Best Exercises to Lose Belly Fat
If you want to get rid of some of the belly fat that you are carrying around, you are going to have to combine a regimen of diet and exercise to burn the calories needed to lose some weight. Your body burns a certain number of calories every day just by keeping you alive, with basic body functions such as breathing, heart and brain activity and digestion. Fat loss occurs when your body burns more calories than you are taking in. A person can lose weight by dieting alone, but exercise is important if you want to lose weight in a healthy way and as well, for a couple of different reasons.
Why Exercise is Important to Burn Belly Fat?
Exercise is so important to burning fat for several reasons.
First, as stated earlier, you burn fat when your body burns more calories than you take by eating. When you exercise you add to the total calories burned by your body. An hour of exercise can burn as many as 1000 calories, if you are doing a high intensity, extremely difficult workout like boxing, but most of the time you will burn just a few hundred with exercises like jogging, aerobics or playing sports.
Second, exercise is important to burning belly fat because your body’s metabolism goes up for about 18 to 24 hours after you exercise. That means that by exercising for just an hour, you can increase the amount of calories that you burn for quite a while afterward. Also, exercise builds the muscles, which increases fat burning.
First, as stated earlier, you burn fat when your body burns more calories than you take by eating. When you exercise you add to the total calories burned by your body. An hour of exercise can burn as many as 1000 calories, if you are doing a high intensity, extremely difficult workout like boxing, but most of the time you will burn just a few hundred with exercises like jogging, aerobics or playing sports.
Second, exercise is important to burning belly fat because your body’s metabolism goes up for about 18 to 24 hours after you exercise. That means that by exercising for just an hour, you can increase the amount of calories that you burn for quite a while afterward. Also, exercise builds the muscles, which increases fat burning.
Crunches: Crunches are one of the most effective fat burning exercises. A crunch is done by laying down on the floor, and bending the knees with the feet still on the floor. You then place your hands next to your ears without interlocking your fingers, and lift your chest up and try to touch your knees with your forehead.
Side Crunches: Side to side crunches work the side abdominal muscles. They work pretty much the same way as regular crunches, except that you move from one side to the other as you do the crunch. This is another example of working the rest of the abdominal muscles, in this case, the abdominal muscles along the sides of the regular set. These exercises will help you to burn the belly fat and lose weight.
Ball Crunches: Ball Crunches are another great exercise to burn body fat, especially from the belly. However, using an exercise ball can cause back problems if you don’t know what you are doing so you should consider this an advanced exercise and get some instruction on using an exercise ball before you begin. You can find someone at your local gym to instruct you on the proper use of an exercise ball, or you can find classes there as well.
Dumbbell Side Bends: Side bends with dumbells are also a great way to burn belly fat. Simply hold the dumbells, one in each hand, and bend sideways on one side and then the other. Make sure that you don’t make movements that make your back feel uncomfortable and keep your bends easy and consistent.
Alternating Leg Lifts: Your abdominal muscles are made up of several smaller groups of muscles and you have to do different exercises to work those parts. Leg lifts are a great way to work the lower abdominal muscles. You simply lay down on your back and left up one leg, keeping it straight, until the bottom of your foot is pointed toward the ceiling, or as high as you can if you cannot stretch that far. Then, do the same with the other leg. Alternate back and forth.