Seeing a layer of fat hanging over your belt can quickly deflate a good mood. Unfortunately there is no such thing as spot-reduction, but that doesn’t mean you should give up hope. Cardiovascular exercise can effectively eliminate body fat, including abdominal fat. Other lifestyle changes, such as getting more sleep and cleaning up your diet, can also help shrink your belly.

Understanding Belly Fat

Compared to other parts of your body, your abdomen has its own unique construction of fat. Around your stomach, you have visceral and subcutaneous fat. Visceral fat surrounds your abdominal organs while subcutaneous fat lies between your abdominal wall and your skin. Increased amounts of visceral fat can be detrimental to your health. This kind of fat is connected to type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, insulin resistance and high cholesterol.


To shrink your waistline, you need to lace up the sneakers and get moving. Vigorous exercise led to decreases in visceral and subcutaneous abdominal fat during a 2005 study published in the “Journal of Applied Physiology.” Researchers had 175 overweight men and women participate in an eight-month program. The group that worked most vigorously -- the equivalent of jogging 20 miles per week -- lost the most abdominal fat. Exercisers who did the equivalent of 12 jogging miles per week avoided gaining abdominal fat. Those that did not exercise experienced significant gains in visceral fat within six months.


You can lose belly fat; just be patient and pay attention to the details. Keeping your diet in check is an effective way to shed some unwanted inches from your waist. Emphasize plant-based foods, lean proteins and low-fat dairy products in your diet. Replace saturated fats -- such as high-fat cheese and butters -- with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, such as nuts and certain vegetable oils. Keep portion sizes in check, even when you are dining out. To lose a pound of fat, you need to ingest 3,500 fewer calories than you burn. This equals 500 fewer calories a day to lose a pound per week.


Another reason to get a good night’s sleep is that it keeps visceral fat at bay, according to the journal “Sleep” in 2010. This research study analyzed the sleep habits and abdominal fat deposits of more than 1,000 participants for five years. Individuals who slept between six and seven hours per night had the trimmest waistlines. Those who slept fewer than five hours or more than eight hours per night had the highest body mass indexes and abdominal fat percentages.