Home Workout Mistakes: Don’t Make these to Lose Belly Fat
Working out is a great way to lose belly fat. However, to ensure you lose belly fat don’t make home workout mistakes such as those described in this post.
Doing easy workouts
To burn belly fat, your workouts should make you breathe hard. And the only way to do that is to do your workouts with high intensity. In fact, a study published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, reported that people who completed a high-intensity workout regimen lost more belly fat than those with a low-intensity regimen. In fact, the low-intensity exercisers experienced no significant changes at all. Incidentally, high intensity workouts mean you’re going all out for as long as you can to burn more calories in less time.
Working out excessively
As much as exercise is good for you, going overboard and doing too much is detrimental to your body.
For example, too much exercise can increase stress on the central nervous system. Which, in turn, causes cortisol levels to rise. And this results in weight gain, mostly around your waist.
That’s why it’s important to take adequate rest time and mix up your workouts.
Sticking to the same workout
One of the home workout mistakes is sticking to the same workout. While sticking to the same workout might be easier for you, it may hinder your goal of losing belly fat. This is because even though you are getting your workout in, the workout may not helping you lose belly fat. And you can find out by measuring your weight and belly fat.
Not taking the time to rest
A typical mistake is not taking the time to rest and recover. This is because rest is essential for muscle growth.
Strength training creates microscopic tears in your muscle tissue. Cells called fibroblasts repair these tears. This helps the tissue heal and grow, resulting in stronger muscles. But your body can only do this when its resting.
Next, moderate- to high-intensity workouts rely on the glycolysis energy pathway, which uses carbohydrates to fuel muscle activity. Feeling sluggish or drained at the end of a workout means your glycogen levels are depleted. If they get too low, your body could catabolize protein for fuel instead of using it to repair muscle tissue. Resting helps your body replace energy stores in your muscle cells.
Doing the wrong workouts
You may think jogging, running or even spinning 4 or 5 times a week is going to help you get rid of belly fat. While, they are good for your heart, cardio workouts like running or spinning won’t do much to your belly fat.
To make any progress on your belly fat, its best to combine cardio workouts like spinning with weight and strength training.
In fact, strength training increases muscle mass. And the more muscle mass you develop the more fat your body burns even when you are not working out. This is because muscles burn more calories than fat. Also, muscles burn more calories throughout the day and not just when you are working out.
However, using just light weights, even if with high reps, isn’t enough to burn belly fat. Use heavier weights with sufficient reps and add speed into the equation. That is, instead of just doing 20 reps with any weight, do those 20 reps with high intensity by doing them as quickly as you can. In fact, the quicker the better for reducing your belly fat.
In general, to really burn belly fat, do high-intensity workouts for short periods of time. By the way, you can do burst of high-intensity workouts while jogging, spinning, or even strength training.
Furthermore, trainers recommend doing functional exercises that use muscles in your core — abdominals, back, pelvic, obliques — as well as other parts of your body. These exercises use more muscles, so there is a higher rate of calorie burn while you are doing them.
Finally, planks are great because they activate not just your core muscles but also your arm, leg and butt muscles.
Having unrealistic expectations
A frequent problem is for a newcomer to have unrealistic expectations on how fast they can see results. This is especially if you are younger and if this is the first time you are on this path. The reality is it take time for your body to lose belly fat. So, once you accept that fact, you are more likely to succeed in achieving your goal.
Not moving enough
If you are serious about reducing belly fat, just working out once a day is, unfortunately, not enough. This is especially true if you have a sedentary lifestyle. To really want to make a dent at reducing belly fat, requires you to stay active throughout the day. So, if you have a job that requires you to sit, you should get up as often as you can or able to. For example, if you have to use an elevator, use the stairs instead. Or, instead of parking your car near the entrance, park it as far away as possible and walk to the entrance. Be creative and see what things you can do that requires you to get up for short periods of time throughout the day.
Incidentally, if you are sitting or slouching for significant periods of time during a day, you are likely to accumulate fat in the abdominal area.
Not getting enough sleep
Next, one of the last home workout mistakes is not getting enough sleep. This lack of sleep causes your cortisol levels to go up. As a result, blood sugar levels go up. Which, in turn, adds to belly fat.
In fact, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), insufficient sleep alone increases risk of obesity. Sacrificing sleep (even for the sake of a workout) impairs glucose metabolism, which can lead to higher blood sugar levels — a major contributor to belly fat.
Not to mention, lack of sleep also affects the hunger hormones ghrelin and leptin which drive sugar and carb cravings. So, in combination with the impaired glucose metabolism, you get a vicious cycle that feeds belly fat accumulation.
Not monitoring your workouts
Finally, if you are working out at home, it is important to track their effects on your body. There are several ways to track the effects of your workouts. So choose one that's convenient to you.