Belly fat is not just unsightly and uncomfortable, it’s also super dangerous for your health. Lose belly fat in just 30 days with our cracking core workouts. 

One of the main issues I see most frequently, especially with my female clients, is belly fat. It’s simply one of those things that happens when we don’t stay on top of our exercise and diet. 

Unfortunately, the belly is one of the most difficult areas to lose excess fat from, but it is also one of the most dangerous types of fat to have, so it’s vital we get rid of it and keep it off. 

In this article, I’ll guide you through some of the most effective core workouts to help you lose your belly fat in just 30 days. 

What’s the Skinny on Belly Fat?

There are a few reasons belly fat forms. It can be due to a lack of exercise or poor nutrition, and it can also be contributed to by stress hormones. 

There are two types of belly fat:

  • Visceral 
  • Subcutaneous 

Visceral fat is the really dangerous type of belly fat and this surrounds your organs. Subcutaneous fat is the type of the fat that lies just underneath the skin, and while it is not necessarily dangerous to your health, it adds to the bulge most people want to get rid of. 

Visceral belly fat can lead to a wide range of health complications, and as you look at the following list, you will start to understand why it is so important not to carry weight in this area. 

  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Hypertension 
  • Strokes
  • Asthma
  • Type 2 diabetes
  • Breast cancer
  • Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia
  • Colon cancer

I’m big on holistic approaches to problems and, as such, before we get into workouts, I’d like to provide you with some information on how you can use good nutrition to prepare your body to lose this belly fat. 

By practicing nutrition that is known to help eliminate belly fat and combining that with the core muscle workouts I’ll explain a little later, you can slash that belly fat in just 30 days. 

Reduce Your Belly Fat With These 5 Good Nutrition Tips

There are a few small changes you can make in your diet that will make all the difference in reducing belly fat. These include:

Add Soluble Fiber

Soluble fiber combines with water to form a gel-like substance in your body that slows down the movement of food through the body. This not only helps you to feel fuller for longer, meaning you eat less, but it also helps to reduce the number of calories you absorb from food. All of these benefits combine to help you fight and reduce belly fat. 

Sources of soluble fiber you should be including in your diet include avocados, blackberries, legumes, Brussel sprouts, shirataki noodles, and flax seeds. 

Reduce Trans Fats

Trans fats are created in the food processing industry when hydrogen is pumped into unsaturated fats. These fats are found most predominantly in some margarines and packaged foods. As the health dangers of trans fats have come to light, more food producers have stopped using them in their products, but you will still find them in your grocery store. 

Trans fats have been linked to high levels of inflammation in the body, increased belly fat, insulin resistance, and heart disease. To avoid foods that contain trans fats, try to stay away from processed foods and also read labels carefully. Trans fats are often referred to as “partially hydrogenated fats” on food labels. 

Limit Your Alcohol Intake

Yes, I’m about to mess with your wine. Please forgive me, it really is in your best interests, but I do want to point out that some forms of alcohol, like red wine, in small amounts can actually have some health benefits. 

Like anything, though, when we err into excess, that’s where the trouble comes in. Prolonged and sometimes even common occasional overuse of alcohol can have serious health effects. 

Excessive alcohol use has been shown to be directly linked to the development of belly fat. Now there’s no need for you to stop completely, unless you want to, but you do want to limit your daily consumption of alcohol. Preferably, you want to limit your intake to one unit per day for women and two units per day for men. 

If you’re wondering if you can save all your unit allocations for one day and still get the same effect, the answer is no. In the case of alcohol, it is about how much your body can properly process in 24 hours without putting undue stress on it. So, if you overwhelm it with a week’s worth of alcohol units in one day, you are definitely going to see negative health effects. 

Eat a High-Protein Diet

When you are aiming to burn fat, it is vital to ensure you are eating a high-protein diet. This is because protein makes you feel fuller for longer. Protein also increases your metabolic rate and helps you to retain muscle mass while simultaneously losing weight. 

This is exactly what we want to achieve in this process. We want to reduce fat while maintaining (or increasing) muscle mass. Some of the best sources of protein include eggs, fish, meat, dairy, beans, and whey protein. 

Reduce Your Sugar Intake 

I think we all know by now that sugar is the enemy of fat burning of any kind. Sugar, or rather its main component, fructose, is also seriously bad for your health in many different respects. Excessive fructose intake has been linked to fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. 

It’s been drilled into us that we should be avoiding refined sugars, but really even too much natural sugar can lead to the build-up of belly fat if consumed in excessive amounts. 

With the rise in popularity of smoothies, sugar intake has also increased dramatically because people chuck seven fruits into a blender and think they are doing their body a favor. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of smoothies and the powerful impact they can have in introducing nutrient-dense foods to our diets, but you do need to be really aware of what you are putting into them. 

An overload of fructose that your body can’t burn off can be just as damaging as too much refined sugar, so keep an eye on your fruit intake. 

Fruits that are low in fructose include:

  • Strawberries
  • Blackberries
  • Avocados
  • Honeydew melon
  • Limes
  • Lemon
  • Grapefruit 

Core Workouts to Flatten Your Belly Fat in 30 Days 

The key here is to combine fast and slow exercises to maximum effect. Slow exercise builds muscle and fast exercise sheds fat. 

What Are Core Workouts? 

Core exercises work the muscles in your lower back, pelvis, abdomen, and hips so they operate as a strong unit. This results in better stability and balance, and, of course, gives us that flat, toned tummy we all want.

