You’ve been training nonflexible and have stayed resulting with your fat loss diet. You’ve dropped a decent value of soul fat. Now it’s upper time to see well-nigh losing that lower vitals fat.
You’re looking lean and specified overall, but that last bit of stubborn fat won’t seem to budge. I know firsthand how worrying that can be.
So, what’s the weightier way to get rid of it, and fully lean lanugo your midsection from top to bottom?
We’ll touch upon the very steps you need to employ in a bit. But first, there’s a much increasingly important set of questions I want you to consider. The first one is a concept that a upper percentage of people overlook…
Question #1: Is Losing Lower Vitals Fat Unquestionably A Worthwhile Goal In The First Place?
Achieving an impressively lean and muscular soul is one thing. Anyone can do that with the right plan in place, and that’s primarily what my translating is all about.
But, you have to really consider the true pros and cons of dropping your soul fat lanugo that low. I mean, we’re talking well-nigh a low unbearable level where your midsection is fully lean with extremely little to no noticeable fat remaining at all.
You have to ask yourself: Am I unquestionably willing to make the necessary sacrifices to do it?
The honest truth that most fitness influencers probably won’t tell you is that achieving a perfectly unappetizing six pack isn’t something you should overly snooping yourself with in the first place.
Understand that these people literally make a living off their physique. They probably just want to sell their ab shredding programs, special diets, and fat loss supplements (including scamming you with fat burners).
Stick with me here. This is not meant as some kind of finger good soul positivity speech. I’m not trying to say that we should all requite up on our physique goals and go prance virtually in a field somewhere holding hands with our massive rolls of sweaty vitals fat gloriously flapping in the wind.
What we are discussing here is simply a logical, rational cost-benefit analysis.
This is the plain reality: Unless you are genetically fortunate to have a soul fat distribution that favors a lean midsection, having some noticeable lower ab fat is pretty damn normal.
The vast majority of people have the kind of lower vitals fat that shows when sitting lanugo or in a hunched over position. The uneaten bit of stomach fat bunches up to some extent unless you are very, very lean.
Unless someone’s content unquestionably is centered virtually “body positivity,” they’re never going to post a relaxed photo or video of themselves where this can be unmistakably seen.
Instead, they’re going to be standing, twisting, and flexing in the weightier position. This makes their abs squint as impressive as possible.
Keep in mind, though, that this might not plane be representative of their very year round condition. It could just be a snapshot of a unrepealable phase where they were expressly lean.
Now don’t get me wrong, you can definitely have a lean midsection. If your idea of “the last bit of stomach fat” is something withal these lines, then you can definitely progress vastitude that to where your abs are unmistakably visible.
But to fully waif plane that last little bit of lower vitals fat, you’re probably going to need to be in the top percentage of the population in terms of leanness. I’m talking, not plane the top 1%, but increasingly like the top 0.1%.
It is by no ways an easy thing to do, and it is very rare.
If you still want to unzip that, then let’s go into increasingly detail.
Remember that at the end of the day, your soul is a survival machine. It is programmed to siphon a unrepealable value of soul fat for proper functioning.
What most people don’t understand–and this is a key point–is that you have to recognize that the difficulty of getting leaner doesn’t operate in a straight linear fashion.
Just like with gaining muscle (even with the best workout plan), it’s an exponential process. As you get leaner, each percentage point of soul fat becomes unduly increasingly challenging to waif further. Your soul is just fighting when harder and harder to hold onto that remaining fat.
Survival is the body’s primary goal. Those nonflexible wired evolutionary systems have no idea why you’re trying to get so lean in the first place. Evolution is unaware of the juicy Instagram likes, or the Chipotle that’s 50 feet lanugo the street, or that you’re not in any real danger of starving.
Now, going from 30% soul fat lanugo to 20% should often be pretty smooth sailing in most cases. As long as your nutrition and training are properly set up, you should be okay.
But, getting leaner than that becomes increasingly challenging.
