26 Feb How to lose belly fat and get abs fast
This article is going to cover everything you need to know to lose belly fat and get abs fast, including what you need to eat and what exercises you need to do.
Let’s break this down into three parts:
- What you need to eat to lose belly fat
- What exercises you need to do to get abs
- How to do it fast.
I’ve split it up like this because losing belly fat will come down to your diet.
In other words, there are no fancy exercises you need to do to lose belly fat.
Getting abs will come down to your training. You’ll want to directly train your abs (like you would any other muscle) so that they grow.
The bigger your ab muscles are, the more you’ll be able to see them, even at a slightly higher body fat percentage.
How fast you’ll lose belly fat and get abs is dependent on a number of things which I’ll cover after we talk about food.
What You Need To Eat To Lose Belly Fat
To lose belly fat you need to eat less food than your body needs so that it’s forced to use its own fat stores for energy.
This means that losing belly fat comes down to being in a calorie deficit.
There are no special foods that are required. There aren’t any foods that are off the menu.
So long as you’re eating in a consistent calorie deficit, you’ll lose belly fat.
If you want to know exactly how many calories you need to eat to lose belly fat, then read this.
If you want to lose fat without calorie counting, then see this.
How do you get fat off your belly only?
You lose fat from all over your body if you’re in a calorie deficit.
Your can’t target where fat comes off from first.
Waist trainers won’t help you either.
Some people have particularly stubborn fat around their belly. This doesn’t mean that you can’t lose it.
It means that you’ll need to keep losing fat by being in a calorie deficit until it comes off.
What Exercises You Need To Do To Get Abs
In order to get a great looking 6-pack, you need to work all the muscles that make up your core:
- Your rectus abdominis is the ab muscle that runs down the front of your body (the traditional “6-pack” muscle). It helps to bend your body forward and backward at the lower back.
- Your oblique muscles run down the side of your abs. They help to rotate your body and bend it from side to side
- Your transverse abdominis (TVA) is a deep muscle under your abs that help to keep your core (including your spine) stable every time you move.
To build a tighter, better looking and more functional core, you should aim to strengthen all of your core muscles.
There are two types of exercises to train your core:
- Full range of motion exercises like crunches.
- Stabilising exercises like the plank.
It’s important to understand that no exercise will work if you’re doing it wrong.
Ab exercises are very easy to get wrong!
A common mistake I see in my online coaching client’s form videos, is that they place too much emphasis on bending at the hips, rather than bending at the spine when doing traditional ab exercises.
To really work your abs, you want to focus on curling up through your spine and rolling your spine back down slowly.
You can think about bringing your belly button to your chest as you come up to contract your ab muscles.
This means that you need to have a posterior tilt in your hips when doing exercises like hanging leg raises and crunches.
There should be no arch in your lower back.
Here is an example of what this looks like for the hanging leg raise:
Notice where my feet fall in order to keep that lower back flat and ensure I’m contracting my abs and not just swinging my hips!
Hanging leg raises are one of my favourite ab exercises to do, especially because they are easy to add progressions.
Here’s some of my other favourite exercises to get abs and develop a strong core:
Stability exercises:
Pallof Press
Ab wheel roll outs
Hollow Holds
Plank
Side Plank
Farmer’s Carry
Full range of motion exercises:
Swiss Ball Crunches/ Sit Ups
Cable Crunches
Cable Chops
Russian Twists
Reverse Crunches
Hanging Knee/Leg Raises
You can add core exercises to your workout program however you like.
I like to add a circuit of 2-4 exercises onto the end of 1-2 workouts each week.
Sets and reps will vary depending on the exercise, but 8-15 reps should be plenty. If you can do more, you’re probably doing the exercise wrong, or you need to add weight.
If you need more help writing your own workout routine for the gym then read this.
Or, if you want me to take the guess work out of it, you can apply to work with me here.
How To Lose Belly Fat and Get Abs Fast
Muscle growth takes time. Think months to years. Not a few weeks.
This is especially true if you’re eating in a calorie deficit to lose fat. If you’re completely new to training then it’s possible to lose fat and build muscle at the same time.
If you’re not a beginner, then you might want to focus on losing fat first and then go through a muscle building phase by eating in a small calorie surplus. This will help speed up the muscle building process, although it’s still slow.
Fat loss also takes time but not as long as muscle growth.
It can be sped up by increasing the size of the calorie deficit you’re in.
Rapid fat loss sounds great but it’s not easy. You’ll have to deal with more intense hunger, you’ll have way less energy and it will be harder to stick to your calorie budget consistently.
In my opinion, the best way to lose belly fat and get abs fast is to stick to your plan and then distract yourself.
Live the life you’re blessed to have and learn to enjoy the process.
Watching an egg boil does’t make it happen faster. Either will focusing on how slowly you’re progressing.
Stay consistent and keep going.
If you choose a moderate calorie deficit (say 10%-15%) and implement some diet breaks, then you won’t have to miss out on life and be miserable.
Yes, you can lose belly fat and get abs whilst enjoying your life.
A year goes by super fast.
Live it! Before you know it you’ll have your flat belly and abs too.
Disclaimer: If you have a lot of belly fat to lose then it’s very realistic to expect that you’ll need longer than a year to see visible abs. Don’t let this put you off. Time is going to pass no matter what!