Many people place the stomach at the top of their list of undesirable places to have fat. How can you lose stomach fat? Is there a way to specifically target and get rid of it and, if so, how?

Targeted Fat Loss Myth

The first thing to say is that there is no such thing as targeted fat loss. All those ab crunching devices and stomach contraptions and workouts will not help you to lose stomach fat and here is why.

When you eat more than your body needs then it gets stored as fat all over the body. It does not go on in equal proportions all over the body - every person is different so some, for example, may put weight on their stomach first whereas for others it will go on last.

When you lose weight you generally lose it in the reverse order that you put it on. So if you had a medicine ball gut right from the beginning then unfortunately it will probably be the last to go.

Your body does not use up the fat adjacent to muscles that are worked out. It simply does not work that way.

How To Lose Stomach Fat

The only way to lose any fat, including stomach fat, is to start a regime of calorie restriction. This means that you should consume fewer calories than you expend each day.

You can do this by eating less and making no change to your daily activities. You can also do this by increasing your activity by doing exercise. Or you can do a combination of the two.

If you sustain a calorie deficit for an extended period of time then your fat will slowly disappear, including that on your stomach. Eventually, you will have lower body fat all over your body. Some parts are more stubborn than others and this is just natural variation from person to person. However, it is almost impossible to have a huge belly and sunken jaws, for example. The guy with the classic beer belly may be an exception to this rule but he needs to stop consuming more calories than his body needs and he will lose the gut quickly.

What About Toning?

Many manufacturers talk about "toning" because there is really little other advantage to doing their "stomach targeted" exercises.

If you have minimal stomach fat then these exercises will increase the size of the underlying muscles (abdominals) and make them more prominent. However, are your abs too small to begin with? This is extremely unlikely, given that you use them every day anyway. If you want to make them more prominent then forget about so-called "toning". Losing weight is the best way to get better abdominal definition.