How to Lose Belly Fat by Touring Budapest

After a gluttonous week of travel through Prague and Budapest last week I accidentally lost 5 to 10 pounds of belly fat. Now I don’t usually carry that much extra fat on me, so that should tell you how accidental it was. And upon reflection I realized that lifestyle is an essential piece of the belly fat puzzle. Playing the tourist for a week caused me to lose weight, while playing the office worker, more often than not, is a prescription for belly fat. Why?

A huge number of people are concerned with how to lose belly fat. My guess is that most of these people are sitting behind a desk all day and snacking sporadically on high carb, high trans fat goodies. For most, a work day is designed for belly fat augmentation. Sitting down for extended periods of time removes the greatest fat burner you have, the large muscles in your legs, from doing anything metabolically constructive. It also prevents your chore muscles from performing their sole function, to stabilize the body. Meanwhile the boredom of office work pushes you toward sugar cravings for a quick pick-me-up.

But this is nothing new. We know that inactivity is conducive to belly fat. But we may not realize just how much. Over the last week I did no exercise, or at least, notable exercise. I didn’t lift a weight. I didn’t run. I drank a lot of beer and ate heavy East European food several times a day. And I saw Prague and Budapest on foot. Oh, and I lost at least 5 pounds of fat (I say at least because I may have burned off a little muscle too, tough to say). This certainly had nothing to do with my gluttonous diet. It had everything to do with the simple and unfortunately temporary lifestyle change.

The simple act of being on your feet for most of the day is enough to call into play the largest metabolic boosters the body has, the muscles of the upper legs. Using these all too often ignored muscles raises your metabolism considerably, and it leaves your body in a nice calorie deficit. Your body needs constant energy throughout the day, and it takes that energy from belly fat. Despite the fact that my diet looked nothing like a diet, I still lost weight. There is almost nothing you can eat that if you’re on your feet for a good portion of the day, your body won’t make use of or flush out.

So what’s my new belly fat solution? Travel!!! Stop asking how to lose belly fat and instead use those precious vacation days to travel to a place that offers sights and culture that are accessible by foot. Spend your days walking through old cities with cobblestone walkways, brilliant architecture, and when you’re tired, dine on exotic cuisine and good booze. It’s a lifestyle change that if realized two or three times a year will not only enrich your life and shake off that pent up stress, but will also help you shed that belly fat you’ve acquired from countless hours at the office.