Posted on June 14, 2016 by Jenny Cromack

Fat around your stomach is the hardest so lose and for many it can be extremely frustrating. Despite training and eating healthier ,people still have those love handles to lose, so what can be done?!

Here are some top tips to drop the belly fat.

Train Legs
If you have a low muscle mass in your lower body this will result in more belly fat. Belly fat leads to inflammatory marker that degrade muscle mass. As you lose muscle mass your metabolic rate decreases resulting in abdominal fat. By prioritising your lower body lifts at the beginning of the workout you will produce a higher level of growth hormone that will help burn the fat around your stomach.
High Protein, Low Carb.

So why does eating protein help lower abdominal fat?

The high amount of amino acids in the protein will trigger protein synthesis that will in turn help build lean muscle mass and result in a increase to your resting energy expenditure therefore burning the fat.

Eating protein compared with a carb based meal or snack will leave you feeling satisfied for linger keeping those hunger cravings at bay resulting in you eating less.

 Intervals

When you perform intervals you produce a high amount of growth hormone which is fantastic for burning fat and helping build muscle.

The Hypothalmic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) controls hormone levels and can be altered due to lack of sleep, stress and being sedentary. All 3 factors lead to an increase in belly fat however when you perform intervals the HPA is reset helping reduce fat.

Click HERE for some sprint intervals

Get enough sleep Zzzzzzz

Lack of sleep leads to an increase in body fat especially around your stomach area. Poor sleep causes a disturbance to your circadian rhythm which in turn creates changes to your hormone levels.

When you sleep the body produces growth hormone which as you know from this blog already is a great fat blaster. However, if you continue to not have a good nights sleep growth hormone production is stunted and the stress hormone cortisol is increased which increase belly fat. So the key is to sleep better and produce growth hormone over cortisol.

Optimising your circadian rhythm is key to keep that stomach fat down. To read more on how to improve sleep and the importance of sleep click HERE.