How do I reduce belly fat?

  How do I reduce belly fat?

 Looking at a certain area in the body, it's not possible to spot, reduce, or pick out that specific area and take fat away from it. That being said, a reduction in overall fat can help you reduce that belly fat. This can be done through diet and exercise. So with your exercise, look at doing primarily compound movements and combining those movements into supersets and circuits. Throw in some nontraditional cardio like farmers walk, jump rope, sled pushes, and even interval training or high-intensity interval training can be helpful. As far as the diet goes, focus on, um, getting enough protein. Make sure you're eating protein at every meal. And then look at your nutrient timing. This is very important. 

When are you fueling your body? 

If you're eating a ton of carbs at night, right before you go to bed, I mean, you're fueling yourself for sleep, which can contribute to gaining fat or fat storage. So try to fuel your body at times when you're most active and keep your stress to a minimum. And that can help you reduce your overall fat. The next question is.

what time of day should I work out? 

Well, it depends. It depends on your schedule because a lot of us can't choose what time of day we can work out. So whenever you can get that training session in, get it in. That being said, there are benefits and drawbacks to working out in the morning and working out in the afternoon. If you're looking at cardio exercise, research has shown that you burn a little bit more fat if you do it fast. If you're just training for cardio endurance, try to hit the gym in the morning. If you're looking to gain muscle or work on your body composition, training later in the day can be very beneficial. This is because you're able to get a couple of meals in you. So you've got the fuel for the muscle for that protein synthesis. And then you've been moving around throughout the day, so your muscles are a lot more warm and you're able to lift more in the afternoon. So just depends on what your goals are. If you want to do cardio, if you're looking to get, um, a little bit leaner, maybe training fasted in the morning will work. If you're looking to gain muscle, train in the afternoon. But bottom line, whenever you can hit the gym, um, get that session in, go for it. 

what is the best diet to follow?

 I think the best diet to follow is balanced and not a fad diet. There are many eating styles out there and this can cause you to cut off certain food groups entirely. So over the long haul, it's not very sustainable. If you can't eat this food or that food, it's going to be very tough to maintain that kind of diet. So look for something balanced. Get plenty of protein at every meal. Make sure you're fueling yourself. This can either be in the form of carbs or in the form of fats. If you're trying to gain muscle, think about eating more carbs than fats. Because that's going to help you with strength, it's going to help you with recovery. It's also going to help you with protein synthesis. So the best diet to follow is the one that you're going to follow and the one that is the least restrictive. 

When do I breathe during a rep? 

I actually love this question because it's not something that many of us think about. In fact, you see a lot of people lifting and it seems like they hold their breath or they're inhaling at the wrong time. Whenever you put forth the most effort, that's when you're going to exhale. So for example, when you're squatting, you're going to inhale on the way down and then as you're driving on the way up and exerting maximum effort, you're going to breathe out. Breathing out is going to help you harness a lot more power within your body. So you could actually sit here and try it for yourself. So try to breathe in and kind of jump up. It's really hard to do. So take that breath as you're descending and then as you're pushing the weight up, exhale and you will have a lot more force. You'll continue to breathe throughout your set, which is very, very important. And the last question, 

How long should I work out? 

There's a bit of research behind this, actually. And research has shown that your workouts are best kept to about an hour or less. Now, there are a couple of reasons for this. The first reason is that after about an hour, your cortisol or your stress hormone levels tend to rise. And what this can do is it can promote actual, um, loss of muscle and it can promote gaining of, uh, body fat. So you don't want to stress yourself out, so try to make those sessions an hour or less. The other reason for keeping workouts to an hour or less is because during that time, if you're training hard, especially, you're going to deplete what energy stores you have. So if you're going through your carbohydrate or your glycogen stores in the muscle, you've pretty much burnt through them after about an hour. Now at that point, there's a higher likelihood of your body going catabolic, which means it's going to start burning muscle for fuel.

If you're trying to gain muscle, or even if you're trying to change your body composition, when you go catabolic, that goes completely against your goals. Thank you for reading!

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