It’s easy to build unwanted fat around your belly (trust me I know) but getting rid of that belly fat can be challenge. From my experience cycling is one the best most effective forms of exercise. It uses a lot of energy, helps to build lean muscle mass, along with improving your overall endurance, strength, and cardio capacity.
It’s important to point out that cycling wont specifically target and burn belly fat and anyone that tells you otherwise is feeding you false information (spot fat reduction is a myth). However, cycling will certainly help to reduce your overall body fat. You will have to be patient to lose belly fat with cycling and it won’t fall of overnight, as you overall body fat decreases so will your belly fat.
Cycling can get you into shape and help you to lose belly fat, below I have listed a few tips to help you to lose overall body weight, get leaner, and in better shape.
Get Rid of Belly Fat Cycling with These Tips
Before I get to my tips on cycling to reduce belly size I just wanted to shed-light on the spot fat reduction myth.
The Spot Reduction Myth
This is the idea that you can burn fat from one particular area of your body, appealing as this may sound burning fat simply doesn’t work that way. reducing your overall body fat is the only way that you will see any type of fat reduction in the area you are trying to target, says Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki.
1. Eat Right
In my opinion the best foundation to losing belly fat with cycling is to eat right. The theory is pretty simple; you need to burn more calories than you consume throughout the day. Basically the bigger the calories deficit the more-fat you will lose.
As an example, a 160-lb. person who cycles for 30 minutes at roughly 12 to 14 mph will burn about 384 calories, so an hour of bike riding will burn around 768 calories estimates the Health Status website. However, eating to wrong foods can hinder your progress. Eating the wrong foods will make you quickly regain those calories you laboriously pedaled off using your bike.
So when fueling your bike ride make sure you eat slow burning carbohydrates such as whole grain breads, pastas, and lean meat proteins like turkey. You should avoid eating anything high in saturated fat like butter, sweets (candy), and cheese.
It’s also important to point out that starving yourself to get try and shrink that waist isn’t a good idea. Why? Well if you aren’t fueling your body adequately you won’t be able to get the most from your cycling sessions and your body might start to lose muscle rather than belly fat.
2. Keep A Steady Pace
Even though your stomach muscles aren’t being worked as hard as your glutes or quads when you are cycling you are still burning overall body fat and that will include your belly fat too. Try to bike at a moderately intensive pace riding at 12 to 14 mph, three times a week for about two hours. If you keep this regime for a few months, I guarantee you will lose belly fat.
3. Try Interval Training
Cycling is typically done over long distance so this makes it perfect for doing interval training. interval training is a great way to lose belly fat and involves working hard on your bike for a short period of time, slowing down, then repeating. For example, try cycling as fast as you can for 2 minutes and then slow down and peddle normally (12 to 14 mph) for 60 seconds then repeat.
This type of bike training has been shown to be extremely effective at burning body fat especially in the belly as well as improving muscle definition. I try to include some interval training at least twice a week and I have found that it really helped me to lose belly fat.
4. Off The Bike Exercise
If you are serious about losing belly fat you will need to do more than just cycling if you want fast results. One exercise that helped me was using aerobic muscle workouts like the ‘lying down bicycle’ exercise. Basically you lay on your back placing your hands behind your head and then raise yourself up so that your legs and shoulders are off the ground at a 90-degree angle. Then touch your right knee to your left elbow whilst extending your left leg, repeat this by alternating elbows to legs.
Other form of exercise can also help; cross training is a great example and apart from helping you to lose belly fat it will also give you a full body workout, help burn calories and improve your core strength, and improve your overall performance on your bike.
Most people think that by doing hundreds of sit-ups or stomach crunches will help you to loose belly fat. However, in reality these exercise will help you to improve body-core strength and will aid in building muscle and they won’t directly remove fat from your stomach.
Final Ramblings
I lost over 15 kilos when I took up cycling and I can guarantee that if you following these simple steps you can lose belly fat by cycling and by making these simple lifestyle changes. If you are looking the best mountain bike for the money to help you to lose weight, check out my selection for 2016.
