How to Reduce Belly Fat
You’ve tried it all: cutting down the carbs, eating endless amounts
of chicken, exercising like mad. So why are those infernal love handles —
not to mention that below-the-belly-button roll of fat — still there?
In part, we (as in the fitness media) are to blame. There are
hundreds of different ways to put muscle on the body, and these workouts
are what fitness and muscle magazines love to feature. (It sure beats
snore-inducing cardio with another shot of someone running on the
beach.) Unless you want to look like a bodybuilder (and even those guys
do plenty of cardio come cutting time), however, it’s time to step up
the cardio. “You’ve got to train like an athlete to look like an
athlete”, says Tom Seabourne, Ph.D., a professor of exercise science at
Northeast Texas Community College.
In other words, 30 minutes of slow cardio a few times a week are not
enough — unless you’re happy with your current level of fat stores. If
you want to access that fat, says Seabourne, you’ve got to do the right
kind of cardio (intervals twice a week), the right kind of weight
training (focusing on each muscle group twice a week) and long slow
distance (LSD) cardio two to three times a week — all while eating
enough to support your metabolism.
Each form of exercise is essential if you really want to chisel your
body down. You need LSD cardio because after your body burns through the
glycogen in your muscles, it burns your fat stores next. And while
interval training doesn’t burn as much fat
during exercise, it burns more calories
afterwards — just like strength training does.
Seabourne points out that some guys over-train on LSD cardio while
eating too little and neglecting intervals or weights — therefore
slowing their metabolisms and holding on to that stubborn fat. Other
guys do a lot of weights and short bouts of cardio, then eat tonnes of
food in order to build muscle — so their fat stores remain steady or
even increase.
The following programme was designed by Seabourne to give you the
best of both worlds (i.e., recruit more than enough muscle while forcing
those stubborn fat stores to surrender, at last).
Follow this programme for six weeks on and one week off, depending on
your body’s ability to avoid over-training mode (in which gains come to
a screeching halt while muscle soreness and overall fatigue increase).
For some, three weeks may be all you can handle without a break. For
others, 12 weeks works.
Weights
You probably have this covered, but here’s a guideline: Lose the
bodybuilding programme with all the isolation lifts and the absurd
amount of exercise sets per body part (e.g., 15 sets of chest). Instead,
go with upper-body on Monday and Thursday, then lower-body on Tuesday
and Friday — but only with about 20-30 minutes for each weight-training
workout. Aim for two to three sets of two exercises for the major body
parts (chest, shoulders, back, quadriceps and core) and two to three
sets of one exercise for the smaller body parts (triceps, biceps,
hamstrings and calves).
Interval Cardio
Complete two 20- to 30-minute bouts of cardio per week. Always start with a warm-up and end with a cool down. Examples include:
- On a heavy bag: Three minutes of effort + one-minute recoveries
- On a stationary cycle: 10 cycles of 15-second sprints + 45-second recoveries
- On a treadmill or outside on a grass field: 10 cycles of 10-second sprints + 50-second recoveries
LSD Cardio
Because of the length of each session (60 to 90 minutes), Seabourne’s
preference for LSD is non-impact. “For some, impact LSD, like jogging,
can cause unhelpful muscle breakdown — whereas cycling will not”, he
explains. An LSD cycling, elliptical or stair-climbing programme can
begin with an hour. Add two minutes a week until you’re moving for 90
minutes. Any more than 90 minutes and you’ll need a snack to replenish
glycogen stores.
