Episode 17: Exercises to Reduce Belly Fat
There’s no one exercise that will eliminate belly fat. Let’s look at the things that actually work to help you burn fat.
Hey there! I’m personal trainer and health coach Jayd Harrison, and in this episode of The Coaching Corner podcast, I’ll share with you the most effective ways to burn body fat, particularly belly fat.
Despite what many social media fitness influencers say, doing exercises for your abs, obliques, and other core muscles does nothing for burning fat in the belly. It does, however, help you to get a strong core—which is important for doing the kinds of exercises that can help you burn more fat (squats, lunges, deadlifts, etc).
Burning body fat is all about being in a calorie deficit, where you consume less energy through food than your body spends every day.
No matter what kinds of exercises you do, if you don’t manage what you eat, you won’t see results in your fat loss.
Beyond getting into a calorie deficit, some things can help your body burn more visceral fat in the belly, like limiting your sugar intake, eating more protein, and consuming plenty of fiber.
It’s also super important to exercise smart to burn fat, meaning your weekly training routine includes both cardio and strength training. Cardio will help your body to burn more calories and strength training will help to reduce muscle loss while you’re in a calorie deficit (which will help keep your metabolism fast).
Don’t fall for the myth that doing a bunch of crunches and planks will reduce your belly fat. Follow the tips in this episode, and you’ll see some measurable progress!
-
Jayd (00:00):
As you can see, this is the main way to get your body in the most effective way to burn fat. You have to manage what you eat either by tracking what you eat every day or following a meal plan that is created around the number of calories that you need to eat every day.
(00:25)
Welcome to The Coaching Corner podcast. I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. I'm a personal trainer and health coach, and I've created this podcast to help you learn how to build a body that you love and a healthy lifestyle. One of the most common questions that beginner clients ask me is, what are some exercises that I can do to reduce my belly fat? And my answer is always the same. There are none. There's no one exercise that is going to help you to reduce belly fat, and anyone who tells you differently is just giving you bad information or they're probably trying to sell you something. The truth is that when it comes to reducing belly fat, it has more to do with what you eat than any one exercise that you do. So in today's episode, we are going to go over what my professional personal trainer tips are for reducing belly fat and how you can tackle it through your diet and through exercise to see some progress there.
(01:25)
The biggest takeaway from today's episode is that burning body fat, whether it's in your belly or elsewhere, is all about being in a calorie deficit, right? Calories are the way that we measure the energy that we get through the food that we eat. When you take in less energy through the food that you eat than what your body spends every day, your body will tap into its fat stores and use the energy that's there, and that's how you burn fat. So think of body fat as your body's battery packs. Your body is going to tap into those battery packs when it's not getting the energy that it needs through the food that you eat. So in order to burn fat, we need to eat less energy than what our bodies burn. So that's what it is to be in a calorie deficit, and there's a couple different ways that we can get our bodies into a calorie deficit, but that is what it's all about. There's no one exercise like doing a bunch of crunches, we're planks or Pilates. That's going to reduce your belly fat if you are not managing what you eat and making sure that you are eating a calorie deficit.
(02:41)
So let's back up and talk about what exactly belly fat is. Most of belly fat is what we call visceral fat. There's a couple of different types of fat that we store in our bodies. One is subcutaneous fat. That's the fat that's under our skin and that you find all over your body in your arms, your legs also in your belly too. But visceral fat is particularly the type of fat that surrounds your organs and it's in the abdominal cavity. And this type of fat does serve a lot of purposes for a body. So it's not all bad. The amount of fat that you have, whether it's too much or too little, can affect your health in negative ways. So visceral fat's main function is to help to keep your core temperature where it needs to be for you to be healthy. It's also there to cushion your organs.
(03:31)
So if you get punched in the stomach or you bump up against something, you won't have to worry about your organs getting damaged because organ damage is devastating for your health. We also need fat for the absorption of certain vitamins, and it also plays a key role in the regulation of our hormones. So having a certain amount of fat is actually really good for your body. There's a healthy range of percentage of your body weight that's made up of fat for both men and women. So for women, a healthy body fat range is between 15 and 23%. Whereas for men, a healthy body fat range is between 8% and 21%. So this is where we generally want to try to shoot for our body fat to be at any given time throughout our fitness journeys, we want to have at least that 15 or 8% so that we can keep our bodies healthy so that we can continue to have healthy hormone balance, absorb certain vitamins, keep our body at the right temperature, and have just enough cushion to keep us safe.
