Loading...Diet & Exercise Instructions for a Fat Stomach, Love Handles, and Stubborn Fat Loss
by Dr. Kareem F. Samhouri
Body Sequencing & Fat Loss Expert
Instructions for a flat stomach: Follow the instructions on this page to quickly and easily shift your metabolism, reduce ‘fat loss blockades’ in your body that you don’t even know about, and specifically target belly fat loss. There are 3 tips and 7 steps to this process. Be sure to go in order, and write any comments/questions you have in the comments section below. Begin.
- Tip #1: Cut Sugar, Increase Leptin & Adiponectin Stores
- Tip #2: Choose “Dynamic” and “RAI-based Exercises”
- Tip #3: Reduce Stress, Increase DHEA
Tip #1: Cut Sugar, Increase Leptin & Adiponectin Stores
Step 1: Begin the following dietary schedule, with complete strictness for 4 weeks:
6 Days/Week, as follows:
- 5 grams of sugar per day
- 15 grams of carbohydrates
- 500% daily fiber intake
1 Day/Week, as follows:
- Cheat Day – Full carbohydrate loading + increased fat intake (still avoiding trans-fats and foods with tons of preservatives, corn, wheat, or soy)
Step 2: Focus on hydration. You should be consuming at least half of your bodyweight (pounds) in water (ounces). For example, I weigh about 170 pounds, so half of 170 = 85. I should be consuming 85 ounces of water per day, or roughly seven 12 ounce glasses of water.
Personally, I make this easy on myself, and I carry a Nalgene bottle with me for most of the day. This makes consuming 85 ounces of water easy.
When you’re focusing on hydration, it’s important that you realize the importance of electrolytes in your hydration, such as:
| Mineral: | Commonly Found In: |
| Calcium | Yogurt, Milk, Cream, Cheese, Salmon, Rhubarb, Oatmeal, Spinach, Almonds, Broccoli |
| Magnesium | Halibut, Tuna, Bananas, Figs, Barley, Buckwheat flour, Oat Bran (raw), Almonds, Brazil Nuts, Cashews, Pine Nuts, Black Beans, Artichokes |
| Sodium | Anything with salt |
| Potassium | Raisins, Prunes, Apricots, Dates, Strawberries, Bananas, Watermelon, Tomatoes, Citrus Fruits, Spinach, Beans, Peas, Beets, Greens |
This will help you reduce cramping with exercise to follow, increase metabolic processes in your body naturally, and reduce the strain on your heart. By focusing on properly hydrating your body with electrolytes + water, you are reducing the stressful impact of exercise and diet on your body, and you’re allowing your body to regain its health much more rapidly.
Step 3: Figure out which supplements you need to be taking.
When it comes to losing stomach fat, you have to really keep your body in balance. This should primarily be done through your diet, but there are certain supplements that have been proven to be very helpful in this process. I’ve listed them in 2 categories:
- Supplements that are good for long-term use
- Supplements that are helpful in losing stomach fat, but should be temporary
First, here are a list of the supplements that I’d recommend for long-term use, as they relate to losing stomach fat and keeping it away:
| Long-Term Supplement: | Reason Why: | Estimated Cost: |
| Athletic Greens | Nutrient absorption is dependent upon the health of your gut and the micronutrients you take in. This is my all-in-one nutritional insurance. | $97/month |
|
1/2 Fish Oil #1 and 1/2 Fish Oil #2 |
Each fish oil provides different benefits, so this is a more holistic approach; fish oils reduce inflammation, which pretty much is key to overall health, fat loss, and pain relief. | $32.45/month |
| Longevity | Antioxidants are important for repair of your body and reduction in risk of cancer and other harmful bodily processes. | $29.95/month |
| Total: | $159.40/month |
Second, here is a list of supplements that have proven value in reducing stomach fat, but they are not “health-related” supplements, in that they have a specific purpose of helping you lose fat; in other words, use these to meet your goals, and then stop taking them:
| Long-Term Supplement: | Reason Why: | Estimated Cost: |
| Real Dose |
Removes fat-burning hormonal barriers:
|
$60/month with 3 month purchase |
| Ultimate Digestive Health |
15% of US adults suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome; bowel habits are a signal of your body’s digestive health. Fix bowel habits and improve nutrient absorption, which is key to fat loss. |
$60/month with 3 month purchase |
| Ultimate Trim | Reduces appetite, increases metabolism, increases energy levels, reduces stress | $23/month with 3 month purchase |
| Leptiburn (coming soon) | Strategically biases Leptin, a fat-burning hormone, and increases production of this in your body. | tbd |
| Total: | $143/month for 3-4 months |
This may seem daunting, at first, but I’ve learned to think about supplements this way:
- For long-term use, it’s a lot cheaper than insurance spikes for my blood work being out of control, let alone doctor’s visits, hospital stays, etc. This is my health, not something to take lightly, and I want to feel absolutely phenomenal – life is better when you’re happy and well.