Core Workout #1: Dumbbell Squats

Dumbbell squats target:

  • Core muscles
  • Thighs
  • Hamstrings
  • Glutes 

Here are the instructions for how to do dumbbell squats: 

  1. Hold a dumbbell at chest level. Keeping your forearms parallel to each other and your feet a shoulder-width distance apart, balance your body weight through your heels.
  2. Now descend into a squat position, keeping your back straight and your chest upright. When you are at the bottom point of the squat, push your weight through your heels and move back up to the starting position.
  3. Repeat 10 reps of dumbbell squats for three sets.

Core Workout #2: Dumbbell Row 

Dumbbell rowing exercises target:

  • Back
  • Arms
  • Shoulders

Follow these steps to do a dumbbell row: 

  1. Using two dumbbells of moderate weight, position the palms of your hands so they face your body during the exercise.
  2. Bend your knees slightly, and push your butt backward against the wall. This motion will bring your chest forward as you begin to bend at the waist. Ensure you maintain a straight back in this position. Allow the dumbbells to hang      directly in front of you, with your arms remaining perpendicular to the floor.
  3. As you do this, be sure to squeeze your ab and core muscles so you maintain a straight posture and pull the dumbbells inward to your side. Your elbows should remain close to your body. Once you have reached the top position, squeeze your back muscles and slowly lower the weight back to the floor.
  4. Repeat three sets of 10 reps of dumbbell rows.

Core Workout #3: Cardio

Ideally, you want to be engaging in at least 75 minutes of vigorous cardio exercises per week. Vigorous intensity exercise means your heart rate increases significantly and, due to the quickening of your breath, you aren’t able to have a conversation. Examples of vigorous intensity cardio would include swimming laps, running, speed skating or jumping rope. 

Core Workout #4: HIIT

Slogging it out on cardio for long periods really can get a bit dull, so I always recommend interval training to my clients for fat burning purposes. I’ve already published an entire article on fat-burning HIIT exercises if this is something you would like to include in your month of belly-busting routines. 

Core Workout #5: Jog It Off

I love this exercise for its pure simplicity and the fact that you can do it anywhere. All you need is access to a flight of stairs, then jog (don’t walk) up and down, repeating this six times. 

While jogging up and down the stairs, you really want to focus on using your core muscles to lift you as much as possible, and get that heart rate up!

Core Workout #6: The Hula 

Remember how much fun hula-hooping was as a kid? Well, the good news is that it’s not just a kid’s activity and it is also excellent for losing belly fat. 

Hula-hooping works your abs, glutes, and your oblique muscles. You can use an ordinary hula-hoop from a kid’s toy store or you can level up with a weighted version from a gym supplies store. The choice is yours, but I highly recommend you get hooping. 

Core Workout #7: Rock Climbing 

Gone are the days when rock climbing was just for mountaineering enthusiasts. Today, almost every gym has a rock climbing wall and an hour on the wall is a core workout like no other. 

You may think you know how to climb a rock wall, but experts will tell you that you really don’t. While your instinct may be to face the wall and allow part of your torso and buttocks to stick out, that is actually not the best way to maintain your center of gravity. 

Ideally, rock climbing experts will teach you to hold yourself flat against the wall and engage your side ab muscles. You will then climb and swing using your fingertips rather than by grasping with your entire hand. This is going to result in very tender forearms, but you will be working that belly and many other muscles at the same time. 

Core Workout #8: Planking

While planking is relatively new on the fitness scene, it has taken the world by storm because of how it engages your core muscles in a really simple exercise. Again, this one can be done almost anywhere and it’s also scalable as you get stronger, so you can start with 10 to 15 seconds and work your way up from there. 

The idea behind planking is to hold your body in position as flat as…well…a plank! Start by lying flat on the floor, then lift yourself off the ground with your forearms. 

Your forearms and upper arms should be bent into an L-shape with your forearms on the floor. Then lift your legs by pushing up from your toes until your body is as straight as you can get it. Next, simply hold that position for as long as you can, move back down to the floor into rest mode, and repeat. 

To ensure you last as long as possible in the plank position, remember to breathe. You don’t want to be holding your breath while you’re planking, or it’s not going to come naturally. 

Core Workout #9: Heel Taps

Heel taps are awesome for working those abdominal muscles. 

  1. Lie on your back with your hands under your bum.
  2. Bend your knees and feet as though you have them propped up on a table. 
  3. Now, slowly lower one foot while it’s bent forward until the heel just touches the ground. Repeat with the other foot.
  4. When lifting your foot back up, tighten your abdominal muscles.
  5. Repeat 3 sets of 20 reps.

Core Workout #10: Fat Slicing Scissors

When performing this exercise, you really want to be sure not to force your neck into an unnatural position and always make sure it’s supported. You don’t want to end up with a flat belly and neck pain!

  1. Lie on your back on the floor and place your hands behind your head. 
  2. Raise your shoulders and head slightly from the ground while supporting your head with your hands. 
  3. Now, raise your legs off the ground. Alternately keep one leg just off the floor and then raise the other up. Then start to make scissor-like motions with your legs. 
  4. Keep your feet pointed toward the sky while you make this motion and focus on using your abdominal muscles to move your legs.
  5. Repeat 15 times for each leg in 3 sets.

It’s a Wrap

Using the 10 exercises I’ve suggested here, set a routine for yourself for the next 30 days. Doing the same exercise over and over can be really boring, so I definitely recommend changing it up and trying as many different workout options as possible.

Belly fat can be embarrassing and difficult to get rid of, but most importantly, it can be really dangerous to your health. If you’re just starting your fitness journey, I would definitely say that this should be your first focus point. 

By starting with a belly fat reduction routine, you will make the biggest impact on your overall health in the shortest period of time. It is not always the number on the scale that matters; what does matter is reducing your risk factors so you can live a long and healthy life. 

With the nutritional advice and workout routines offered here, you will be slashing the belly fat in just 30 days!

Check out this awesome video https://youtu.be/mxOajxO8mX0 

The Coach xx