My 3-Step Plan to Lose Belly Fat and Achieve a Fit Body

If you’ve gained belly fat, or if you feel overweight and want to move your body towards a more athletic shape, there’s usually a very typical strategy that can be used to fix it.

It just involves a bit of understanding and planning, but I’m sure you all will manage.

Here’s typically what I always follow whenever I look at the mirror and realize that my body has gone off the rails and I definitely need to get in shape for summer:

1. Clean your diet (and fridge)

The first step in achieving a fit body is to take an honest look at your eating habits and your fridge. After all, at this point we all know what types of food are good for us, and what types of food are contributing to that annoying belly fat most have.

So open your fridge and be honest with yourself: Do you really need that Strawberry flavored ice-cream in the back?

If not, throw it away!

And while you are there, also remove any frozen pizzas or packaged foods, desserts, sodas, and sugary drinks from your fridge and kitchen.

Whoever is serious about losing belly fat, has to eat nutrient-dense foods. And those will be mainly cooked by ourselves and with whole healthy ingredients.

Things that should be contained in your fridge, kitchen, and diet:

• Dairy & Eggs
• Different cuts of meat, fish, and poultry
• Veggies & Fruits
• Healthy fats like Avocado, Olive Oil, Yogurt

Things that shouldn’t be contained in your fridge, kitchen, and diet:

• Cereal, Cookies, Muffins, and Cakes
• Fast Foods
• Snacks such as chips
• Soda and Sugary drinks
• Margarine, Vegetable Oils
• Sugar

Eat anything you want from the first list, but skip everything from the second. Eat until you are full and stop.

The first step in a new fitness journey is not calorie restriction, but a re-structuring of our eating habits by learning what foods are good and what foods are bad.

In the end, you may realize that you can reduce your belly size just by replacing foods that are industrialized and empty in nutrients with foods that are instead: nutrient-dense.

Most are overweight not due to a caloric excess, but due to nutrient deficiencies and a malfunctioning metabolism.

Fix those and you will fix your body… after all, there’s a certain degree of truth to that old saying: you are what you eat.

2. Build muscles.

Most who think of losing body fat think of doing that by achieving a caloric deficit. In summary: eating less in order stores less fat.

The problem with that is that we risk going too low in calories while not really burning that much fat and your body may readjust its energy spending. And that may result in a lack of energy or nutrient deficiencies that only contribute further to storing more fat instead of burning it.

A smarter strategy is to increase your energy spending by building muscles while eating the same amount of food or slightly more.

The extra muscle mass will not only give you that nice toned shape but also improve your body’s metabolic rate and energy spending.

The math is: the more muscle mass, the higher the energy demand due to muscle maintenance and workout recovery.

And that energy will come from your fat reserves and from the food you eat.

Plus, the added extra muscle will also bring a reduction in your total body fat percentage while also giving you that athletic shape we all want.

As a bonus, working out to build muscle will also improve your mood, sleep, and brain by decreasing anxiety and stress.

All of which help reduce the amount of body fat stored around your waist.

3. Reduce calories only when and if needed.

Most who attempt to lose weight make the mistake of cutting too many calories too early in the process. And that’s the main reason why most fail with their fitness goals.

Any drastic decrease in calories will always lead to decreased metabolism and loss of muscle mass, while also signaling to your body that we need to hold on to our fat reserves instead of burning them.

Our bodies will readjust their spending rate based on our caloric intake. And that’s why some diets initially work but stop just after a few days.

So, before even thinking about cutting calories be sure to really focus on steps 1 and 2.

Fixing your eating habits and your metabolism should be your top priority if you want to lose belly fat and achieve a fit body.

Now, if you have done steps 1 and 2 to perfection for a while, you may allow yourself to cut up to a maximum of 200 calories whenever your belly circumference stops going down.