The Proven Formula To Losing Your Belly Fat
by Shin Ohtake creator of Max Workouts

Do you workout but your one problem area never seems to go away...your belly fat? If you've been on a quest for a flat belly or even a six pack, it's what you don't know that may be sabotaging your efforts of budging that stubborn fat off your stomach. The right information can be the difference between looking at your same old belly a few months from now or seeing a brand new you with flat abs you haven't seen since your high school days. Find out what's keeping you from losing your gut.

First and foremost if you've been doing various ab exercises in hopes of reducing fat surrounding your stomach...you need to stop. I'm talking all traditional ab exercises like crunches, sit ups, side bends, weighted sit ups, bicycle sit ups, side crunches...anything that involves you doing some type of torso twisting or bending. These ab exercises don't do much other than wreck your posture and put unnecessary strain on your lower back. Here's the thing, flexing (bending) your spine isn't what your ab muscles are supposed to do. The real function of your ab muscles are to maintain midline stability. Basically, your abs are there to protect your back from bending and twisting too much. It may seem contradictory at first, (especially if you're a fan of ab exercises) but if you look at the functional anatomy of your abdominal muscles and spine, it completely makes sense. Here's a quick overview.

Individual joints in your spine actually doesn't have a lot of mobility, in fact the joints are primarily made to bear axial loading (along a straight axis), rather than shearing and twisting. So your spine can support heavy loads as long as it maintains neutral position which is it's natural S curve. Any deviation from that position can put significant strain on the individual joints in your spine. It's like the pillar of a house. The pillar can support the weight of the house simply because it's structure can disperse the weight evenly along the pillar. But, once there's a bend in the pillar, the weight can't be evenly distributed anymore, and all of the weight gets put onto the small area where the bend occurred. Eventually the pillar can't sustain the weight and it collapses. That's essentially what happens when you injure your back. Excessive flexion of your spine only weakens the neutral curve (or the S curve) of your spine, so you can't bear as much weight. So it makes sense to minimize excessive flexion of the spine.

Your abdominal muscles are attached to your spine, your ribs (both front and back), and your pelvis. The muscle fibers run in all directions, up and down, diagonal, criss cross, and horizontal. If your ab muscle were meant to flex (bend) your torso, don't your think all of the fibers would just run up and down. If you look at all other skeletal muscles, they all have one direction, which is why it's meant to flex and extend. Take a look at your bicep muscles, it runs up and down along your arm, so when you flex it, your elbow naturally bends. However, when you flex your torso, you're essentially only activating one of six different ab muscles. In fact, the only way to activate all of your ab muscle at once is by bracing your stomach muscles like your about to get punched in the stomach. And the result of that action is spinal stabilization. It basically makes your spine more rigid, there by protecting it.

There are many ways to activate and strengthen your ab muscles, but none of them involve flexing (bending) your torso. Here's a good sample exercise you can try, that gets your abs activated. Start on the floor in a plank position with both your elbows bent at 90 degrees. The only body parts touching the floor should be your elbows, forearm, hands and your feet. The torso should be in straight alignment without any slouch in your back or your butt up in the air. The goal is to maintain this neutral position for 60 seconds. Brace your abs, and lift one foot, one inch off the floor. Hold it for 15 seconds. Put it down and repeat with the other foot. Once you bring that foot down. Raise your arm off the floor and reach straight forward ahead of you. Extend you arm fully out in front of you along your head. While in this position, don't tilt your body, hold a straight plank position. Hold that position for 15 seconds and bring it down and repeat with the other arm. If you were able to hold a perfect plank position for 60 seconds, while each part of your limb was lifted off the floor, you abs are in functional shape. Congratulations! But it you were unable to hold that position, you have some work to do! If you're interested in learning more effective abdominal exercises my Max Workouts program has 12 challenging core stimulating exercises that effectively activates and strengthens your abs. But having strong functional abs aren't enough to get you a flat stomach.

In order to effectively get flat abs you have to burn the fat from your stomach. The problem is you can't target reduce fat. That means when you burn off fat, you burn it off from your entire body. But here's the kicker, certain areas in your body are more resistant to fat burning for a specific reason...Insulin insensitivity. And one of the most common areas effected by insulin insensitivity is your belly.

How can one little hormone keep fat stored in your belly and not let it go? Normal functioning insulin actually helps you stay thin, by directing sugar and fat into areas of your body that need it, so your body can maintain a healthy balanced state. But, when your insulin gets abused, it stops doing it's job and causes havoc in your body. And there lies the real problem of your stubborn belly fat.

Your insulin spikes every time you eat, since food is broken down into sugar and enters your bloodstream. However, depending on the type of food you eat, the level of insulin spike varies. The more you consume sugar or foods that break down quickly into sugars like pasta, bread, rice and other starchy foods, the more your insulin has to work. A repetitive constant demand for your insulin eventually causes it to loses it's sensitivity and it stops working as it’s supposed to. Bottom line...insulin insensitivity causes more sugar to be in the blood stream and increases fat storage. And it just so happens that your belly has high numbers of fat receptors that accept fat deposited by insulin. So it's a double whammy. Your poor diet causes your insulin to become insensitive which causes more calories to be consumed and more fat to be stored in your belly. If you think one donut or one candy bar won't effect you...think again! Once you’re insulin insensitive, your body becomes even better at storing fat. So much so, that even a small amount of sugar you consume gets stored as fat!

Your only solution is to re-sensitize your insulin. And there's two ways to do that - exercising at higher intensities and eating diet low in (refined) sugar. Studies have shown that exercise helps increase insulin sensitivity for up to 24 hours after exercising. However, they found that increasing the intensity of the exercise kept insulin sensitivity for up to 15 days afterwards. It's also essential that you clean up your diet, by eliminating any refined sugars as well as significantly limiting the intake of starchy foods. Your best bet is to keep away from all foods that are processed, man-made, and/or packaged (and yes that includes fast foods!) which are heavy on simple carbohydrates (sugar and starches) and stick to (real foods) complex carbohydrates like fruits, vegetables and whole grains (ie. quinoa, brown rice). Even though some fruits are higher in sugar, the fiber content in fruits help slow down the sugar entering your blood stream and helps reduce the insulin spike. Along with complex carbohydrates, make sure to consume enough lean protein from natural sources (ie. cold water fish) and healthy fats (ie. olive oil). Much like fiber, protein and fat help slow down the sugar uptake as well, helping insulin maintain healthy, steady blood sugar levels.

So there you have it. It may seem simple at first, but this information can really make a big difference if you apply it. A combination of high intensity exercises and a well balanced diet (low in refined sugar and processed foods), along with functional ab strengthening exercises, will finally help you burn off the stubborn belly fat and get you the flat abs you've been working for.

Shin Ohtake is the author of the world-famous fitness program, MAX Workouts. To learn more about how you can get ultra lean and toned with shorter workouts, visit http://www.MaxWorkouts.com

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