- For short-term use, this is simply a matter of what you’ve tried before and what you haven’t. If you haven’t seen results, and you feel that you absolutely ‘have to’ be successful this time around, then make sure you have all of your ducks aligned; with a full-on fat loss strategy, this is part of the deal, and it can easily be a more effective strategy to supplement properly and follow an online program than to work out with a trainer. These are all trades, so it’s up to you…
*NOTE: I do have financial incentive in recommending these companies to you; however, that is not the main reason I am doing so. Instead, think about it this way… as a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Kinesiologist, I am constantly approached by supplement companies and other health-related companies to promote their products. I choose ‘not’ to promote anything that hasn’t met the strictest standard of review. With the intention of reducing confusion for you, I’ve joined forces and partnered with these companies to be able to offer you the best possible rates and supplements on the market.
Tip #2: Choose “Dynamic” and “RAI-based Exercises”
Step 4: Choose Dynamic Exercise
Dynamic exercises force your body to stabilize and recruit your core for increased effect from your exercise program. Basically, the more your body thinks your spine is stable, the faster it will help you lose fat.
Think about it this way… if your body feels safe, it’ll grow strength. If you increase muscular strength, or muscle, you increase your metabolism. While it’s really important to nail down your nutrition and be sure that you’re getting the most possible absorption from every nutrient you consume, it’s equally important to know that you’re getting the most from every exercise that you choose.
Your body and brain exchange signals all the time to let your brain know what’s going on and how your body is responding to various demands; then, your brain sends feedback signals to adjust movement, recruit more or less muscle, and execute the new ‘movement plan.’
When you constantly perform dynamic exercise, or you use unstable surfaces, balance reactions, and varying modalities (i.e. dumbbell vs medicine ball vs kettlebell), you are ‘enhancing’ the communication between your body and brain. You are sending smaller amounts of feedback, more regularly, with every exercise, so your body becomes efficient at recruiting the proper muscles for postural stabilization, joint alignment, and improved strength with movement.
Examples of ‘standard’ exercises turned ‘dynamic’ are below:
Step 5: Choose Random Alternating Intensity-based Exercises (RAI)
Interval training is paramount to your success in getting a flat stomach. Reducing stomach fat requires that you lose bodyfat everywhere, not just in your stomach. Your body has fat storage patterns, and it turns out that storing lower belly fat is a priority fat storage area for your body.
In the case of severe starvation, the fat that we store in our lower abdomens can be used for food. Our bodies can consume this fat easily and then digest it for energy and survival.
Fortunate, right?
Yes, but not for fat loss. Your body needs to lose fat in your abdomen last, in most cases. This means that you’ll have to lose fat around your fingers, wrists, in your face, neck, calves, etc., before you are ever going to get rid of your stomach completely.
With this in mind, think about interval training as a way to ‘shed’ fat off of your body. The key to High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is to alternate intensities, as follows:
Instructions for HIIT workout: Alternate between ‘sprint periods’ and ‘active rest periods,’ as indicated. During the ‘active rest periods,’ it’s extremely important that you go very slow and easy. The slower you go here, and the more your body recovers, the more you’ll get from every ‘sprint period.’ The #1 mistake people make with HIIT is not resting enough during the ‘active rest periods.’
On a scale of 0 to 10, where:
0 = laying in bed, no effort whatsoever
10 = hardest thing you’ve
ever done, passing out fatigue
Your ‘Active Rest Periods’ should be 2-3 out of 10, in intensity.
Your ‘Sprint Periods’ should be a 9-9.5 out of 10, in intensity.
HIIT can be applied to any group of exercises, or giant set. It’s not necessary to be on a cardio machine to do HIIT. All you have to do is grab 5 exercises, in this order, and put them together into a 5 exercise Giant Set:
- Squat
- Push
- Lunge
- Pull
- Plank
Alternate 30 seconds ‘sprint’ with 30 seconds ‘active rest’. Each exercise is to be done for 1 minute before changing to the following exercise. Alternate until you get through all 5, and then repeat.
