The Stubborn Belly Fat Solution

Have you reached the point where burning more stubborn belly fat seems impossible? If so, keep reading.

This problematic area is located below the navel, so at this level of leanness you should be able to see at least half of the so called six pack abs.

If it's the same jiggling stomach that makes you feel embarrassed, get real. You are just eating too much, so applying the strategy exposed in this article would be a waste of time.

In the same vein, you don't need to be overly concerned with stubborn belly fat if your goal is to maintain a good appearance.

Even if you get rid of it temporarily, in the long run you will get tired of controlling your calorie intake so strictly, and when this happens it's also the first that you put back on.

However, if for some reason (preparing for a show, or simply being obsessive-compulsive) you want to get as lean as possible, you need to adjust your regular nutrition and exercise regimen.

What makes this fat so special in the first place? Without going too deep into physiology, let's see the main reasons – understanding the cause will help you to better deal with the effects.

You may know already that all hormones send their signal to do whatever they are supposed to do through receptors, and catecholamines (adrenaline and noradrenaline) are no different.

As the usual analogy goes, you can imagine a hormone as a key and the receptor as a lock.

In this case, catecholamines will activate hormone sensitive lipase, which make possible fat mobilization out of the adipose cells.

It turns out that there are two classes of receptors which have opposite effects when they bind the catecholamines. Beta-2 receptors are the good ones because they stimulate lipolysis, and alpha-2 are the evil ones.

It's important to note that these receptors are unequally distributed, and the lower you go on your abdominals, the greater the alpha-2/beta-2 ratio tends to be.

In addition to the differences in receptor distribution, lower abdominal fat has poorer blood flow, which makes more difficult to transport away the mobilized fatty acids.

It should be mentioned that the blood flow in this area improves considerably in response to a meal. In other words, it's very easy to store calories in your stubborn belly fat, but it's much more difficult to get them out.

So this is a short explanation of why is so difficult to burn the stubborn belly fat.

What is the solution?

While it's true that blood flow to these fat cells improves when you reduce carbohydrates (very low-carb diets inhibit alpha-2 receptors), this is not necessary nor desirable for a few reasons:

You can lower insulin very well, and therefore remove its negative effect on fat mobilization, by performing 2-3 warming-up sets before your heavy one. (You should do this anyway.)

Also, when you get to single digit body fat, chances are that your hormones are messed up (especially leptin). Restricting too much carbohydrate intake would make things worst.

Thirdly, if you want to succeed with whatever diet you follow, don't make big compromises for little benefits. At the end, it all boils down to patience. Constantly looking for advanced methods that increase your perceived effort is a recipe for failure.

Your regular high intensity training is a more efficient way to override the lipolytic resistance related to stubborn belly fat because it inhibits the alpha-2 receptors, and also increases the blood flow to these cells.

However, the resulting lactate that is released into the bloodstream may trap the fatty acids in the fat cells, and this may shut off fat usage while you exercise. But this shouldn't be a problem if you know what to do.

It should be noted that the lactate induced block is cleared after about 5 minutes when a large quantity of fatty acids is released.

Now, this timing is very important because, as mentioned, stubborn belly fat has poor blow flow. So if you don't do anything, the mobilized fatty acids will get back into their fat cells instead of being burned as energy.  

Putting it all together

As you may know already, the most productive exercises for building muscle size or strength (or keeping it while dieting) are heavy squats and deadlifts.

In fact, before the steroid era, squatting was the nucleus of any serious program. After one set of 20 reps done close to failure, you will feel that your workout is over.

This set will last approximately two minutes (it feels much longer, trust me), but this is enough to send the catecholamine levels to the sky – this will greatly stimulate hormone sensitive lipase, which plays a key role in fat mobilization.

Also, a shorter but very intense exercise bout builds up less lactate, and hence there will be less fatty acids trapped in the fat cells.

I have no doubt that you will need at least 3 minutes of rest after this set of squats or deadlifts. Your heart will be pumping like crazy, and you will be breathing like a race horse.

As mentioned, it takes about 5 minutes for the lactate to be cleared from your blood stream, so there is no need to hurry.

When time is up, put yourself together, drag your ass on a treadmill, and run for about 20 minutes. How fast you run depends entirely on your motivation.

If you really want to burn as much stubborn belly fat as possible, you may want to increase the intensity to just bellow the lactate threshold.

After this cardio session (by the way, this is the only time when I recommend steady state exercise), you can resume your regular workout, which for this purpose should be slightly modified. Simple!

Some coaches argue that taking yohimbine or other similar compounds before a workout will hasten stubborn belly fat mobilization because of its alpha-2 antagonistic effect.

This is not necessary, and taking such a supplement before your 20 rep squats or deadlifts may do more harm than good. Your heart rate will be drastically elevated, which may hinder your ability to train intensely (not to say that this may be risky).

As a final caveat, make sure that your calorie deficit is reduced to a minimum when you get at this level of leanness.

At this point, little details become important, so if you are not sure about your calorie consumption, purchase a digital food scale and start measuring. I know, it sucks but that's how it goes.

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