How to lose belly fat with weights

Before I even start talking about how to lose belly fat with weights I’m gonna throw this out there:

You cannot reduce fat just on your belly

Loosing weight around your belly will come if you lose weight in general. Even if you did ab exercises for an hour every day this won’t make you lose fat on just your belly. When I lost weight earlier this year (2020) I wanted to lose more on my lower body, around my thighs and butt and I did but I also lost weight on my top half around my chest and collar bone as well. I didn’t want to lose weight there, it just came off. So how to lose belly fat with weights? First you need to start the process of losing weight to begin with.

The great news is you can use weights to lose weight plus you’ll get toned at the same time, win-win!

How to lose weight to start with?

To lose weight you must be in a calorie deficit, meaning you’re burning more calories than you’re consuming. Do this regularly and you will lose weight. I talk about this in more detail in this article – Losing weight on a plant based diet. It covers how to work out how many calories you should eat per day to lose weight.

If you exercise but eat too much you won’t lose any weight. Equally, you could eat less without exercise and still lose weight, although where’s the fun in that!? Might as well get fit, toned and lose weight all at the same time. You’ll look great and feel amazing. This is how you lose belly fat with weights.

Difference between losing weight and toning up?

Whilst there are similarities between the two they are different. Losing weight is exactly what the name suggests, a loss of weight. Maybe you’re eating healthy and you’ve lost a few pounds over the last month, great! What losing weight won’t give you though is the muscle definition, your muscles will be the same size and shape as they were before you lost weight. This is where it’s good to tone up as well and this can be done a couple of different ways:

• Body weight training
• Weight training

Both of these are forms of strength training/ resistance training and both will tone you up.

Body weight training

This is done without weights using your own body weight as the resistance when working out. Some examples are squats, lunges, push-ups, pull ups, planks, and tricep dips. Exercises like this will help you lose weight as you’ll burn calories whilst doing them and they’ll tone your muscles at the same time.

Ladies don’t worry about getting big and bulky doing exercises like this, you’d have to lift very heavy weights to get big muscles, we don’t have enough testosterone in our bodies to “accidentally” get massive muscles. If ever you see a really ripped lady it’s because she’s worked her butt off, probably for years to get her body looking like that. So just tell her “you look amazing, you must have worked hard”. So doing just body weight exercises will get you toned but not big.

Weight training

This is incorporating weights into your workouts. For example instead of just squatting you might squat with dumbbells or a barbell with weight plates added. This works your legs harder, burning more calories in the process.

But again you won’t get big, bulky legs unless you lift really heavy weights.

Lunges can be done holding dumbbells as well as squats, instead of tricep dips you could do a tricep extension with a dumbbell, and instead of a push up you could do a bench press. Although push-ups are still a great exercise to do. This will all help you to lose that belly fat as long as you’re eating less than you’re burning.

Weights Vs cardio

A few years back everyone used to say the way to lose weight (and therefore belly fat) was to do just cardio. Fast forward a few years and people have realised that to really change the way you look you need to do some kind of resistance training, like the body weight training or weight training mentioned above.

Yes you will lose weight doing cardio (if you eat right too) but you won’t necessarily look the way you want to. I used to run regularly, maybe 3 times a week. Mostly 5k but sometimes I ran for longer, up to 10k. I lost weight doing this but my body had no shape, no definition. I didn’t suddenly have a 6 pack and my arms were still gangly and skinny.

Me in January 2020 then me in July 2020 after losing weight and toning up

It wasn’t until I started strength training that my body really started to change. I started with body weight exercises first then progressed onto using weights. Now I use a barbell with weights for all my weight training. I’ve also sorted out my diet. Going vegan has helped massively and I’ve cut right back on my alcohol intake.

How to lose belly fat with weights

So, we already know losing belly fat has a lot to do with diet. If you don’t know this you’ve been cheeky and skipped to the end. Have a read of the rest of the article first, it’s not that boring!

What weights will do is sculpt your body so that as you lose weight (by eating less than you burn) you’ll have more of a toned look.

You could start with body weight exercises like:

• Squats including sumo (great for your inner thighs)
• Lunges
• Burpees (everyone hates them but they get your heart pumping)
• Push ups
• Ab exercises – sit ups, reverse curls, Russian twists, v ups, mountain climbers, and planks
• Tricep dips

Then progress onto using dumbbells or a barbell. Or go straight to this and skip the body weight exercises. You could try:

• Squats and lunges holding dumbbells
• Bench press
• Shoulder press
• Deadlifts
• Row
• Weighted abs exercises. Sit ups, Russian twists, planks all with weights

All these exercises (excluding abs exercises and lunges) can be done using a barbell instead of dumbbells. They’re all compound moves meaning they work multiple muscles at the same time.

If you want to see a barbell squat in action here’s me doing some recently – Barbell squat

Compound moves burn more calories (especially squats as they use big muscles) so are great for your weight loss and burning that belly fat. So if you want to know how to lose belly fat with weights, compound exercises are the answer. Isolation exercises like bicep curls don’t burn as many calories as they use fewer muscles. And it’s still possible to get very toned abs just from doing abs exercises, you don’t have to do the weighted exercises to see results.

Hasfit do some great free routines with dumbbells, if you’re interested go check them out. If you’re looking to really get strong and build some serious muscle check out StrongLifts 5×5 for a great barbell routine and schedule. These are not affiliate links by the way, just sites that I’ve used that have good, solid workouts.

Conclusion

Losing belly fat has more to do with diet than anything else. However, compound exercises that burn more calories will help you to lose weight and ultimately lose belly fat. Even body weight exercises will help to sculpt your body for a more toned look.

If you’re looking to start weight lifting with a barbell you’ll need some additional equipment, this article covers all that.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Have you tried weights to lose belly fat? How did you get on? I’d love to hear from you, please use the comments section below.

Happy lifting

Katie

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