Fact #1 on How to Lose Belly Fat - As frustrating and harsh as this may sound, it needs to be said. You will NEVER lose belly fat by doing countless crunches every day. If so, wouldn't most people have them by now? You can do crunches until you are every color of the rainbow in the face and it WILL NOT get rid of belly fat.
Introduction
Strength training with isometric exercise was popularised by Charles Atlas from the 1930s onwards. The 1960s saw the gradual introduction of exercise machines into the still-rare strength training gyms of the time. Strength training became increasingly popular in the 1980s following the release of the bodybuilding movie Pumping Iron and the subsequent popularity of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since the late 1990s increasing numbers of women have taken up strength training, influenced by programs like Body for Life; currently nearly one in five U.S. women engages in weight training on a regular basis.
Strength training
Strength training also requires the use of 'good form', performing the movements with the appropriate muscle group(s), and not transferring the weight to different body parts in order to move greater weight/resistance (called 'cheating'). Failure to use good form during a training set can result in injury or an inability to meet training goals - since the desired muscle group is not challenged sufficiently, the threshold of overload is never reached and the muscle does not gain in strength.
Weight loss
Weight loss is the main intervention against central obesity when this is considered disfiguring or when it puts one at a risk for the above mentioned diseases. Adjunctive therapies are the use of orlistat or sibutramine. In the presence of diabetes mellitus type 2, the physician might prefer to prescribe metformin and thiazolidinediones (rosiglitazone or pioglitazone) as anti-diabetic drugs rather than sulfonylurea derivatives.
Mental and Emotional health
Many sources also cite mental and emotional health as an important part of overall fitness. This is often presented in textbooks as a triangle made up of three sub-sections which represent physical, emotional, and mental fitness. Hence, one may be physically fit but may still suffer from a mental illness or have emotional problems. The "ideal triangle" is balanced in all areas. Physical fitness can also prevent or treat many chronic health conditions brought on by unhealthy lifestyle or aging.