1.

Skip Cardio for Strength Training

“Fat mass can be shrunk by cardio and dieting. However, cardio can burn away
both muscle and fat, leaving you skinny but soft,” says celebrity trainer Nick
Hounslow, personality on E!’s upcoming reality fitness show Hollywood Cycle.
That’s why, when researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health followed
10,500 healthy men over twelve years, they found that the guys who spent 20
minutes a day weight-training had a smaller increase in abdominal fat compared
to men who completed aerobic exercise for the same amount of time.

2. Complete Compound Moves

Since spot reduction is a myth, you’ve got to work your whole body to burn fat.
While any strength-training workout will help you do that (and while burning fat,
not muscle), compound moves like squats, deadlifts, and bench presses require
moving multiple joints and muscle groups, burning more fat and building more
calorie-torching muscle. Think about it: Rep per rep, rows work more muscle
than curls do. “The more muscle you build through proper exercise
programming, the more fully firing your body’s engine becomes, and the less
effective fat is at staying stuck to your stomach,” Piegza says.

3. Eat More Protein

Eating whole, healthy sources of protein is vital to building muscle and burning
more fat, says Sean W. Meadows, R.D., a nutrition-and-wellness coach with The
N.E.W. Program, a weight-loss center in Newport Beach, California. While a
pound of fat burns two calories per day, a pound of muscle burns six—and takes
up a whole lot less room on your frame. And in one 2014 Pennington Biomedical
Research Center study, when people ate 40 percent more calories than they
needed for eight weeks, those on high-protein diets stored 25 percent of those
extra calories as muscle. Those who ate low-protein diets stored 95 percent of
them as fat. That’s not to say you should up your caloric intake (we’ll get to that
next), but you should up your protein intake.
4. Cut Some Calories

Fat loss, whether it’s centered on your stomach or in your chins, requires
achieving a calorie deficit—burning more calories than you’re taking in. Exercise
can certainly help you achieve that, but a healthy diet is probably going to make
the biggest dent in your caloric balance, Meadows says. After all, it might take
you an hour to burn 400 calories in the gym, but so can swapping out a greasy
burger with a baked-chicken sandwich.

5. Chill Out

“While diet and exercise will get you damn close to your physique goals, living a
healthier lifestyle is what may finally get you the body you want. Lifestyle factors
such as stress, sleep, and relaxation are so important because they affect your
hormonal system, which controls nearly every process in your body,” Meadows
 says. For instance, too-high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, in response to
work demands, a lack of sleep, or zero “me” time, can lead to storage of fat
around the midsection. Your move: Learn to more effectively manage what stress
you do have, and be willing to cut things out of your life that are constant
unnecessary stressors.

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