Giulia Ralph is a qualified Nutritionist, Strength & Conditioning Coach, Weightlifting Coach, and Personal Trainer. She has a Bachelor of Health Science in Nutrition and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Human Nutrition.
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Home workouts to lose belly fat is among the top searched weight loss workouts. Having a larger midsection is something that causes insecurity for a lot of people, men and women alike.
While you can lose belly fat through gym exercises, doing at home workouts is a more convenient and less expensive way to achieve the desired results. If you are unsure about which exercises make the best at home workouts to lose belly fat, read on to find out.
Before listing some home workouts to lose belly fat, we must stress something first. There is no one specific workout that burns the most belly fat. An unfortunate fact about the internet is that it is filled with a lot of misinformation.
Many sources will claim that abdominal specific workouts like sit ups or crunches are the best to lose belly fat. While these exercises can help your journey along, doing just these workouts will not help you achieve your goal.
The exercise routine that burns the most belly fat includes a combination of both cardio and weight training exercises. To lose weight and fat you need to burn calories.
Cardio exercises like jogging, running, swimming, etc. burn a high number of calories in a short amount of time. On the other hand, resistance training e.g. squats, push-ups, weighted rows, deadlifts, etc. may burn fewer calories during the workout session, but it builds muscle which in turn helps burn calories long after the workout is done (1, 10, 3, 6).
Combining both cardio and weight training, leads to more calorie burn which equals faster overall body as well as belly fat loss in the long run.
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As mentioned above, the most effective routine of at-home workouts to lose belly fat should include both cardio and strength training exercises. Such a routine helps you lose overall body fat including the belly.
If you are thinking of doing simple at home workouts to lose belly fat alone and not fat or weight in any other part of the body, you should know that spot reduction is a myth. Spot reduction is the claim that doing specific exercises that target a certain area of the body (the belly in this case) can help you reduce fat in that area.
Ab workouts at home to lose belly fat tend to be popular because people believe that constantly working out the midsection alone will help them get a slimmer waist. This could not be further from the truth.
Over the years, the majority of scientific studies on the matter have confirmed that spot reduction is just a very popular myth.
The other control group received no instructions on exercises to do.
At the end of the study, researchers realized that despite some participants doing more ab muscle exercises than others, the workouts produced no significant effect on body weight, body fat percentage, android fat percentage, android fat, abdominal circumference, abdominal skinfold and suprailiac skinfold measurements.
Despite all the study participants’ efforts exercising, this method was not enough to achieve positive results in regards to belly fat loss (11).
In the study, the women were divided into 2 groups – both groups had their diets adjusted for optimal weight loss but only 1 group was required to do ab exercises. After the 12 weeks while both groups had lost weight, the difference wasn’t significant.
When their belly fat, waist and hip circumference, BMI and body fat percentage were measured, the differences were also not significant. This goes on to not only prove that spot reduction is a myth, but also that it cannot solely help you lose belly fat or body fat alone (2).
Ab workouts alone will not help you lose belly fat alone. Working out to just lose belly fat will not work. To lose belly fat, you must be willing to see fat loss changes in other areas of the body. You must also be willing to do more than just 1 type of workout.
Read more: 8 Drinks to Burn Belly Fat The Healthy Way
Here are some things you must know and understand before starting a routine of home workouts to lose belly fat and gain muscle
According to the CDC, sustainable weight (or fat) loss usually means losing 1 to 2 pounds a week (9).
This means a loss of about 4 to 8 pounds after 30 days. To lose belly fat in the right way, you must be patient, especially if you have a larger midsection.
To lose weight, you need a combination of exercise (both cardio and strength training) as well as a consistent, healthy calorie deficit.
Weight loss and gain are mostly influenced by your diet and as they say, you can’t out exercise a bad diet. Make sure to find out how many calories you consume a day then reduce this number by 500 calories to create a deficit.
Also, make sure to eat as healthy as possible. Healthy eating not only prevents the consumption of empty calories but it also staves off disease.