Going from 20% lanugo to 15% will be increasingly challenging for a smaller net value of soul fat lost. Going from 15% lanugo to 12% will be plane harder for a smaller pound for pound result.
Once you’re virtually 12%, and I midpoint a true 12%, getting leaner is going to be pretty difficult for most people. Going from 12% soul fat to 10% will probably be increasingly physically taxing than everything you’ve washed-up up to that point.
Even at 10%, which is probably the minimum level the vast majority of guys can realistically sustain long term, it still doesn’t guarantee you a fully leaned lanugo midsection. It might be nowhere tropical to what you might have been envisioning for yourself based on what you’ve seen online.
I’ve been virtually 10% soul fat before. Plane at that level, considering I store a upper percentage of fat on my stomach, I still had some noticeable lower vitals fat. This was true plane though the rest of my soul was very lean and vascular.
I’m standing up and flexing in good lighting here, so you can’t really tell. But, plane in this condition when I was relaxed and sitting down, I still had those last couple rolls of fat. My stomach still was not perfectly unappetizing like you would think.
Question #2: What Are The Specific Challenges Of Trying To Cut That Low?
We’ve talked well-nigh the typical “low soul fat side effects” many times before. But to quickly summarize, you’re going to be dealing with several negative ones.
The first is significantly increased hunger and supplies focus throughout the day. This is due to your calories dropping lower as you get leaner. You’ll have less energy and less strength in the gym as a result.
Cognitively, you won’t be at your weightier in terms of mood and mental sharpness. Your sex momentum will moreover go lanugo or plane potentially be next to non-existent. Your sleep quality won’t plane be as platonic as it was at a higher soul fat percentage, and you’ll probably finger increasingly neurotic well-nigh your appearance.
All of these side effects will only increase in intensity the leaner you get.
Another factor people often don’t consider is that plane from a pure philosophy perspective, stuff very lean isn’t all upside either. The benefits are that you’ll obviously have increasingly definition, increasingly vascularity, visible abs, and you’ll squint increasingly impressive when you’re shirtless.
On the flipside, alimony in mind that you’re moreover going to lose a good permafrost of muscle fullness both from reduced glycogen stores and having less intramuscular fat.
So, once you get very lean, you’ll be flirting with straight up “do you plane lift” status when you’re in normal clothes. I’m thesping this is how you spend the vast majority of your time anyway.
Your squatter is moreover going to get sucked down, which some people like. Personally, I’m not a fan of it. I remember when I got really lean in the past, my girlfriend at the time used a term to describe my face: “gaunt.” I didn’t exactly consider this a compliment.
Just remember that in order to proceeds something, you moreover have to requite something up. You can’t just squint at some given result without considering the potential financing involved.
When I see some guys who are extremely lean, they just squint emaciated and unhealthy to me. I honestly don’t plane think it looks unconfined overall in a lot of cases. But, to each his own.
Now so far, we’ve just been talking well-nigh losing soul fat in unstipulated and not how to lose lower vitals fat specifically. But, here’s the reality…
The Only Way To Lose Abdominal Fat Is To Just Get Leaner In General
There’s no way to spot-reduce stomach fat.
The 15 minute ab shredding workouts you see online are mostly just a waste of time considering of this. They really don’t target the fat virtually your midsection. You’re largest off just doing regular straight sets in the same way you’d train any other muscle group.
There are no top secret nutrition hacks, supplements, creams, or devices that are going to do the trick. Stripping off that last layer of vitals fat comes lanugo to pushing forward with your training and diet. Doing this unceasingly will reduce your overall soul fat percentage in general.
For the majority of guys, unfortunately that lower midsection zone just happens to be the last place where your soul will tend to pull significant fat from.
There are unrepealable strategies you can use to make your calorie deficit easier and help reduce hunger while cutting. You can really focus on low calorie dumbo foods to fill yourself up as much as possible. For example, try and eat increasingly vegetables, fruits, lean, good protein sources, etc.
