Lower belly fat is stubborn because people get impatient and train wrong. Try 16:8 intermittent fasting, do HIIT while fasted to raise catecholamines, and take BCAAs to protect muscle. A caloric deficit and consistency still matter most.
For the majority of people, lower belly fat is the most stubborn area for fat loss. But at the same time it's the key to taking your physique to the next level and going from this to this. And sorry to break it to you, but simply weight training and eating at a caloric deficit isn't going to be enough for these stubborn areas. It's much harder to lose fat in this area than other areas of your body, which is why so few people have a full out six pack. But the reason why everyone struggles to lose fat in this area is number one, because they get impatient and quit. And number two, because they aren't doing the most optimal training for it. Which as you will see also relates to number one. And what I mean when I say they're impatient is that when people usually start cutting, they see that they are making progress and losing fat in other areas of their body, they get motivated. But after months of hard dieting and cardio, they don't see much change in their belly fat, so they quit. And I don't blame them. I would quit too. But the reason they quit is due to the number two problem I mentioned, which is they aren't doing the most optimal training for it, which means they're hardly getting any results for all of their hard work. This is because getting down to moderately low levels of body fat, like going from 15% body fat to 10%, is a lot easier than getting down to very low levels of body fat, like going from 10% to 7%, which is where you need to take your training to the next level in order to continue seeing results. So in this video, I'm going to be giving you the four best tips to lose that stubborn lower AB fat as fast as possible. These tips are what I personally use to get rid of that last bit of fat on my lower abs and lower back. But keep in mind that you should be at around 10 to 12% body fat before being concerned with stubborn fat. Because although some of these tips can increase abdominal fat mobilization, if you're at a higher level of body fat than that, your body will prioritize losing fat in other areas of your body more, such as your arms, shoulders and face, rather than on stubborn fat.
The first tip is to use intermittent fasting. This is an eating protocol where you ingest all of your calories within an 8 to 10 hour window and fast for the rest of the day. For example, eat from 12pm to 8pm and don't consume anything with calories outside of those hours. Through various mechanisms, intermittent Fasting is able to effectively target stubborn body fat. Research by Gormson et al. Showed that it achieves this by increasing the levels of a group of fat, releasing hormones called catecholamines and increasing abdominal blood flow. Which means that these hormones will have an easier time reaching your stubborn belly fat and thus burning off the fat in this area. I personally prefer a fasting protocol with an 8 hour feeding window and a 16 hour fast as I find this is the easiest to maintain. And this leads to my second tip which is to increase your activity while in the fasted state. In order to get to a fasted state, your insulin levels must drop from the elevated levels are at after you eat, which often takes several hours. Since insulin normally inhibits a breakdown of fat, we want our insulin levels to be low during our workouts in order to maximize fat loss by increasing lipid mobilization. By using an intermittent fasting protocol when you wake up, you'll actually be in this fasted state until you have your first meal. So by increasing your energy demand while in a fasted state, you theoretically increase the mobilization and fat burning in stubborn areas even more. This is where I've really noticed a difference when cutting with fasted cardio. I believe it's what enables me to lose my last bit of fat and go from around 10% body fat down to 6 to 7%, in which most of the fat that I had to lose was stubborn fat. And this brings me to my last point which is to perform HIIT and ideally to perform it in a fastest state. For the reasons I previously discussed, there have been several studies concluding that HIIT protocols are able to burn more fat than steady state cardio and in less time. More importantly for us though, research also indicates that HIIT may be especially helpful in getting rid of stubborn fat. This is due to the hormonal responses that is exhibited from performing hiit. HIIT has been shown on several occasions to actually significantly increase catecholamine levels in the body during and post exercise. And as I discussed earlier, increasing catecholamine levels in the body, especially when you're in a fasted state, can potentially increase fat loss in stubborn areas. And since we don't see this catecholamine response in steady state cardio, as shown by a study by Jacob et al. It seems that HIIT is the best method to target that stubborn fat.
But one of the biggest downsides with fasted training is that it can increase muscle loss when you're on a caloric deficit. So I suggest supplementing with branched chain amino acids to counteract this effect. In addition, some people find that they don't do very well lifting weights while fasted and they have to lower their weights as a result. If this is the case for you, then I suggest you do cardio and a fasted state and your weightlifting in a non fasted state in order to best maintain your strength and maximize your post exercise oxygen consumption. So how exactly can you best implement the tips I previously described? Simple 1. Use an intermittent fasting protocol that you prefer, for example 16 hour fasts and 8 hour feeding window. 2. Perform your weight training and cardio while in a fasted state, ideally in the morning. But if you prefer weight training non fasted, do that instead and stick to fasted cardio and 3 use HIIT as your fasted cardio 2 to 3 times per week and do additional fasted low intensity cardio if that isn't enough. Since HIIT too often is very stressful on the body and one very important thing to always keep in mind is that at the end of the day you need to be eating at a caloric deficit. You can use all the tips I described, but it won't get you anywhere if you're not eating at a caloric deficit.
And that's basically it guys. When it comes to losing fat, especially.
Stubborn belly fat, all it comes down to is being patient and being consistent with it. The strategies that I mentioned today are just various methods that will help speed up the process. A lot of effort goes into making these videos, so if you found it useful then please don't forget to like the video. Comment below and subscribe to my channel. See you next time.
