One of the most common questions people ask me, especially men is what diet they should follow to lose belly fat. This is because men have a tendency to store more fat in the stomach area as compared to women who are genetically disposed to store more fat in the lower body (for pregnancy) i.e. and arms.

Firstly, please get your wits about the fact that there is nothing called spot reduction. You cannot reduce fat from just one body part except through invasive surgeries, which is again a temporary phenomenon. The body works as a whole, not in parts. You cannot reduce fat from one body part and not from the other. When the fat reduces it reduces from the entire body. Depending on your genetics and hormonal profile, there may be certain problem areas that may take more time to get the desired effect. For e.g. when you start a new clean eating regime with a high-intensity workout you will see fat loss from the entire body. But, there may be certain areas which take more time to show results than other areas of the body, these are called problem areas. For men, it is often the belly fat and in women, it is often arms and lower body. But this does not mean, they will not get the effect, but it may take more time than the rest of the parts to show results.

Where you store fat in the body generally depends on your genetics and evolution. Men are evolutionarily predisposed towards storing fat in the belly area and generally under the chin. Women, on the other hand, will store fat in the hips and thighs and in the arms and breasts. This is because, during the times of food shortages, thousands of years ago, the body adapted itself by storing fat in the breasts, hips, and thighs in women, in order to support pregnancy and thus survival of the species.

People selling you crappy knowledge and promising you spot reduction through their miracle product or diet are just like the midnight infomercials on television which sell you gadgets to attract money and prosperity in your life.

You will certainly be disappointed, but for good, this time, and also feel a bit relieved to know that there is no specific diet to target your belly fat. Taking in foods that increase your metabolism will make you lose fat from the entire body, not just belly.

It was some time back when a magazine approached me to write an article on this topic. I blatantly said that there is no such diet, and this is a misleading and wrong topic. They humbly replied, “Sir, we need to sell our magazine. What’s right is not what sells. What sells is what is interesting and in trend.”

The answer is simple, there is no food which targets your belly fat, and there is no special diet which reduced your belly fat. As I said, clean & nutritional eating, harder workouts, and proper rest will help you reduce fat from the entire body not just your tummy or belly fat.

For that matter, no special workout, no food, no stupid supplement, no unique diet, no cutting carbs or fats, no adding more fiber, or any such stupid concept will ever help you exclusively target belly fat. “The way to get rid of body fat in specific places is to have different parents,” says Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington. “You have no control where it goes.”

All those TV commercials selling useless crap to you, which they promise will help you reduce belly fat, that too in a couple of minutes in a day, any dietician telling you that her diet will help you reduce specifically tummy fat or belly fat, any trainer selling you a workout concept or supplement promising you the same, any stupid person writing an article on such a topic, slimming centers giving you such false hopes (they are the worst of the lot), are all simply stupid, and trying to get you in their category.