(04:35)
Having a super high body fat percentage can lead to all kinds of health risks like the development of certain types of cancer, increased risk of type two diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Although these things can also be mitigated by having a healthy diet. Now you can measure your body fat percentage or how much of your body is made up of fat in a number of different ways. One way is that you can use a smart scale that measures bioelectrical impedance or bioelectrical impedance analysis. So it sends a little bit of electricity from one side of your body through to the other and measures the speed that that signal travels at and gives you a rough estimate of how much of your body weight is made up of lean muscle tissue versus fat. Electricity moves a lot faster through water, and your muscles are mainly made of water versus fat, so the signal will move faster through muscle, and that's how it's measuring it.
(05:31)
You can also measure your body fat percentage using calipers, which takes the skinfolds, and that's specifically looking at your subcutaneous fat. You can also get a professional measurement of your body fat by doing a hydrostatic analysis. A lot of gyms will have this and some specific weight loss facilities will have it as well. At the facility that I work at in person, they use what's called a FIT 3D scan that does a total body scan. Any of these are good ways to get an estimate of your body fat percentage. Keep in mind that all of these ways of measuring your body fat have a standard rate of error. So they're not always going to be 100% accurate, but they're good for giving us an idea of what your body fat percentage is. Now when it comes to actually changing your body fat percentage and reducing it, there is no one exercise that's going to do that for you.
(06:24)
There's a lot of bad influencers out there on social media who will create posts that are like five exercises to burn belly fat, and it'll be like a bunch of core training exercises. So like ab crunches or Russian twists, things that are exercises that hit the muscles in the torso, exercising the muscles in the torso is not necessarily going to help you to burn belly fat. It is going to make you stronger in your torso and probably give you more muscle there, but it's not going to reduce the belly fat. Reducing the belly fat is mainly an effect of being in a calorie deficit, so you need to make sure that you are managing what you eat if you are particularly concerned with reducing fat. So if your goal is to burn belly fat, you need to focus on overall fat loss and that belly fat will reduce over time as you continue to burn overall fat.
(07:15)
So to get into a calorie deficit, the main thing is that you need to manage what you're eating. You first need to figure out what your maintenance level of calories is. That is the number of calories that you need to eat every day for your body to stay exactly the same, not build muscle or not burn fat for your weight to stay completely level. Once you figure out what your maintenance level of calories is, then you can plan to eat below that number to burn fat. So to figure out what your maintenance level of calories is, you'll need to track what you eat every day and also track your body weight and figure out at what number of calories your body weight stays roughly the same over the course of a couple of weeks. You can get a rough estimate of what your maintenance level of calories would be using an online calculator, but keep in mind that this is really just a rough estimate.
(08:05)
Your body's actual maintenance level of calories may be different. So you'll need to test whichever number it is that you use and that you calculate to figure out what your actual maintenance level of calories is. So you can start with that calculated number and then try to eat that number of calories every day, tracking what you eat or following a meal plan that is created for that number of calories, and you do that for at least a week and weigh yourself every day. And if you see your weight go down, then that means that the number of calories that you're eating every day on average is actually below your maintenance level of calories. So you'll need to add between 50 and a hundred calories and then try again for another week, tracking what you eat and eating that new goal number of calories and continue to adjust until you see your weight staying the same over the course of a week.
(08:53)
The same thing goes if you see your weight go up after eating that calculated number, reduce the number of calories by between 50 and a hundred calories, and then eat that new goal. Keep adjusting and testing the number until your weight stays roughly the same. So once you've figured out what your maintenance level of calories is, then you have the power to actually put yourself into a calorie deficit. Each pound of fat is about 3,500 calories. So over the course of a week, if you want to burn a half a pound of fat, that would be about 250 calories below maintenance that you would need to eat every day. I would start there and eat that for two or three weeks. And then if you want to accelerate your fat loss, then you could bump it up to a 500 calorie deficit by taking away 250 more calories from your daily target goal, and then you're going to eat that 500 calories below your maintenance level for a couple of weeks to try to see about a pound of fat loss per week.
(09:54)
The most aggressive approach that I would take and that I would recommend is a 1000 calorie deficit, which could yield about two pounds of fat per week. If you wanted to really get your fat loss going, just keep in mind that the lower that you go, the faster your body is going to adapt to whatever calorie deficit that you're in. Eventually, your body is going to catch up to the fact that you're not giving it more food, and it's going to say, okay, we need to slow everything down and not burn as many calories every day. So over time, you might hit what's called a plateau where your body stops burning fat as much as it used to before. So the deeper your calorie deficit goes, the more likely you're going to hit a plateau eventually. And when you do hit that plateau, you're going to need to bring your calories back up.
