How to Get a Flat Stomach

One of the most coveted prizes of dieting is a flat stomach. This is the greatest pinnacle of any weight loss effort. A protruding belly is one of the main reasons why people consider losing weight in the first place. It is the first sign of being overweight.

How to get a flat stomach

As important as it is for most dieters, very few people really know how to get a flat stomach. The main reason for this is ignorance as well as the spread of misinformation. There is so much information available especially on the internet on how to lose excess fat in the belly. People are overwhelmed and rather than doing some due-diligence, they take all this information at face value. The weight loss industry is a very lucrative one and people are coming up with creative ways to sell their product and services. The people are overwhelmed and cannot really keep up.

You can lose weight but you may not get a flat stomach

One of the biggest drawbacks of the products and services out there is that these primarily focus on methods for losing weight. These weight loss methods help to lose weight but do very little to lose excess fat in the stomach. In fact, these do very little to lose excess fat in any part of the body. Most of these methods yield big amounts of weight loss but primarily through the loss of large amounts of muscle and water. Although people are losing lots of weight, they are not losing lots of fat. As the body loses lots of muscle, it disturbs the body’s hormonal and metabolic balances.

This is not helped by the fact that people are looking for weight loss methods that do not need exercise.  If you are one of these people who are looking to shed lots of belly fat without shedding a drop of sweat, you better think again.

With the loss of precious muscle tissue via most conventional weight loss methods, the body is more prone to becoming insulin resistant. This is because muscle tissue is a large buffer that helps to increase the body’s sensitivity to insulin. Muscle loss also upsets the balance of fat burning hormones such as the Human Growth Hormone and testosterone.

What do you need to do

Most people probably came to an article like this to get a step by step approach on how you could get a flat stomach. If you have come with that approach, you will probably spend your whole life looking for a solution as most uninformed dieters really do. What you need to do is to have some firm understanding of some fundamental principles of fat loss. When you understand these principles, you will be able to detect the correct program that will ultimately help you shed the excess fat in the belly.

Holistic approach to weight loss

Correct weight loss is when your weight loss is a result of pure fat loss and a minimum amount of muscle or water loss. This only happens when you have a holistic approach to losing weight. This requires you to really adopt the 7 keys of correct weight loss into your life so that you really know how to lose weight correctly. In essence, these 7 keys include healthy nutrition, regular exercise, adequate sleep and stress relief, supplementation, social support, measurement and feedback as well motivation. This is a complete list of what should be incorporated into your lifestyle to get consistent fat loss. Slowly but surely, the excess fat in your tummy will start to disappear.

The 7 keys must become a part of your life

You can never get long-term results with a short-term view-point. You need to lose fat in your belly and keep it off. The only way to do this is to incorporate these 7 keys of correct weight loss into your every day life. One major mistake that most people make is to have a short-term approach to losing weight. They set a target weight, meet it and abandon all that got them to the target weight. This is why people spend most of their lives chasing the flat stomach.

Watch the above video by Dr Jasvin and Suresh who address this very interesting topic of how to get a flat stomach.

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Video transcript of How to Get a Flat Stomach

Hello I am Suresh V and I am Dr Jasvin and we are from the Correct Weight Loss team.

[Suresh] Today we are going to talk about a very popular topic called how to get a flat stomach. I think its one of the holy grails of the fitness and weight loss industry.

[Dr Jasvin] Yes. Everyone is chasing a flat stomach.

[Suresh] I think the reason a flat stomach is so appealing is because it is synonymous with youth.

[Dr Jasvin] And it also gives the body a very nice shape.

[Suresh] Yes. If you have a flat stomach you naturally have a very nice body shape. We are going to talk about what it takes to get a flat stomach, the holy grail of weight loss and fat loss.

3 causes of a protruding belly

[Dr Jasvin] We first need to understand what causes a bulging belly. If a person has fat or bulge in the stomach, it could be attributed to 3 reasons. Firstly, it could be due to visceral fat which is basically fat around the organs. It is in the abdominal cavity. The second type is subcutaneous fat which is just under the skin. This type of fat gives your stomach a flabby feeling as compared to the visceral fat which gives the stomach a tight feeling.

[Suresh] A tight feeling like someone who is pregnant.

[Dr Jasvin] Yes as if one is pregnant. A person could also have a bulging stomach because of weak core muscles. It usually happens in post-pregnancy when the muscles have been damaged due to over-stretching and these can’t shrink back to their original position.

[Suresh] Is it because of the size of the baby or is it due to genetics.

[Dr Jasvin] Genetics, size of the baby, mothers with twins. All these factors affect it. So these are the 3 reasons why people get a bulging stomach.

Avoid any form of spot training

[Suresh] You have to understand that when you lose fat, you cannot target or spot train. Most people try to get a flat stomach by doing a 100 sit-ups. Chances are if you don’t understand what you are doing and you are not addressing all the aspects of how to get rid of stomach fat, you will actually end up getting a bigger stomach by doing a 100 crunches. The reason is that you build your stomach muscles when you do hundreds of crunches. The layer of visceral and subcutaneous fat remains. The only thing you can do as far as spot training is concerned is to do core muscle training. When you do core muscle training, you will tighten your core muscles and that will shrink your waist.

