If you have some excess fat around your tummy then you may be looking at natural ways to lose belly fat. Do you wish you had six pack abs or that pre-pregnancy flat stomach but you really don’t want to use those unnatural shakes or pills? Do you wish there was an exercise program that gave fast results without requiring you to be an athlete?

Well there is a natural way to lose belly fat and basically it involved a good, healthy diet and exercise.

The first thing you want to change is your diet to one that is low calorie. Try to eat as much natural food as possible and less processed foods. A good, healthy diet should include lots of fruit and vegetables and moderate amounts of low fat dairy products and lean meats. Whole grains and legumes are also great to include into your diet.

There are a lot of choices that you can make with your diet that can reduce the calories you eat. For example, eating 1/2 cup of fruit with 1/2 cup of fat free vanilla yogurt will be 105 calories less than eating a strawberry yogurt with pre-packaged fruit. Another example is eating 2 cups of air popped popcorn instead of 1 cup of potato chips will save you 95 calories.

Next you will want to start doing some exercise each day. If you can’t fit in some exercise every day then at least try to exercise five times a week. Cardio exercise is the best for burning off fat but you can burn off even more by combining it with some strength exercises. Studies have shown that people who walked for 50 minutes, 3 times a week lost almost twice as much belly fat as people who only reduced their calories but didn’t exercise.

Cardio exercises include brisk walking, jogging, running, cycling or there are many cardio machines that you can also use. You should try to get 45 minutes of cardio exercise with each workout which is a great natural way to lose belly fat.

Here is a great exercise routine that can have you burn up to 500 calories in one session. First do 3 minutes of warm up exercise. Next push up the intensity for 3 minutes, then push yourself as hard as you absolutely can for 2 minutes. Slow down a little for 3 minutes and then push yourself as hard as you can for 2 minutes. Repeat this 3 minutes regular intensity then 2 minutes high intensity combination for a total of 45 minutes ending with 2 minutes of cooling down exercises.

Working and building your muscles is also very beneficial when you are trying a natural way to lose belly fat. Muscle burns more energy than fat so the more muscle you build the more fat you will burn off when exercising. Try to combine your cardio exercises with some strength training to build up and tone your muscles.

A stability ball is also great for toning your tummy muscles and getting a flat stomach. You can get a stability ball for about $30 from most sporting goods stores. Lie on your back and hold the ball between your legs and lift into the air, hold this position for one minute. This is just one of the many exercises that you can do with the stability ball to help tone your stomach muscles. The ball should come with a manual that will include exercises.

A good diet and exercise that includes both cardio and strength training is the key to a natural way to lose belly fat.

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If you’re thinking of changing to a vegetarian diet, how do you start? Do you just start shopping in the produce aisle of the grocery store? You might have some anxiety attached to this change as well, and this is understandable.

Try to think of this as adding to your dietary habits, rather than a drastic change. If your diet has consistently included red meat, perhaps you can start substituting other foods for the red meat. Or eliminate the most processed and high-fat meats first, such as bacon and hamburgers. Certainly try to eliminate fast food burgers, which have such a high fat and sodium content. If you think you’ll miss the taste of bacon in the morning, try substituting a turkey or vegetable-based bacon substitute. It won’t be the same, but you won’t be giving up the foods you’re used to all at once.

If you’ve had a health scare and feel the need to change everything at once, make sure you include a lot of variety in the foods you buy as you begin to discover new flavors and textures that you’ll like to replace the ones you’re used to eating. If you don’t need to make a dramatic change all at once, you’ll have a much greater chance of long-term success if you take it slow.

Reduce the amount of red meat that you eat on a weekly basis, even if it means substituting pasta with marinara sauce for meat just one night a week. Increase the amounts of fruits and vegetables you eat. Start with raw vegetables at night before dinner so you’re not so hungry when you get to the main meal. Start reversing the proportions of meat and vegetables and make meat a side dish, with vegetables and grains your main course.

We’re creatures of habit and resistant to change. This is why so many diets fail, because we make drastic changes to facilitate dramatic results, quickly. This is a decision and a change you want to make for a lifetime. Make it a natural and gradual change and you can look forward to many more years of healthy living.

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If you haven’t been eating a vegetarian diet for years, and want to make the shift, it’s best to do so gradually, in stages. A good way to start is to eliminate red meat and substitute fish or poultry for the red meat you’ve been eating. While it’s not eating more vegetarian, you’re at least eliminating the biggest offender in disease-enhancing foods, red meat.

After you’ve successfully eliminated red meat, then start reducing the amount of poultry you eat. While it’s not as bad for you as red meat, because it’s not as high in fat, it’s still meat that’s been raised on a farm in terrible, cramped and inhumane conditions. Poultry is so laden with growth hormones and antibiotics that’s it’s nothing like a chicken or turkey that we might have hunted for food centuries ago. Chickens are raised in horrible conditions, overfed and then slaughtered.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s just as detrimental to our physical and spiritual health as eating red meat. It’s also fairly easy to eliminate poultry from our diets because let’s face it – it’s like eating wood pulp, it’s so tasteless. All the antibiotics and abnormal living conditions have processed any natural flavor that poultry ever had in the first place.

Add more fish and seafood, if you’re not quite ready to replace poultry with grains and vegetables and legumes yet. While there is risk in eating fish and seafood, because of the high levels of mercury they contain, it’s a better alternative to poultry and red meat. This may be as far as you ever get in moving towards vegetarianism, or at least eliminating meat from your diet. Give yourself time to get used to this. You won’t miss poultry for a minute.

We usually eat chicken and chicken breasts because it’s lower in fat and calories, but it’s also lower in any kind of nutritional value. When we’re not getting essential proteins and vitamins, we’re still starving our bodies, regardless of how healthy we think we’re being. Eliminating poultry is one of the most positive steps you can take towards a healthy diet and a healthy planet.

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When people talk about detoxification and cleansing the body of harmful toxins, it’s often seen as a fringe element of vegetarians. People really don’t like to think about harmful toxins building up in their colons or in their arteries, but it’s often a by-product of a carnivorous diet. A diet that’s high in fat and processed foods tends to slow down our digestive systems, and our elimination processes are also interrupted.

This can allow harmful bacteria and toxins to accumulate and can create a general feeling of sluggishness, as well as a host of digestive disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome or colitis. When we begin eating a more healthy vegetarian diet, we start to get more dietary fiber into our systems, and all of a sudden, our digestive systems start to work better,

When you eliminate high-fat meat and processed foods from your diet, then much of your body’s energy is freed from the intense work of digesting these foods. Everything becomes clearer – your blood, your organs, your mind. You start to become more aware of the toxic nature of the food you’d been eating before.

Toxicity is of much greater concern in the twentieth century than ever before. There are many new and stronger chemicals, air and water pollution, radiation and nuclear power. We ingest new chemicals, use more drugs of all kinds, eat more sugar and refined foods, and daily abuse ourselves with various stimulants and sedatives. The incidence of many toxicity diseases has increased as well. Cancer and cardiovascular disease are two of the main ones. Arthritis, allergies, obesity, and many skin problems are others.

In addition, a wide range of symptoms, such as headaches, fatigue, pains, coughs, gastrointestinal problems, and problems from immune weakness, can all be related to toxicity. When you start a vegetarian eating plan, your body eventually cleanses itself of the harmful effects of these toxic foods.

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