How to lose belly fat in 2 weeks?

19 scientifically proven ways to lose belly fat in two weeks

Starting the weight-loss journey can be difficult, and it's understandable to want results quickly-especially if you're trying to deal with belly fat. So you're googling "how to lose belly fat in two weeks" to try to do it as soon as possible.

Of course, weight loss is and should be a personal decision, and you should never feel pressured to lose weight.

Okay, but how do you lose belly fat? You have to think beyond crunches and planks to a comprehensive approach. "You need to lose more fat overall," agrees Chris Gagliardi, a certified personal trainer with the American Council on Exercise (ACE). Without further ado, here are the best ways to lose belly fat once and for all.

How to lose belly fat in two weeks?

Losing weight -- and especially sustained weight loss -- is usually a process that takes time, says Jessica Cording, M.D., author of The Little Book of Game Change. But there are some things you can do to speed up the process.

1. Accept that your behavior will be corrected.

A big part of the weight loss process is simply being aware of the choices you make. For example, during happy hour with friends, you may lose control over how much you eat or drink. But if you take a split second to distract yourself and become aware of that fact, you can adjust your course. "Being aware of that fact and then planning what else I can do can benefit me just as much as eating comfort food," Gagliardi says.

2. track your calories.

The most basic approach to weight loss is to burn more calories than you consume. For example, since 3,500 calories equals one pound of fat, a weight-loss app-or even just a pen and paper-can help you decide how many calories you need to cut from your diet or burn at the gym to reach your goals. "If you burned 500 more calories a day seven days a week, it would result in you burning 3,500 calories in a week and losing one pound of weight," Gagliardi says.

An easy way to help you determine what you need to achieve your goal is to look at the National Institutes of Health's Body Weight Planner. This online tool will ask you to enter information about your current weight and activity level, as well as what your weight loss goals are and how much time you want to spend on achieving them. It will then give you an estimated number of calories you should consume each day. While this program won't tell you exactly how to lose weight off your stomach, it will still help you navigate.

If you're not ready to count the numbers on a daily basis, you can take a more generalized approach. "For some people, that means: 'I usually eat a whole sandwich,'" Gagliardi says. "Now I'm going to eat half a sandwich at lunch and leave the other half for dinner and cut the calorie count in half." To get started, consider these 25 ways to cut 500 calories a day.

3. eat more fiber.

Foods high in refined carbohydrates and sugar don't really satisfy hunger, so you end up reaching for more. Instead, eat more fiber foods like whole-grain breads, oats, vegetables, fruits, beans, legumes and chia seeds. "They satiate you more" because fiber helps slow down digestion, says Lawrence Cheskin, M.D., chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at George Mason University and associate professor of health, behavior and society at Johns Hopkins University.

A 2015 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that for those who have difficulty following a strict diet, simplifying the weight-loss approach by increasing fiber intake can still lead to weight loss. According to the latest U.S. dietary guidelines, women should aim for at least 25 grams of fiber per day (based on a diet of 2,000 calories). Start with our high-fiber diet plan.

4. walk every day.

If you don't have a well-established exercise regimen, "walking is a very good starting point for people," Gagliardi says. One small study published in the Journal of Nutrition and Exercise Biochemistry found that obese women who exercised by walking for 50 to 70 minutes three days a week for 12 weeks significantly reduced visceral fat compared with a sedentary control group.

"Even if your starting point is a one-minute walk, if it's more than what you were doing before, it will benefit your health," Gagliardi says. One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to lose weight is trying to do too much too fast and burning out.

"Starting slow and working on yourself is better than overdoing it and giving up," Gagliardi says. The simple way: Commit to a quick 10-minute walk after dinner and gradually increase the time as you get easier to move.

5. Start strength training.

If you want to lose belly fat, it's important to do full-body strength training-especially if you're trying to keep it off for the long haul. "Strength training should be part of almost everyone's exercise plan," Dr. Cheskin says. That's because strength training helps build muscle, which replaces fat. And because muscles are metabolically active, you'll continue to burn calories after your workout, thereby reducing your overall body fat. Bonus: When your metabolism is boosted by muscle growth, you have more room to maneuver in your diet, if that's what you're up against, Dr. Cheskin says.

To get started, lift weights at least two days a week and then increase the load, Gagliardi says. "You can think of it as building up weight to support your long-term goals," he explains.

For example, maybe you want to be able to perform certain movements, such as the bench press or barbell press, and work on increasing the number of repetitions of those exercises, or maybe it's just a desire to improve your daily activities, such as lifting groceries more easily.

6. Take on healthy fats.

If you want to lose fat, you have to eat fat... healthy fat, that is.

Adding healthy fats in the form of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats can help you feel more satisfied with your meals. Yasi Ansari, M.S., R.D., C.S.S.D., national medical representative for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, says, "The sources of fats I recommend increasing in the diet are the unsaturated fatty acids found in foods such as olive oil, nuts, avocados, oily fish and eggs, because they can help increase satiety and provide a variety of health benefits when consumed in moderation. You can increase your intake of healthy fats by adding some sliced avocado to salads, eating wild salmon twice a week, and eating some peanut butter with a post-workout snack or smoothie. Just remember to consume them in moderation, as they are still very caloric, Ansari says.

