Can You Target Belly Fat with Exercise?

No. Allow me to explain, before you proceed to sending me death threats.

Lol, you like that one?

I thought it was funny.

Anyway, let’s get straight to it lol.

Here is How You Target Belly Fat

It all boils down to one word. Nutrition. Yep, you heard that right, I didn’t stutter either. Those nine letter words is your answer.

My friends there is this concept you might not have heard of called calories, and before you get all emotional about my dry humor and sarcasm, just hear me out.

How can you possibly expect to lose fat if you continue to eat like crap? And think you can off-set that by just exercising. It doesn’t make much sense now does it?

It doesn’t matter if you do a million sit ups a day, you’re NOT getting abs if you aren’t eating in a calorie deficit. Here are two strategies you can use to help you get rid of your belly fat.

Option 1

In option 1 you need to know how to track your calories. Google and You-Tube rules the world, so use them to your advantage. You can literally Google or You-Tube “the easiest calorie tracker to use,” and hit Enter. Pick one and do 5 to 10 minutes of homework on how to use it. Here is an example for you.

Let’s say your goal is to weigh 150lbs, but you have no idea how much you should be eating a day to lose weight.

The easiest way to figure that out is to take your goal weight x 12. In this example, it would be 150lbs x 12 = 1,800 calories. That’s how much you would be eating a day to lose weight.

Once you’ve figured out your calorie intake, you can then use your calorie tracking app to hold yourself accountable, so you can reach your goal.

Option 2

In option 2, you would need to eat 2x a day. It could be breakfast and lunch, lunch and dinner or breakfast and dinner. Pick whichever you feel most comfortable with and stick to it.

In this example, I am going to use lunch and dinner, which means I would have to fast for breakfast.

Before I dive in any further, let me touch base on why the 2 meal a day strategy can work for you. If you’re someone who doesn’t track their calories, it’s fair to say that you pretty much have no idea how much you’re eating. Most people over-estimate how much they eat and under-estimate how much calories they burn.

If you find yourself gaining weight, it’s NOT because you’re eating less, I promise you that. You’re eating more than you should, you just don’t know that those frequent snack breaks and highly processed meals adds up overtime.

Picture this. Chicken breast with baked potato, spinach, a slice of avocado and a cup of raspberries. Now picture this, fried chicken breast with macaroni and cheese, fries, and a cup of ice-cream.

Which contains less calories?

I am almost certain most of your food choices throughout the day resembles picture 2, because if it didn’t you wouldn’t be here.

You see, picture 1 resembles high nutrient dense foods, meaning they’re highly filling and yet contains less calories. Whereas picture 2 are high palatable foods. These are foods that are tastier, less filling and yet high in calories.

The next thing I would like to talk about is how you can use exercise to help morph your body into what you want.

What Exercises Should I Be Doing in the Gym?

That’s a great question. Let me guess, you’re one of those who goes to the treadmill, do about an hour, and then leave?

Losing belly fat is one thing but turning that into abs is something completely different.

Who do you want to be like?

Let’s get one thing straight, you need to STOP doing a bunch of cardio. You need to replace most of your cardio workouts with strength training. For example, if you’re used to doing cardio 5x days a week, bring it down to 2 and the remaining 3 days, lift weights.

The next time you hit the gym, here is how I want you to approach your workout.

Step 1

Make sure to stretch to warm-up your body.

Step 2

You want to start all your exercises with compound lifts. Compound lifts also known as compound movements are exercises that target multiple muscle groups at the same time.

You start with those exercises first because they are incredibly taxing to the body. Those types of exercises demand a lot of energy. Because you’re fresh when you first step in the gym, it makes the most sense to get it out of the way.

If you choose to do these types of exercises later in your workouts as opposed to the beginning, here is what will happen:

You will fatigue easily because you’ve exhausted your body with prior exercises.

Your technique and form will get compromised because the demand from those exercises are incredibly intense.

You will end up minimizing how much you can truly lift, because again your body is exhausted from your prior exercises.

The intensity of those compound movements will be compromised because the number of sets & reps from those movements will be less than it really should had you done those exercises first.

Look at it this way. The longer you stay in the gym, the more tired you are. The more tired you are, the less demand your body can tolerate. If those demand far exceeds how much your body can tolerate, your body will eventually crack and things like what I’ve mentioned prior will happen as a result.

Here are a few upper body and lower body compound exercises I would recommend doing.

Upper Body Compound Exercises

Barbell Flat Bench

Incline Barbell Bench Press

Decline Barbell Bench Press

Barbell/Dumbbell Rows

Overhead Shoulder Press

Body Weight Dips

Pull-Ups

Push-Ups

Lat Pull-Downs

Cable Rows

Lower Body Compound Exercises

Barbell Squats

Deadlifts

Lunges

Leg Press Machine

Barbell Front Squat

Barbell Cleans

Step 3

Once you’re done with doing compound exercises, you then want to progress to more isolated workouts. These are exercises that target single muscle groups, which means they’re less taxing to the body.

That’s important because as you progress through your workouts, fatigue will become more and more apparent and since isolated workouts are less demanding, you will still be able to lift with intensity without compromising technique.

Here are a few upper body and lower body isolated exercises I would recommend doing.

Upper Body Isolated Exercises

Bicep Curl

Triceps Extension

Machine Chest Press

Cable Chest Fly’s

Rope Face Pulls

Lateral Shoulder Raises

Delt Fly’s

Reverse Curls

Pec Fly’s

Shoulder Front Raises

Lower Body Isolated Exercises

Goblet Squat

Lateral Lunges

Single Leg Hip Thrust

Glute Bridges

Leg Extensions

Hamstring Curls

Step Ups

Romanian Deadlift

Calf Raises

Ok, now that I’ve given you a list of exercises to do, you’re probably asking yourself, how many sets, reps and rest time should I be doing, so here it is.

Reps/Sets & Rest for Compound Exercises

Reps: 4-6

Sets: 3-4

Rest: 2-3mins

Total Exercises: 6-8

Total Time: 45min – 1hr

Reps/Sets & Rest for Isolated Exercises

Reps: 8-10

Sets: 3-4

Rest: 1min