[Suresh] It is important that you do exercises for the big muscle groups such as the legs, back and buttocks. This helps burn the visceral and the subcutaneous fat. There is no other way you are going to get this flat stomach.

[Dr Jasvin] So this fat is actually going to come off one layer at a time.

[Suresh] That’s right.

[Dr Jasvin] Just like peeling the layers of an onion.

[Suresh] That’s right. It’s first in and last out.

[Dr Jasvin] Like Suresh said, its first in and last out.

[Suresh] This again is very person and genetic specific…

First in last out phenomenon of fat storage

[Dr Jasvin] Different people have different fat storage patterns. The last place to put on weight could be your arms. When you go on a weight loss program, the first place you are going to lose is on your arms because it was the last place that you stored fat. The last place to lose the fat could be your thighs or your stomach. The problem areas for a lot of people are where they put on weight first.

[Suresh] And they are obsessed with their problem areas.

[Dr Jasvin] Yes. They are always targeting these problem areas. For a lot of people it could be the abdomen or stomach. That’s why they are always chasing the elusive flat stomach. They may not have lost fat on the rest of the body yet and the fat on the stomach is just not going to come off.

[Suresh] So don’t be obsessed about your problematic areas. Unless you get rid of the fat in the non problematic areas, only then will the problematic areas be addressed. The problematic areas are the first place you are genetically designed to put on fat. Unfortunately that would be the last place that you will lose fat.

[Suresh] Men tend to put more weight on their tummies. Its is the way nature has programmed us to store fat for famine during our caveman days. That is why it will probably be the last place to lose weight. Besides the stomach, women generally tend to put on weight on their thighs.

[Dr Jasvin] It is always the stomach and thighs for women.

[Suresh] It will be the last place to lose fat.

Nutrition to Get a Flat Stomach

[Suresh] The other thing we have to watch out for when you want to get a flat stomach is nutrition. A lot of people do not even think about it but if you want to get a flat stomach you need to make sure that you have a good and healthy breakfast. It may seem paradoxical but a good healthy breakfast is so important to kick-start your metabolism. You can’t starve the fat away. You can only burn it away by increasing your metabolism. You got to have a good healthy breakfast made of complex carbs, some good protein like eggs and good fats. You should have 3 main meals and 2 snacks. In total, you have 5 smaller meals. Your metabolism is always raised and your body does not go into starvation. When you have 1 large meal, the body can’t handle all the calories and stores it as fat. By eating small meals regularly, your body keeps burning all the calories that you are consuming. You should create a slight deficit to start burning some of the body fat.

[Dr Jasvin] Dinner should also be the smallest meal.

[Suresh] We always say eat breakfast like a king and eat dinner like a pauper. Taper your calories. You don’t want to eat too much just before you sleep because your metabolism slows down.

[Suresh] The other thing is to avoid refined carbs. These are the simple sugars and white flour based products. Refined carbs are bad if you want to get a flat stomach. Refined carbs spike your insulin and it promotes fat storage around your abdominal area. Finally avoid unhealthy fats. Avoid trans-fats and hydrogenated oils. These are fats that are unhealthy and these don’t helps your fat loss efforts.

Exercise tips

[Dr Jasvin] The next very important point in getting a flat stomach is exercise. You do not need to overemphasize exercise of the core  muscles in your abdomen. It is important to exercise the big muscles such as the thighs, back and buttocks. With strength training, you actually boost your metabolism. When you boost your metabolism, it actually helps to burn more fat in the long run.

[Suresh] So in other words, don’t bother too much with the smaller muscle groups such as the biceps and calves.

[Dr Jasvin] These can be done later once you have a well-defined body. Initially you can do body-weight exercises such as push ups, pull ups or squats. The smaller muscle groups get inevitably exercised by default. Also do aerobic exercises. Either steady state aerobic cardio or interval training. High intensity interval training is intense spurts of intense exercise interspersed with rests.

[Suresh] But I think that high intensity interval training should be reserved for those who are reasonably fit. We suggest to start strength training for the big muscles and do steady state cardio. Once your fitness levels have reached a certain level, you can consider high intensity interval training.

Supplementation tips

[Suresh] You have to make sure that you get a good supplementation mainly to counter deficiencies in your body. Certain micro-nutrient deficiencies in your body may hamper your fat loss efforts. We suggest that you get a good quality multivitamin/multimineral supplement as well as omega 3 oils. These are the least you will need to make sure that you have adequate micro-nutrients to make sure that you lose body fat easily.

Restoration tips

[Dr Jasvin] The last important message is restoration. You need to rest your body. If you are stressed-up all the time, your cortisol and insulin levels will be elevated. This really does not help fat loss or weight loss. Adequate  sleep is very important. You need to get 6 to 8 hours of sleep every night. You need to find a way to relax yourself and meditation is one way to do it.

[Suresh]You need stress relief so that you sleep better. Sleep better so that you get less stress. It’s a virtuous loop

[Dr Jasvin] So then you lose weight better and are better able to get a flat stomach.

[Suresh] So that’s all for the holy grail of weight loss which is the flat stomach. From the Correct Weight Loss team, this time do it right.