amounts of entertainment to keep us glued to our couches, and tons of pollution in many major cities all contribute to the condition we find our bodies in.
The more you can fight against these unnatural items, but better. Make sure you get some daily activity, because that’s natural for us. Feed your body plenty of fruits and vegetables, because that’s a very natural thing for a human to do.
Limit the amount of TV you watch, and take time to just decompress and get in touch with your inner self. Cut out unnatural substances like fast food and junk food. They don’t do you any favors and are contributing to the unnatural shape you’ve taken on.
You don’t have to become a monk or anything, but if you just unplug from the grid for a bit each day you’ll see how unnatural our world has become, and you’ll see the link between your body and the lifestyle that the masses subscribe to.
9. Drink Herbal Teas
Herbal teas are about as natural as it gets, often using spices and herbs that have been proven to speed up the metabolism, cleanse the body’s internal organs, or reduce stress.
You can also consider drinking green tea, as it contains EGCG, but not as much as green tea extract, which may be a better way to go and is still considered a natural way to lose fat.
Really anything that helps to calm the body is going to help you lose fat, so you can choose an array of different teas to enjoy throughout the day, and if you replace sodas, juices, and other sugary beverages with herbals teas you’re sure to notice a difference in the near future.
10. Be Persistent
Your belly fat only wins when you give up on getting rid of it. Being persistent is a very natural trait. Nature is very persistent, time keeps on going no matter what, and over time if you neglect your belly fat the problem will only get worse.
That’s why it’s good to be just as persistent as nature, and take steps each day to eat the right foods, get a bit of activity, be happy, and nourish yourself. As you do these little things each day, they will accumulate as more and more time passes.
It’s natural for things to take time to work, which is why you want to avoid fast track promises and gimmicks to lose belly fat, because in all likelihood it will just backfire and you’ll be back at square one trying to start all over again.
