Are you frustrated of exercising and dieting without resulting in loosing that stubborn belly flab? Before you start or resume any diet or exercise I suggest follow a few steps to help you ensure successful fat loss.

Tired of reading books, buying exercise machines, rigorous regular exercise, starving yourself, or calorie counting to no end? - and still no results?You have the will but the body doesnt seem to cooperate?

Well, here's another advice to add to all these and I have given it a go, and it seems to work, slowly but surely.I figured several things might be sabotaging my diet and exercise. Nothing seemed to have worked. I've tried ab machines, vigorous regular exercise, low carb diets, Lipo-dissolve, Hypoxi, etc. I cant afford Liposuction or Liposculpture - so I'm still trying out cheaper alternatives.

My theory is, that you should do all these suggested things before undertaking further diet and exercise. Doing these would get you far greater results with any diet and exercise that you will do to lose your belly fat.

So here's the journey I have been through before I proceeded with anymore exercise or dieting.

• check out for food allergies/intolerances
• cleanse your colon (remove mucoid plaque)
  
• eliminate parasites in your body (ie candida)
• Detox, drink lots of water, sweat it out
• avoid drinking alcohol
• check for hormonal imbalances
• relax. relax. relax

a) Find out about any food allergies that may be preventing you from your most healthy potential. For example, a lot of people have had food intolerances that they never knew of - that could contribute to toxins being distributed about in your body. Toxins are then stored in body fat to protect you from their harmful effects. Your body eventually stubbornly refuses to release these toxins back into your system - so it holds on to the body fat.
Not only that, food allergies/intolerances also puts stress into your body which could also affect your insulin and cortisol levels (2 factors which contribute to fat loss/gain).

Consult a Naturopath or your GP to see if you do have a food allergy or intolerance.

I suspected that I had gluten intolerance. I finally confirmed it through a blood test. The first thing I did in this process is to stop building toxins in my body by avoiding gluten alltogether. Gluten was making me more sick and toxic, my immune system was already compromised by it, and with more exercise - my immune system couldnt cope. No matter how much exercise I wanted to so in my head - my body was not coping.

b) Clean out your digestive system. If your digestive system, especially if your large intestines are impacted and putriefied with undigested or unreleased toxic matter - you would either increase your toxic body fat, or that your body would keep trying to eradicate these toxins instead of the toxins in your belly fat.
Years of eating junk food can cause a build up of pounds of putrid material in your gut which can also be harbouring harmful parasites.
Read up on Colon Cleansing articles. I've been using 'Colozone' however, there are other products that you can choose from that may be far more effective.
Check out detox.net.au regarding 'colon cleansing', however, there are lots of other literature in the internet to help you out. Specifically find out about "mucoid plaque". I dont know if I have any - since I'm using oxygen colon cleansing.
Make sure you eat lots of fiber - or keep taking psyllium husk whil on your colon cleansing regime.
I tell you though, since I started cleaning out my colon, my appetite has gone significantly down.

c) Eliminate any parasites in your body. There are 'live blood tests' that you can undertake to see if you have parasites, or a significant yeast infection like 'candida'. If you feel lethargic, and have a lot of sugar craving - candida can be the culprit. If you do have candida, you can blame it with your lack of motivation to exercise or the lack of motivation to sticking to your healthy diet. Candida can make you crave for sugars and carbohydrates which sabotages your diet too.

d) Detox, drink lots of water, sweat it out . You can keep using a sauna, do regular foot ion cleansing, have lymphatic drainage massages or light exercise. If you cant drink water, then try drinking lots of white or green tea. If you're beginning to lose body fat from simple exercises, it's good to make sure that the toxins that you're releasing back into your system isnt making you sick, or isnt compromising you immune system. Drink plenty of water, tea, and non-sugary drinks to cleanse you out. Remember, your skin is the largest detoxing organ in your body.
Eating antioxidant foods also help - so eat up your berries, garlic, ginger and again - drink tea.

e) Avoid drinking alcohol. Alcohol is another toxin your body doesnt need to keep in your fat stores. I think the reason why we crave greasy food to cure a hangover is so that we can have the extra fat to absorb the alcohol to stop it from harming us. The bad news is, the fat & toxin is stil kept in the body. If you can, avoid smoking cigarettes too.

f) Check you hormone balance. Hormone imbalances can also wreak havoc with your metabolism. So no matter what exercise or diet you do, your hormones might sabotage your efforts. Talk to you doctor if you have any thyroid problems, a high amount of oestrogen in your body, or any other hormones imbalances that will keep you from losing fat.

g) Relax. Stress increases the amount of cortisol in your body which contributes to belly fat. Do whatever you can to decrease stress in your life, like meditate, have hot baths, massages, or talk to your friends. There are lots more strategies that you can adopt to decrease stress. Do whatever works for you.

These steps have helped me stay more focused and has helped me a lot with my motivation in losing body fat.
I have stopped exercise whilst doing this and I have come down now from 32.8% body fat to 28.9% body fat - and my belly button measurement has gone down from 85cm to 77 cm since I undertook these steps in one month. My visceral fat has always been a healthy point 5 due to exercise, now it's down to 4.
I have not lost this much from diet and exercise alone. I'm looking forward to a slimmer me - slowly but surely - and I'm definitely going back to regular exercise.

Tell me if this works for you. I'd be interested to hear if it is in anyway effective with others.