To Shrink Belly Fat, Avoid These Exercise Habits After 50

Let’s talk about something incredibly frustrating, but so relatable. one of the most difficult fitness goals achieve when you’re 50 and older is losing belly fat. This is because as you age, your body experiences hormonal changes, such as a decrease in testosterone, estrogen, or growth hormone. Not only that, but his metabolism decreases, and you lose lean muscle mass if you are not proactive. Many also become more sedentary as they age, due to fewer obligations or not keeping Healthy habits. If you are in this age group and want to reduce belly fat, we have some helpful tips and tricks to get you started as soon as possible.

First, it’s important to focus on three key areas: eating a healthy diet while in a calorie deficit, doing regular strength training, and getting in aerobic exercise. When you consistently do these habits, your belly fat will reduce and you will achieve your desired training goals. But if you’re already eating right, exercising regularly, and not seeing results, you may be making some common fitness mistakes.

Don’t stress, because we’re going to discuss these exercise mistakes people make and exactly how to address them. Read on to learn more, then check out The 6 Best Exercises for Strong, Toned Arms in 2022, Says a Trainer.

group doing strength training exercise outdoors to reduce abdominal fat — Shutterstock

Although cardio is key to your heart health, improving your aerobic fitness and burning calories shouldn’t be the only form of exercise you focus on. If your goal is to reduce abdominal fat and get in shape, you should incorporate and prioritize strength training. Strength exercises help build muscle, raise your metabolism, and tone you faster than if you were just doing cardio. This is because strength training increases excess oxygen consumption after exercise (COPD): It is the after effect of burning your body that requires more oxygen to return to baseline. This will cause your body to burn more calories.

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man running in central park to improve his gut health — Shutterstock

Also, when it comes to cardio, it changes things up! It is important to do regular steady state work for at least 30 minutes. However, you should also mix up interval work or go to a higher intensity.

If you consistently perform the same cardio exercises with the same duration and intensity, your body adapts to them. This will cause you to burn fewer calories doing the same amount of work over time, and will make your fat loss process much more difficult. Not only that, but as you get older, you lose anaerobic power and performance, so you’d be wise to include intervals in your cardio routine.

If you’re doing steady-state cardio 2-3 times a week, swap one of those sessions for a 15-20 minute HIIT workout.

man exercising with dumbbells at home in a bright room — Shutterstock

If you’re already doing strength training, that’s awesome! Just make absolutely sure you choose the right exercises and the right number of sets/reps.

When it comes to selecting exercises, the majority of your workouts should be made up of compound movements. These recruit more muscle fibers and will help you burn even more calories than if you were to focus on single-joint movements like curls, triceps dips, and lateral raises. Make sure to work variations of squats, hinges, presses, and pulls into your routine.

There’s also a common fitness myth that lifting heavy is great for bulking up, and if you’re trying to lose fat, you should switch to higher rep work to tone muscle and lose weight. Rather, depending on your exercises, you need a combination of lower and higher rep work. No matter how many reps you’re doing, choose a weight that will be challenging throughout the set.

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woman doing sit-ups at home on a yoga mat to reduce belly fat — Shutterstock

Another bad exercise habit that you should kick as soon as possible is performing a ton of sit-ups, sit-ups, and side bends in hopes of reducing belly fat. Even though you can burn well and feel like you’re toning your stomach, doing abdominal exercises alone won’t help you reduce belly fat.

Plus, you don’t need to perform a ton of different ab exercises and high reps with each training session. One or two abdominal exercises should be enough.

When it comes down to it, if you don’t nail your eating habits and stay active with your cardio and strength work, you won’t lose that excess fat. Focus on nailing your nutrition and workouts, and your belly fat will start to shrink.