RAI-based exercise is completely achievable, but it takes a plan to make your program both Dynamic and RAI-based.
Tip #3: Reduce Stress, Increase DHEA
Step 6: Reduce Stress
Stress and cortisol are linked. When your body produces too much cortisol, which is it’s response to stress, you deposit lower belly fat. In addition to this, it messes with your body’s natural ability to regulate insulin, which gives you ‘diabetic symptoms,’ even though you are not diabetic. In other words, you have increased deposit of sugar as fat, and you lose the ability to maximize energy utilization from food.
Basically, when your body is stressed, this is what happens:
- you store more fat
- you feel terrible, and that drains your energy level
- your sleep patterns become interrupted, which throws off all hormonal responses in your body
Stress reduction and management is much more important people give it credit.I think that the main reason for this is the stigma that exists on mental health, when in reality, our brain is our most important organ. We can literally change the internal health state of our bodies by changing our thoughts. Our thoughts can and will manifest as variations in brain chemistry.
Since your brain controls movement, thought, feeling, sight, touch, and hearing, it’s ridiculously important to keep your brain happy. Your body won’t function well without a happy brain, and a happy brain is a stress-free brain.
If you haven’t seen my 3 Step Stress Reduction Plan yet, please check it out right now
Step 7: Increase DHEA
DHEA is your calming hormone.
During periods of chronic stress, which is most of our daily lives when we consider the new generations’ life demands:
Work + Family Life + House Duties = Too much for anyone
With the unification of genders in the work force, the increased educational requirements for our children to have a successful career, and technology diverting our attention spans from complete productivity, most of us are just too stressed.
Take some time and calm yourself. Do this through Diaphragmatic Breathing in just 5 minutes per day, and before every workout you do. Here’s how you do this:
- Sit up tall or lay in a reclined position — relax the top of your shoulders.
- Breathe in through your nose, deeply, and watch your belly expand (place your dominant hand on your belly to check and make sure this is happening)
- Avoid raising your shoulders as you breathe in
- Breathe out gently through your mouth by pursing your lips like you’re blowing through a thin straw
- Repeat 15x
When you combine these 7 steps for a flat stomach and 3 stomach fat tips, you’re bound to see dramatic changes take place in your body. I believe in you, and I know you’ll get there. In fact, let me help you set
some reasonable expectations, so you know what’s in front of you…
To help you better understand reasonable expectations for stomach fat loss goals, I’ve prepared a ‘ Table of Leanness’ for you. This was my own personal experience at each bodyfat level. Some people will show a six pack sooner than I did, but that’s not a guarantee. Most people will not take longer… and that’s just genes, so please use me as your inspiration and get as lean as you want!
Table of Leanness:
| Bodyfat %: | Result: |
| 5% | Risk of injury too high, not worth it |
| 7.5% | Six-pack abs |
| 10% | Lean mid-section, no love handles |
| 12.5% | Barely pinchable love handles, lower abdomen protrusion after meals |
| 15% | Noticeably in shape, great with shirt on |
| 17.5% | Healthy, but not shapely |
| 20% | Still healthy, but risking downward spiral |
| 22.5% | Slipping quickly, already over limit for joint pain |
| 25% | In pain, not very good-looking with shirt off |
Shocking, isn’t it?
You’d think that I’d look much better all the way through 20%, since this is the “supposed” limit of bodyfat for men; knowing this, does it make more sense why you still have stomach fat?
You can be perfectly ‘healthy’ according to the ‘scales of health,’ but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to be ‘lean.’ Leanness comes from excelling at the highest level. This is the equivalent to learning how to ski, and becoming a proficient skier, versus being able to race.
When your bodyfat hits the ‘normal requirements of 10-20%’, you are going to be “proficient;” when you go sub-10%, that’s when you become a “pro.”
Interestingly enough, like most things, this is to be done in moderation. When you go under 7.5% bodyfat, as a man, your risk of injury goes up substantially. In fact, anything under 8-10% has slight increased risk of injury, much like what a competitive athlete takes on when performing or in competition.
When it comes to losing stomach fat and getting a flat stomach, all you have to do is follow the 7 steps above. Your body can and will change, and this can happen relatively quickly. The human body was designed for optimal performance when lean, so it’s goal is always to get there. You just have to make sure that you’re providing a strong enough and direct enough influence for change.
Which exercise do you think cause more harm than good? — Please comment below:
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