Foods to avoid for flat stomach
Everywhere you look we’re told that you should avoid this food and that food if you’re trying to get a flat stomach, but I don’t truly believe there’s many BAD foods at all.
The problem, when it comes to stomach fat isn’t the actual foods that you’re consuming but the AMOUNT of food you’re consuming over the weeks and months.
Granted, some highly processed foods will hold your fat loss goals back, but for the most part, it’s the total of number of calories that you’re eating that adds up to fat loss or fat accumulation over the weeks and months.
Trust me, even if you’re eating Burger and French fries it’s still possible to lose fat as along as you’re staying within your calorie threshold.
I personally go out with my wife at least once per week and eat big meals from Nando’s or another restaurant I enjoy, it’s the only way to stay sane with this fitness lifestyle.
When I started training, although I knew I wanted a great physique with low levels of body fat, I never wanted my life to revolve around fitness, eating bland foods and chugging down protein shakes every few hours, that wasn’t exactly the lifestyle I wanted, and I urge you to do the same.
When it comes to fat loss try and stick to healthy unprocessed foods and always have a balance of lean protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats with each meal.
But, if most of your nutrition is unprocessed and healthy foods, you can still factor in foods that you enjoy and lose fat.
With that said what are the foods that you want to avoid for a flat stomach?
The main foods you want to avoid is anything that’s heavily processed with lots of unnatural ingredients and while I could list hundreds on this post think in terms of anything that’s in a bag or box with ingredients that take you a long time to read!
All those processed ingredients will wreak havoc on the human body and make fat loss harder than it needs to be.
Here are some foods to avoid:
- Trans-fats – any foods such as margarine or ready meals that contain trans-fats. These are toxic to the body and will really hurt your fat loss goals
- Microwave meals – Usually loaded with preservatives and void of vitamins and minerals that your body needs
- Sugary drinks – A bit of sugar is OK but drinking sugary drinks soon adds up to huge amounts of calories and brings fat loss to a halt
- White bread – Highly processed, bleached and void of vitamins and minerals. Quickly adds up to empty calories that contribute to fat gain
- Excessive alcohol – A few drinks with your wife or friends at the weekend is no big deal, but if you’re serious about losing stomach fat, you should reconsider consuming alcohol nearly every night. At 7 calories per gram, alcohol beverages will quickly push you over your calorie limit, causing fat gain.
- Pastries, cookies and cakes – Again, highly processed and contain a lot of calories that quickly make you exceed your daily limit contributing to weight gain.
The bottom line about losing stomach fat
You can still gain fat even eating the best foods if you eat too many of them. Just because you’re sticking to whole grain pasta, lean proteins and all those other “healthy” options won’t mean you can’t gain fat, far from it.
The best way forward is to determine how many calories you need that maintains your weight and then eat 20% less than those calories per day.
By far, the best way to ensure that you’re losing fat as you limit your calories is to lift weights! Lifting weights by sticking with the compound movements will force your body to hold onto its muscle, thus ensuring most of weight loss comes from FAT.
If you’re consistently hitting your macros each day, you WILL lose fat, there’s no two ways about it. There’s no need to over complicate this process and resort to the latest diet craze such as keto, atkins, high carb, low fat etc.
Those diets always go out of fashion, but sensible nutrition that I teach never does!