You can experiment with variegated meal frequencies as well. Find what works weightier for you in terms of regulating hunger. This can squint like smaller feedings increasingly frequently, or larger feedings less frequently. You might find that employing some kind of fasting protocol (like intermittent fasting) could help, too.
You can moreover read my vendible on the weightier wearing nutrition to lose fat and stay lean for increasingly tips.
Other tips to lose lower vitals fat
Try and incorporate higher volumes of low intensity movement, such as walking, to increase your calorie expenditure without excessively stimulating your appetite.
Refeed days where you increase your calories, say, once a week to requite yourself a uplift can moreover be helpful. You can plane try incorporating full on nutrition breaks for a 1-2 week period here and there. (This might be expressly helpful when you’re wondering how to stay on track with your nutrition during the holidays).
So, there are some little tips and strategies you can employ. But at the end of the day, dropping your overall soul fat will lead to a lean midsection, plain and simple. The same unstipulated principles of a calorie deficit apply. They just get much harder to implement the leaner you get and the longer you try to maintain a super low soul fat percentage.
If you’re in a situation where you’ve hit a plateau and you’re wondering why your midsection isn’t getting any leaner, it’s simply considering you’re no longer in a calorie deficit.
Remember that as you get leaner and lose overall soul weight, your metabolism lanugo regulates. This is your body’s adaptive response, and thus the daily calories that represented a deficit for you at one point might not be a deficit any longer. You have to transmute then to alimony that deficit going.
So, you can reduce your daily intake slightly by maybe 100-200 calories depending on the situation. Or, try to increase your calorie expenditure, or do some combination of both. Just be mindful that you’re going to need to be much increasingly diligent once you’re very lean. All it takes is a few tracking errors here and there to unknowingly erase your calorie deficit.
Question #3: What Value of Effort and Sacrifice is Worth a Particular Result For You?
For this one, you really have to squint at your fitness program and your life as a whole. The wordplay will be variegated from person to person.
But based on my own wits in 20 years of training and 15 years of coaching, I would say that unless you’re competing or you make a living off your physique, the tradeoffs that are involved with wearing that low are probably not worth it for most guys.
This is whispered from maybe temporary phases where you just want to rencontre yourself for some reason. But the state of leanness we’re talking well-nigh isn’t sustainable as an ongoing condition.
That’s considering the untempered value of effort and sacrifice it requires is not worth the small uneaten result you gain. The juice just isn’t worth the squeeze.
Giving up that uneaten dietary and plane unstipulated lifestyle self-rule is only one speciality of stuff that lean. You moreover have to monitor and restrict things very closely every single day just to be a couple percent soul fat leaner.
This isn’t plane all upside for your physique in the first place. For most people, the overall input-output equation just doesn’t make sense.
Keyword there is “most” people.
For those who truly want that super lean physique and understand what goes into it, then knock yourself out. If you’re in the fitness industry and your physique is part of how you ventilate yourself, you might have to get (and stay) that lean.
But for the majority of people, having some remaining lower ab fat is completely normal, it’s probably not going to disappear completely, and it’s really not a big deal and no one else plane notices it or gives a crap either.
Final Thoughts
It is possible that you can wilt impressively lean, probably leaner than 97% of the unstipulated population. If your tideway is dialed in, you can have solid definition, visible abs, and an overall ripped physique.
But, very, very few people are going to be maintaining anything less than 10% soul fat year round. Plane that is pretty low.
12% is increasingly than platonic for men as a realistic minimum level for the long term. 12-14% soul fat is a good well-turned level between leanness and muscularity for most people, plane with that little bit of uneaten lower ab fluff.
This all comes at the goody of having a well-appointed value of dietary and lifestyle freedom. You’ll moreover be operating at your peak physically and mentally.
These will goody not just your training, but in all areas of your life in general. Work or school, social life, and other hobbies and interests don’t have to suffer withal with you to get completely shredded.