7. Consume protein.

There's a reason everyone keeps talking about protein: Not only does it help you get full, but it's also responsible for repairing the small tears in your muscles caused by strength training. It helps them grow bigger and stronger while burning fat. As a rule of thumb, Dr. Cheskin says you should get at least 70 grams of protein throughout the day.

This is especially important before a workout. We are all guilty of working out hard at the gym and then going straight to Chipotle because we are so hungry. The result? You eat more calories than you burn and end up with extra belly fat.

To avoid feeling hungry after a workout, snack on a meal containing at least 12 grams of protein before exercising, says Dr. Cheskin. What if you're still hungry after your workout? Check yourself first and make sure it's really hunger and not dehydration, Dr. Cheskin says. Then eat a protein-rich snack that also contains some carbs, such as a whole-grain protein bar.

8. Okay, now you can do some crunches.

While you can't pinpoint fat reduction, you can focus your efforts on building lean muscle tissue, which in turn helps burn fat. There are literally dozens of muscles between your shoulders and hips that are involved in every move you make," says Chris DiVecchio, NASM certified personal trainer and author of The 5 x 2 Method: Revealing the Power of Your Senses. "The fastest way to create a slim figure starts with choosing the right movements."

According to Gagliardi, try to do your abs three to four times a week for several consecutive days, resting at least 24 hours in between. During these exercises, you can start with simpler movements such as crunches, bicycle crunches and planks. Even though you can only work your abs directly three to four times a week, you should still activate your core (namely, tighten your abdominal muscles) during each workout, Gagliardi says.

There are lots of different abdominal exercises that you can do right at home. Once you get the hang of abdominal exercises, move on to more advanced abdominal exercises, such as side lunges with a ball and Russian curls with weights, DiVecchio says.

9. Try to limit your stress.

Stress can affect all parts of your body, but how you deal with it can make or break your weight-loss goals. "I think stress mainly affects behavior, not neurochemistry," Dr. Cheskin says. "It makes us eat more because we use food as a stress substitute."

The truth is that eating food to make yourself feel better is usually much easier than dealing with stress. "People gravitate toward things that require no one else, bring immediate gratification and require little effort, especially if you just open a package or a box," Dr. Cheskin says.

Overeating when stressed can only lead to one thing: an enlarged belly, not a smaller one. If you find yourself overeating, take a step back and think: What is causing my stress and what can I do about it? Find a way to fix the problem or discuss it with a therapist, rather than reaching for a bag of Doritos.

10. Give priority to quality sleep.

Sleep plays a huge role in successful weight loss, and that goes for both those who sleep too much and those who sleep too little. "Too much sleep is probably not good for your health," says Dr. Cheskin. "But too little sleep is even worse."

Here's an example: A 2017 UK review and meta-analysis found that people who slept 5.5 hours or less a night ate an additional 385 calories the next day compared to those who slept at least 7-12 hours. They also preferred to snack on fatty foods full of empty calories, such as chips.

If you sleep a minimum number of times a night, you have more time to snack and make other unhealthy decisions that can affect weight loss. Although different people have different ideas about how much sleep you need to be most effective (and therefore achieve your weight-loss goals), seven or eight hours is considered ideal, Dr. Cheskin says.

11. Drink less alcohol.

To lose weight, you just need to consume fewer calories, but that can be tricky when hunger starts to creep in. One good plan of attack? Give up empty calories that don't contribute to your goals to make room for foods that do contribute to your goals. This goes for all sugary drinks such as soda, but alcohol is a big problem.

Ansari says that alcohol can interfere with weight loss in several ways, including the fact that heavy drinking can stimulate food intake. "Heavy drinking can overload the liver. The liver prioritizes the processing of alcohol over other nutrients and then deposits proteins, carbohydrates and fats as body fat," Ansari explains. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines binge drinking as drinking five or more drinks for men and four or more drinks for women within two hours. "In addition, alcoholic beverages are often mixed with sugary drinks. Drinking more moderate amounts of alcohol can lead to a rapid increase in calories," she says.

Studies also show that drinking alcohol frequently-even in moderation-can lead to extra pounds. According to one 2016 study, not only do the drinks themselves contain unnecessary calories, but once you start drinking too much, inhibition decreases. The result? You'll have a hard time keeping yourself from eating a slice of pizza late at night. So if you're going to drink, stick to one drink a day for women and up to two drinks for men. (Order one of these lowest-calorie alcoholic drinks).

12. Cook more often.

According to a 2017 study, if you cook the right foods, more time in the kitchen can help you lose belly fat. After analyzing data from more than 11,000 men and women, British researchers found that people who ate more than five home-cooked meals a week were 28 percent less likely to have a high body mass index and 24 percent less likely to have too much fat than those who only cooked three meals at home. (*Note: Many studies use BMI as an indicatorof overall health, but Prevention does not.)

The researchers explain that people who cook their own food may simply have other healthy habits, such as exercising more. But they also found that home cooks eat more fruits and vegetables (along with a wider variety of foods), use healthier cooking methods, and buy fewer foods high in calories and sugar. To get started, check out any of the healthy eating books below.