(10:44)
You're going to need to reverse diet to increase your maintenance calories every day. But that is in general the process that I take my clients through. If you want more information on this process, I would check out my Healthy Diet Makeover program, which is linked in the show notes, or you can reach out to me and my coaching corner Discord server for some nutrition coaching if you need some help with your fat loss. So as you can see, this is the main way to get your body in the most effective way to burn fat. You have to manage what you eat either by tracking what you eat every day or following a meal plan that is created around the number of calories that you need to eat every day. And we can also get our bodies to burn more calories every day by exercising the type of exercise that you do can really help to increase your daily calorie burn.
(11:32)
So a lot of people when they are in a fat loss phase will do a lot of what's called cardio cardiovascular exercise, and cardiovascular exercise is a style of training where you're basically kept moving for an extended period of time. Your goal is to get your heart rate up. You keep moving, and the more you move, the more you burn calories. So a lot of my athletes will add cardio or increase their cardio in their training programs and in their weekly schedule when they're trying to burn fat. Also, it's super important to include strength training into your fat loss workout routine because building muscle is a calorie expensive activity for your body, and maintaining more muscle is also a calorie expensive process. And also you want to keep in mind that when we are in a calorie deficit, your body is going to burn fat, but it's also going to break down muscle tissue to access the energy that is stored there.
(12:29)
And as your body breaks down muscle tissue, that can actually decrease your daily calorie burn, it can suppress your metabolism. So to combat that process to combat muscle loss, which will slow down your metabolism, the best thing that you can do is do traditional strength training. And you can do this two to three times a week. Follow a very simple pattern of hitting total body two or three times a week, making sure that you are building muscle throughout your entire body. You're going to get the most bang for your buck by practicing compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench press, lunges, these types of exercises that use your whole body because the more that you stimulate your muscles, the more muscle growth you're going to get overall. Now, for those of you who are afraid of building muscle because you think that it's going to make you bulky, the truth is that it's not okay.
(13:21)
Muscle is very dense. When we build muscle, it actually just gets more compressed and dense. It's not going to make you appear bigger. It's not going to make your body bigger. What makes you look bulky is fat. So if you are focusing on reducing fat, you're going to reduce the bulk or the overall size of your body. Building muscle is not necessarily going to make you bulky or make your body bigger. In fact, when you build muscle and burn fat and you're doing a recomposition at the same time, most of the time what you're going to see is that your body shrinks and it becomes more dense. Okay? That is how you get what fitness influencers call that toned look, right? When you want muscle definition, you want to reduce your body fat percentage. You want to reduce the amount of fat that you have, and you want to look like you have some muscle definition.
(14:13)
In order to get that look, you have to build muscle, okay? It's not going to make you bulky. It's going to make you look more toned. And also it's just really important for your health as well as you lose muscle when you're in a calorie deficit that puts you at risk of weakening your bones and losing coordination, losing balance, all of these things decline enough already as we age. So doing some resistance training and building muscle is really important just for maintaining health. But it's especially important when you are in a calorie deficit and you're losing weight. Now, there are a couple of things that we can do to help our body to burn visceral fat in particular. So visceral fat, that fat that's in our abdomen surrounding our organs is less responsive to being in a calorie deficit than subcutaneous fat. You will reduce visceral fat when you're in a calorie deficit, but there are certain things that will cause your body to actually hold onto visceral fat even if you are in a calorie deficit.
(15:15)
So one thing that you want to do is try to limit your intake of sugar or sugary beverages. So sugar is half glucose and half fructose, and when you eat a lot of added sugar, your liver gets overloaded with fructose, and it's forced to convert that into fat. So when you reduce your intake of refined sugars and added sugars, you're reducing the amounts of that energy that's going to be converted into belly fat. Another thing that you can do is eat more protein. Protein is so important, especially when you're in a calorie deficit. It's one going to give you the building blocks that you need to reduce the loss of muscle tissue and to help you build muscle more effectively. But protein is also a very satiating macronutrient when you eat it and makes it less likely that you're going to have sugar cravings. And also, many sources of protein are pretty low calorie, so you're going to feel more full off of less calories by eating good sources of protein.
(16:16)
And there was one study that actually showed that people who had a high quality high protein diet had less abdominal fat, and you can find the link to that study in the show notes. Now, also, eating plenty of fiber, particularly soluble fiber, is a great way to help reduce your visceral fat. When you eat soluble fiber, it forms a gel. It bonds with water in your digestive tract, and that helps to suppress your appetite, and so that reduces your overall cravings, which means that you're less likely to mindlessly snack or have intense sugar cravings. This also slows the movement of the food through your digestive tract, which means that your body is going to be better able to absorb the nutrients from that food, and you're going to need to eat less food, and you'll get more benefit out of the food that you actually do eat.