While we cannot spot-reduce parts of the body through exercise, some people may lose weight around their belly first. According to a study published in 2017, men lost more fat in the trunk portion of the body first (8).
Weight loss results take anywhere between 4 to 6 weeks to become noticeable (5). Do not be discouraged if you do not see drastic changes in the first 30 days.
Some of the best home workouts to lose belly fat include
Also known as aerobic exercises they burn a large number of calories within a short amount of time, thus they are great for belly fat loss. Aside from fat loss they are also great for improved heart health, increased lung capacity, and they lower your risk of chronic illnesses.
Some great examples of cardio exercises include
All these exercises are perfect home workouts to lose belly fat. While they can be done at slower moderate paces, if you can, try to make your exercise of choice high intensity/impact. The more intense your workout the more calories burned and the faster the weight loss results.
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As previously mentioned, strength training exercises may burn less calories than cardio for the moment, but they keep your metabolic rate high for longer. A higher/faster metabolic rate means you burn more calories even while at rest.
Some exercises that you should add to your routine include:
If you do not own dumbbells, use water bottles, just make sure they are as heavy as possible (heavy enough for you to feel the strain while carrying them but not enough to compromise your form or hurt yourself).
As mentioned above, scientific evidence shows that you cannot lose belly fat by doing ab exercises alone. What many people fail to realize is that these ab workouts do not burn fat per se. What they do is work and strengthen the core/ab muscles that are usually hidden under the layer of fat.
To be able to see your six pack muscles, you have to first lose the fat layer above them. This is best achieved through a variety of cardio exercises as well as strength training exercises.
This is not to mean that core exercises are not important if you have a big belly. Exercising these muscles helps to strengthen them which has been shown to help improve your balance and stability, prevent injury, reduce low back pain, improve athletic performance and even improve posture (12, 7).
Some great exercises to help gradually strengthen your ab muscles include
Read more: Different Types of Body Fat and What They Mean for Your Health
There is no way to lose belly fat in just 7 days. Any diet or exercise plan that promises to help you lose belly fat in just a week is a fad. It will not give you the desired results.
As mentioned above, fat and weight loss take time. You have to wait anywhere between a month to a month and a half to see any results from fat loss.
Please note that any ‘weight loss’ results seen in a week or even two weeks is very likely from water loss not fat loss.
There is no exercise to lose belly fat in 2 weeks as it is impossible to lose abdominal fat in 2 weeks. Fat loss can take 4 to 6 weeks to become noticeable, and it will very likely that it will take much longer for your belly to become completely flat.
When it comes to exercise to reduce belly fat for female at home, it is important to remember that weight and fat loss are not divided by gender – and neither are workouts. All the workouts listed above can be used as home workouts to lose belly fat for both men and women.
The number one way to lose belly fat is through a combination of diet and exercise. Make sure to eat a healthy diet, maintain a calorie deficit, and try to work out for at least 30 minutes a day 4 to 5 days a week.
To maximize calorie burn, your workout routine should include both cardio and strength training workouts. Ab-specific workouts can also be included on some days, but they shouldn’t be your only exercise.
In a way, yes.
Squats are a fantastic workout that targets the largest muscles in the body. This helps burn calories and build muscles, two things that help with belly and overall body fat loss.
Not really.
Research has shown that ab exercises alone -including sit-ups – do not help with belly fat loss. Instead, they are better at strengthening core muscles (4, 2, 11).
However, doing core exercises like these is still a good idea. A strong core is important for many everyday functions.
Contrary to popular opinion, home workouts to lose belly fat should not only consist of ab specific workouts. To lose belly fat, you need to do exercises that help you lose fat all over your body as spot reduction is nothing but a myth.
Cardio and strength training exercises are the best opinion for this. Aside from working out, you must also remember to fix your diet. No matter how hard you exercise, a bad diet will derail your weight/fat loss plans.
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