Slimming up your belly area takes frequent bouts of cardio in order to burn a high number of calories. Both the recumbent bike and the treadmill are effective; however, the treadmill is more efficient and will help you lower your fat faster. Whenever you burn more calories than you consume from food, your body must find a way to still fuel your brain and other vital organs and processes. It breaks down your stored fat and, thus, your body fat percentage decreases.
Step 1
Choose the exercise activity you enjoy the most. The treadmill is clearly the best choice for burning the most calories, but if you hate running on the treadmill, it’s likely choosing to bike will make you more inclined to fit in your workouts and you’ll end up burning a greater number of calories over the week.
Step 2
Schedule your treadmill or recumbent biking workouts four to six days per week. Each workout should last about 60 minutes, though there's no problem with splitting the workouts into two separate segments. For example, you could do 30 minutes in the morning and another 30 minutes in the evening.
Step 3
Run or bike at the quickest pace comfortably possible. The calorie calculator by Health Status estimates that a 140-pound woman will burn 538 calories running on a treadmill at 5 mph and 638 calories running at 6 mph. If that 140-pound woman walks on the treadmill at 4 mph, she will burn 328 calories in 60 minutes. Biking on a recumbent bike at a moderate intensity will result in about 445 calories burned.
Step 4
Incorporate ab workouts three days per week on nonconsecutive days. It’s not possible to target fat loss at your stomach area, because your own body will decide where it breaks down the stored body fat from. But by simultaneously completing ab workouts, once your fat levels lower, the muscular tone you've built at your stomach will be visible.
Step 5
Follow a healthy eating plan to ensure you're consuming an appropriate number of calories to support fat loss. You can quickly cancel out the calories you've burned with your treadmill or recumbent bike workouts by taking in high-calorie foods or drinks. To ensure you're taking in the right number of calories, estimate your resting metabolic rate with the equation, 655 + (4.35 x your weight in pounds) + (4.7 x your height in inches) - (4.7 x your age in years). By eating fewer calories than this value, you should see notable fat loss.