13. Avoid foods high in sugar.

Studies have found a link between eating a lot of sugar and a lot of belly fat. "Added sugar is a very large source of extra calories," Cording says. "If you don't replace it with other sources of calories, it can contribute to a healthy caloric deficit - and that can help you lose weight."

Too much sugar can also cause spikes and spikes in blood glucose levels, Cording says. And when those spikes occur, you feel tired and hungry, which increases the risk of overeating.

14. Skip processed foods.

Processed foods cause the same weight-loss problems as sugar because they can lead to excess calories, Cording says. "Many packaged foods have been shown to promote inflammation in the body, which is a major cause of belly fat," she adds.

She recommends trying to eat as much whole foods as possible and keeping processed foods to a minimum.

15. Reduce your intake of simple carbohydrates.

Simple carbohydrates, such as those found in breakfast cereals, white bread and cookies, are turned into sugar in the body, which can upset blood sugar balance and contribute to inflammation in the body, Cording says. "If your blood sugar is constantly spiking because you're eating too many simple carbs, that can play a role in fat formation," she says.

16. Give up sodas and juices.

Sodas and juices can be insidious sources of calories, and they don't satiate you, says Keri Gans, PhD, author of The Little Change Diet. "If you cut back on sources of extra calories, wherever they come from, it will help you lose weight," she says. While most people know that sodas are liquid sugar, juices tend to have a halo of health, which is not true, Cording says. "When you drink juice, it doesn't have the fiber that you can get by eating a piece of fruit, which slows down digestion," she explains. "It gets into the bloodstream very quickly, and there can be a dramatic drop in blood sugar levels after that." Eliminating these drinks from your diet can help get rid of extra calories and regulate blood sugar levels, she says.

17. Do vigorous physical activity.

While any type of activity will help you burn calories, "intense exercise," such as HIIT workouts, can help you burn calories faster by burning fat and belly fat in the process, says Gina Keatley, a certified nutritionist nutritionist practicing in New York City.

"These are short exercises that help build muscle and get the heart working faster," Keatley says. "Think about sprinting up hills and walking or jogging downhill, or increasing resistance on a stationary bike while standing in the saddle," she says.

18. Make healthy substitutions.

Feeling like you're depriving yourself of everything is not a good way to lose weight, Cording says, but it's a good idea to look at foods that may be making you uncomfortable and think about healthier substitutions, she says. "That's something I really love," Cording says. "It can not only help support your goals, but it can be really powerful and motivating."

So, if you really like to crunch in the afternoon, offer carrot chips or fried chickpeas instead of potato chips. It's a quick and easy way to cut calories by adding a few healthy foods to your diet, she says.

19. Find out what's behind your unhealthy eating habits.

If you struggle with mindless snacking or are prone to overeating, Cording says it's important to try to understand why this is a problem for you. Perhaps you reach for certain foods when you're stressed and want a boost, or you always eat before bed because you're actually tired and subconsciously trying to boost your energy levels.

"Once you realize what's behind a particular behavior, it opens up all the potential ways in which you can change that behavior," Cording says. "It allows you to approach behavior change with self-compassion and understanding. Then you can begin to identify steps to change that behavior."

Why is belly fat so bad for you?

Studies have repeatedly linked belly fat to serious health complications. "People with excess belly fat are known to be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease," Keatley says. People with a lot of belly fat "may have higher baseline levels of inflammation, which can be dangerous when the body engages in an intense immune response to bacteria or viruses," she adds.

Belly fat is "unfortunately the most dangerous place to store fat," says Dr. Cheskin. Because belly fat -- also known as visceral fat, or deep abdominal fat that surrounds your organs -- is more temporary, it circulates in the bloodstream more regularly and can therefore increase the amount of fat in your bloodstream.

Okay, you get the point: belly fat = bad.

Why does belly fat usually form?

Gaining weight in general is a little tricky, but "belly fat usually forms because of consuming too many calories, which leads to weight gain," says Gans. That said, you have no control over where fat accumulates in your body. "We have little control over where that weight goes," Hans says. "It usually accumulates on the belly or on the hips and thighs, depending on genetics, gender and/or age."

Gaining weight quickly makes it more likely that you'll develop more belly fat, Cording says. "But different body types are more likely to accumulate fatty tissue in the abdominal area," she says.

Some other factors, such as lack of sleep or stress, can also increase the risk of belly fat, according to Cording. "Increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol have been shown to contribute to the accumulation of fatty tissue in the abdominal area," she explains.

What should you do if you're not losing belly fat?

Here's the thing: Just as you can only control where you gain fat, it's just as hard to determine where you will lose it from.

"That doesn't mean that if you get belly fat, you're stuck with it forever," Cording says. "But you don't get to choose where you lose the extra weight." Keathley urges people to be persistent. "Don't give up," she says. "The area under the ribs and above the thighs is where most people have most of their fat - it protects our organs and keeps us warm. It will take longer to get rid of belly fat than most other fat deposits, so develop a sustainable plan to help you get to your goal."