Lose Belly Fat Fast!

Over 700,000 Phoenicians across Arizona search online monthly to find out how to loose belly fat and reduce the amount of body fat they carry around.  With that said, loosing weight and keeping it off can be two completely different challenges. We know that abdominal weight-loss can be one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of fitness training and maintaining your ideal physique.

Luckily, Scottsdale, Arizona based celebrity personal trainer Lucas James know’s just how tough it can be to shed those extra pounds, especially with the holiday season quickly approaching.

So here are a few exercise and nutrition tips from the pros to help you build the abs of your dreams.

In terms of exercise and belly fat, a consistent cardio regimen is crucial for burning those extra calories and slimming down in the midsection.  Whether outside or indoors, work through ‘intervals’ of varied intensity and speed while jogging, running or cycling. If you are resistance training or lifting weights, try to keep the pace quick.  This will help to increase your endurance as well as keep your metabolism elevated.  Aside from a high-intensity cardio program, its important to sculpt the abdominal muscles, obliques included, underneath to achieve the desired six-pack physique.   A few ab workouts include bicycle crunches, v-ups, toe touch crunches, stability ball crunches, planks and side planks.  Any combination of these exercises will help you target your core muscles including both upper, lower and side abdominals.

When belly fat is concerned, nutrition is key.  You can do sit-ups and crunches everyday, but unless you maintain a proper diet, you’ll be sporting a keg instead of a six-pack forever.

Nutrition Tips: Eat the right types of foods, with the right portion size, at the right time.

While eating low-fat, low-sugar foods is a must when fat-loss is concerned, eating them in the correct portions is just as important.   When trying to loose fat, especially around your abdomen, caloric restriction is important. This means eating fewer calories than you burn to create a deficit and burn fat.  Fruits and vegetables are perfect snacks, supplying your body with clean energy for exercise as well as nutrients and minerals for proper growth and development.   Aside from eating the right foods in the right amounts, its important to eat them at the right time. This means, if you’re engaging in strenuous or high endurance exercise, fuel your body at the right times before and after to maintain energy levels while promoting lean muscle growth afterwards by incorporating high-protein meals within half an hour after working out.

A few healthy foods for weight loss include:

Leafy greens, such as spinach, contain only about 40 calories per serving and satisfy 20 percent of your day’s fiber requirement. Most leafy greens are also a good source of calcium, an essential ingredient for proper body functions such as muscle contraction.  Shoot for three servings daily. Try adding a handful of spinach into soups, salads, sandwiches, buckwheat pasta dishes or stir-fry.  Other leafy greens include arugula, broccoli rabe, or broccolini.

Egg albumin is known to be a complete or perfect protein source because of the amino acids it supplies. Egg whites have a great balance of essential amino acids (the protein building blocks our bodies use to manufacture everything from muscle to neurotransmitters). We like them because they help curve your appetite when eaten in the morning!