Are you surprised to know that there are lots of people that think they’ve found out how  to get rid of belly fat. You would not be alone if you are surprised, many do believe they know the answer. Not so surprising is the fact that most of them are not right.

Where are they wrong? They feel that spending a few hours in the gym a week, the pool, or a track oval, is sufficient to lose belly fat quick and build washboard abs just like Brad Pitt had in the movie “Fight Club”.

To give credit when due, they are not completely in error. Exercise is a key to getting a great mid section and one of the best solutions to the “how to get rid of belly fat” question. But exercise is never enough, not by a long shot. The right diet is just as important as proper and consistent training to obtain the six-pack abs that we dream about.

Instead of just paying all our attention on how much time we put on a treadmill/stationary bike/rowing machine, or counting the number of reps we do on an abs machine, we need to focus some time on the food we eat and type of calories we consume.

A common belief even among the most frequent gym worshippers is that you can eat all you want and anything you want as long as you work out long and hard to compensate for what you eat. Those of this belief, pay for this belief in the way they look.

It is true that all it takes to lose weight is to burn more calories than you take it. However, you are not helping your body when you fill it with the empty calories from junk food compared to the high quality calories obtained from fats, proteins, fiber, carbohydrates, and the like that make up a well balanced diet.

So what can happen if one chooses to consume just any food one wishes to as long asone is burning more calories than consumed.  A body that breaks down is the answer. Your body would be more susceptible to suffer from fatigue and be more readily injured. In addition, you may in fact be minimizing the effect of your workouts.

What can happen if you eat sufficiently to feel strong during your workouts, but the stuff you eat is not of the healthy variety? You can develop rock hard abs but you may not see them because they will hide themselves under a thick layer of belly fat.

Knowing what exercises to do for the belly is not the end of knowing how to get rid of belly fat. That will never get the job done by itself. To lose belly fat rapidly, you need to have a good working knowledge of the do’s and don’ts of a healthy diet.  If you have no idea of a healthy diet and don’t follow one, you can forget about looking like Brad Pitt in “Fight Club” and start thinking about looking like Jorge Garcia from the movie “Lost”.

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