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For both male and female gym visitors, losing belly fat is often a big desire. But how do you lose belly fat? And can you lose fat specifically on your belly?
In this article, we first address how your body deals with energy and how you can lose (belly) fat. Then we discuss the calorie balance and the different options for calculating your calorie needs. Finally, we give some advice depending on your preferences.
How to Lose Belly Fat?
Let’s start by debunking a myth. One that you often encounter, especially in infomercials: The myth of spot reduction. This myth has been debunked in many different articles and we want to refer it to the realm of fairy tales once again.
Spot Reduction: A Myth
How would people look if they could specifically train for weight loss on the arms, but not on the legs, or vice versa? Of course, there are plenty of entities and weight consultants that claim otherwise, but these claims often have commercial interests underlying them.
That Stubborn Belly Fat
As a fitness photographer, I often work with people who have worked hard for a nice six-pack or a flat stomach. This includes people who participate in bodybuilding competitions. In many cases, they indicate that the fat around the belly, especially the lower part, was the hardest to get rid of. Often this happens only as a last resort when they have reached the lowest body fat percentage.
However, you don’t change anything about that. Losing belly fat is simply a matter of losing weight in general until the desired result on the belly is achieved.
The Function of Body Fat
Incidentally, body fat has several important functions within the human body. It is connective tissue and forms, among other things, a source of stored energy in the form of fat in the fat cells. You encounter adipose tissue in different types. For example, you can distinguish between white fat, beige fat, and brown fat.
White adipose tissue is found directly under the skin and around vital organs. The main function of white adipose tissue is to store fat.
Brown adipose tissue’s main function is to burn fatty acids and glucose to produce body heat. Brown adipose tissue is only found in mammals, including humans, and in newborn babies. Because babies do not have enough white adipose tissue to keep themselves warm, about 5 percent of their body weight consists of brown adipose tissue. Brown fat has been in the sights of many researchers in recent decades who see it as a possible key to combating obesity.
Beige fat is essentially white fat that behaves like brown fat due to circumstances. More and more research is also being done into beige fat. The more white fat can be converted into beige fat, the lower the chance of obesity.
Protective Effect of Adipose Tissue
In addition to the functions of providing the body with an energy reserve and serving as a heat source, fat also has a protective function. For example, the fat on the belly acts as a cushion, but so do the fat on the hands and feet. Also, the fat around the organs protects them and keeps them in place.
What Are Calories?
Body fat is often mentioned in the same breath as an excessive consumption of calories. Factually, that is correct, but
a calorie is nothing more than the unit of energy used by the body.
Therefore, you also encounter calories in almost every food. They are important for providing energy for primary life processes, such as supplying energy for the heart, lungs, and metabolism. A large part of the energy you consume daily in the form of calories is used for this.
In addition, a portion of the calories is also used for the activities the individual undertakes.
Are All Calories the Same?
A commonly heard statement is that not every calorie is the same. If that were true, then every meter should not be the same and neither should every kilogram. A calorie is nothing more than a way energy is expressed. That being said:
Every calorie is the same
Whether you get calories from proteins, fats, or carbohydrates, they are equal in terms of energy unit.
Of course, they are different macronutrients which in turn have their own functions. But that doesn’t affect the amount of energy it provides and they are almost equal.
However, the way the body deals with that amount of energy can show large differences per source.
Caloric Needs
So everything you consume daily in terms of food provides energy for your body in the form of calories. These calories determine whether you gain or lose weight. This depends on the amount of energy you need daily and how much you consume from your diet.
If you want to gain weight, you need to consume more calories than you need daily. This is called a positive energy balance. If you want to lose weight, you will need to do the opposite and create a negative
energy balance.
Calculating Caloric Needs
We still want to lose fat and that’s why we go for a negative energy balance. To do this, you first need to know what your own caloric needs are. You can do this with various calculators on this site, which you can find in our article: calculating caloric needs.
In this article, we discuss the most commonly used Harris Benedict formula, which is based on a number of easy-to-fill variables, without having to know the body fat percentage.
In the calculator above, you enter the weight, height, age, and activity level. Then the BMR is calculated and you know how much you need to eat to be at maintenance.
BMR stands for Basal Metabolic rate and represents the resting metabolism. If you were to lie on the couch all day and do nothing, you would only need the BMR in energy to survive. Because you don’t lie on the couch all day and also engage in activities, you add this to the BMR to calculate your total caloric needs.
In the lower field, you see your maintenance level. This represents the amount of calories to not gain or lose weight. The energy balance is in equilibrium. An indication of your activity level can be found below:
- Little or no exercise, office work
- Light exercise/sports 1-3 days a week
- Moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days a week
- Heavy exercise/sports 6-7 days a week
- Heavy daily exercise/sports plus physical work or training twice a day, marathon, football camp, competition, etc.
Losing Belly Fat Quickly: How Many Calories?
As a final step, you need to create a deficit. You can achieve the calorie deficit in 2 ways:
- By increasing physical activity: this increases the amount of calories you burn in a day to create a negative energy balance.
- By eating less: this way, you consume fewer calories, allowing you to achieve a negative energy balance.
Often a deficit of 15 to 20% is used to start from there. But the results of a deficit depend on many factors and vary from person to person. Individuals with a fairly normal weight may experience muscle breakdown and decreasing athletic performance more quickly due to a calorie deficit, while for someone with obesity, a large calorie deficit can be a very successful method for losing fat mass. When the body fat percentage is higher, there is a good chance that body fat will be tapped into first.
In any case, don’t start with too big steps because you are likely to lose too much fat-free/muscle mass, which is not what you want to lose. With small steps of 10%, you can quickly determine whether you are losing weight. If you are losing weight and maintaining your strength, you are on the right track. If your weight doesn’t decrease, you could increase the deficit to 15%.