(17:06)
So one five-year study reported that eating 10 grams of soluble fiber per day was linked to a 3.7% reduction in the amount of visceral fat in the abdominal cavity. Another review study found that an additional 14 grams of fiber per day was linked to a 10% decrease in total calorie intake and a weight loss of around 4.5 pounds or two kilograms over four months. Links for those studies are also in the show notes. So these are great ways that you can help to push your body to reduce that belly fat, but you also need to make sure that you're doing the other things to reduce your overall body fat, right? So maintaining a calorie deficit, making sure that you're exercising smart, which includes both cardio and strength training. Make sure that you are tracking what you eat or following a meal plan that is built around your daily calorie goal.
(18:03)
Again, if you want more help in figuring out what your maintenance level of calories is and what your calorie deficit should be, check out my Healthy Diet Makeover program that's linked in the show notes, or you can reach out to me for nutrition coaching, and we can get you on track in six weeks towards figuring out what your calorie deficit should be and making some progress in your fat loss. Remember, doing a bunch of ABS workouts is not going to reduce that belly fat, but it is important because it helps to promote stability and will keep your spine safe when you're doing the compound exercises that do actually help your body to burn more fat like squats and deadlifts. So the stronger your core is, the better you're going to be able to do those types of exercises, but it's not necessarily going to reduce that belly fat.
(18:52)
So that is the episode for today. I hope you found it helpful. Thank you so much for watching or listening wherever it is that you are. If you found this helpful and you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment and make sure to subscribe to get notified anytime I post a new video to my YouTube channel. If you're listening to this podcast, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. If you want more content from me, make sure to sign up for the email newsletter from my website. That's jaydigains.com or jaydharrisonfitness.com. You can also join me live when I go live on my Twitch channel on Tuesdays and Fridays in the fitness and health category, and ask your questions there. That's twitch.tv/jaydigains. Make sure to follow me there so you get notified when I go live. Have a wonderful rest of your day. I'll see you in the next episode. In the meantime, make sure that you drink plenty of water, eat your veggies, eat your protein, and prioritize your self-care.
Links
References:
Stanhope KL, Havel PJ. Fructose consumption: considerations for future research on its effects on adipose distribution, lipid metabolism, and insulin sensitivity in humans. J Nutr. 2009 Jun;139(6):1236S-1241S. doi: 10.3945/jn.109.106641. Epub 2009 Apr 29. PMID: 19403712; PMCID: PMC3151025. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3151025/
Pollock NK, Bundy V, Kanto W, Davis CL, Bernard PJ, Zhu H, Gutin B, Dong Y. Greater fructose consumption is associated with cardiometabolic risk markers and visceral adiposity in adolescents. J Nutr. 2012 Feb;142(2):251-7. doi: 10.3945/jn.111.150219. Epub 2011 Dec 21. Erratum in: J Nutr. 2013 Jan;143(1):123. PMID: 22190023; PMCID: PMC3260058. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22190023
Loenneke, J.P., Wilson, J.M., Manninen, A.H. et al. Quality protein intake is inversely related with abdominal fat. Nutr Metab (Lond) 9, 5 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1186/1743-7075-9-5
Leidy HJ, Tang M, Armstrong CL, Martin CB, Campbell WW. The effects of consuming frequent, higher protein meals on appetite and satiety during weight loss in overweight/obese men. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2011 Apr;19(4):818-24. doi: 10.1038/oby.2010.203. Epub 2010 Sep 16. PMID: 20847729; PMCID: PMC4564867. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4564867/
Howarth NC, Saltzman E, Roberts SB. Dietary fiber and weight regulation. Nutr Rev. 2001 May;59(5):129-39. doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2001.tb07001.x. PMID: 11396693. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11396693/
Hairston KG, Vitolins MZ, Norris JM, Anderson AM, Hanley AJ, Wagenknecht LE. Lifestyle factors and 5-year abdominal fat accumulation in a minority cohort: the IRAS Family Study. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2012 Feb;20(2):421-7. doi: 10.1038/oby.2011.171. Epub 2011 Jun 16. PMID: 21681224; PMCID: PMC3856431. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856431/
ABOUT JAYD HARRISON
Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer and content creator. She helps people to build muscle, burn fat, and clean up their diets with her online coaching programs and social media content. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch and follow on social media:
Sign up for updates ✉️
Sign up to get notified whenever new episodes drop. Opt in for more tips on training, fat loss, and nutrition by filling out the form below:
Your privacy is important to me! I will never share your information with any third party. Unsubscribe from the email list at any time.
