Shift your beer belly fast to get the lean, fit and healthy body you want
Desperate to blast off you beer belly? New Body Plan creator Jon Lipsey has some good news for you! Shifting your stubborn stomach fat isn’t as hard or as time-consuming as you might think. But only if you follow his tried-and-tested exercise and eating approach that saw him lose 10kg of fat in just eight weeks and ditch his dad bod for a Men’s Fitness cover model body!
Desperate to burn off your beer belly? (Or get rid of your lower back fat? Or lose your man boobs?) I know the feeling.
There’s few more frustrating feelings than thinking you’re doing everything you can yet days and weeks go by. And you can’t see any changes to the size of your spare tyre.
Or when you do finally start dropping the pounds, it happens so slowly. It seems like it will take forever to get the results you want. You wish you could put your foot down on the accelerator to speed up your fat-loss journey.
Don’t worry – all is not lost! Chances are you’re a lot closer than you think to getting rid of that beer belly and becoming the proud owner of a leaner, fitter and healthier body. All you need to do is read on for my proven beer-belly-busting advice to start stripping away that stubborn stomach fat – once and for all!
Stop drinking calories and burn off your beer belly
It’s called a beer belly for a simple reason. The excess calories from too much alcohol are one of the big reasons for weight gain. For people who consume alcohol, these drinks account for up to 10% of their daily calories intake.
Indeed, according to the UK government, 3.4 million Brits consume an additional days’ worth of calories every week from alcohol. That’s an extra 91,250 calories in a year! Want some context? That’s the same number of calories as eating 161 Big Macs! (Try our best-ever fat-loss burger for all the flavour but just a fraction of the calories!)
Don’t want to give up booze? Try these smart drink swaps to cut back on the calories. But it’s not just alcohol that’s the problem. Many other drinks can be highly calorific.
Yet 80% of people are unaware of the calorie count of most common drinks. And then underestimate how many calories are in a drink when asked to guess. Fizzy drinks, milky coffees and fruit juices are packed with sugar and best avoided. Have sparkling water with fruit slices for a no-calorie soda. Or drink tea or coffee black or with just a splash of milk.
Use portion control and blitz your beer belly
You think you’ve cracked it. You’ve cleared out the cupboards. You’ve stocked the fridge with the right foods for your beer-belly-busting eating plan. You know that if your eat like grandparents your excess weight will melt away. That means in with the lean meat, fish, fruits and vegetables. And out with any foods that come in bright packaging, or have their own TV advert. Simply swap them out for healthy snack choices for faster fat loss instead.
So far, so good. But you still need to be aware of portion control. Why? Because if you consume more energy than you burn you’ll gain weight. To lose it you need to expend more than you eat.
It is possible to work out how many calories you need each day, as well as how many calories you’re actually burning. But a far easier way is the Perfect Portion approach to meal-making. It’s the best method we’ve found to start eating for a leaner and healthier body.
Burn fat and lose your belly with the best cardio for weight loss
Watch out for weekend over-eating
You know that burning more calories than you consume will ensure you lose weight. But is it enough to just eat well between Monday to Friday? No. Because your efforts can be undone by an indulgent weekend. One packed full of those foods and drinks you’ve deprived yourself of all week.
Say you eat in a calorie deficit of 250 calories Monday to Friday. That’s a perfectly achievable aim if you train smart and eat sensible. Keep that up through the weekend and you’re on track for a weekly deficit of 1,750 calories. Fantastic – you’ll be shopping for new jeans in no time!
But what if you go wild at the weekend and consume an extra 750 calories on Saturday and Sunday? You’ll end the week having eaten 250 calories more than you burned. That might not sound much. But you can’t lose fat if you’re in a calorie surplus. And it’s likely you’ll eat far more than that if you’re not aware about what you’re eating, or how much of it you’re eating.
Want to lose weight without giving up the foods you love Monday to Friday so you don’t end up on a weekend binge? Try the 90% Nutrition guide for eating for fat loss. It allows you to eat well for most of your meals, but you can still eat whatever you want 10% of the time. It’s a fuss-free and fad-free way of losing weight quickly without ever worrying about what to eat. After all, eating for pleasure is such an important part of life. Why should you have to give that up to lose weight when you don’t have to?
Don’t worry about your weight on the bathroom scales
I mentioned bathroom scales above with good reason. Stop stepping on them every morning! Why? Scales aren’t a helpful method of tracking your fat-loss efforts on a too-regular basis. That’s because your weight can fluctuate hugely hour to hour and day to day, based on many factors. These include how well you’ve slept, your hormones, when you last when to the bathroom, and how much food and liquids you’ve recently eaten and drunk.
Most non-smart bathroom scales, especially older models, also fail to differentiate between fat mass and lean muscle mass. If you’re lifting weights you’ll build new muscle and burn off beer belly fat to look and feel so much better. But the number of the scales may well stay the same or even creep higher!
Taken in isolation this can be devastating for your morale and motivation. Don’t get distracted and disheartened and raise your risk of throwing in the towel. Instead use our tried-and-tested methods to accurately monitor your fat-loss progress.
Burn your beer belly faster by training smarter
Serious about blasting away your beer belly? Then you’d be smart to follow a progressive, weights-based training plan, such as the New Body Plan range of fat-loss programmes.
It’s your best chance of building the body you want in the least amount of time. Why? Because following a proven approach that’s already helped thousands of guys lose their beer bellies removes those nagging doubts from your mind about whether you’re “doing it right”. All you need to do is focus on following the plan. Do that, and the weight will start to fall off your frame.
Nothing that saddens me more in the gym than seeing the same guy go through motions, doing the same moves with the same weight with the same bad form every single session. He once told me that he “just can’t work out why I can’t get back into shape”. I could.
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