Most belly fat plans fail because they treat it like one problem. Here’s how to get rid of belly fat with a 3-layer method that tells you exactly what to do first, what to do when you plateau, and how to finally lose the “last bit.”

This is Nimesh, who, at the age of 35, had the most belly fat of his life, enough to bulge through his shirts.

But less than a year later, he now looks like this.

His belly fat is now lower than 98% of men.

This is because nobody addresses the question of how to get rid of belly fat in 3 layers, with each layer requiring a slightly different strategy, and it works for both men and women. But most people are stuck in the outermost layer, layer one, which is right where Nimesh’s journey began, with a day 1 body fat of 29.5%.

Quick Overview Of How To Get Rid Of Belly Fat: The 3 Layers

• Layer 1 (Outer layer): the “soft” belly fat that hides ab definition. Progress shows up everywhere else first.
• Layer 2 (Plateau layer): fat loss slows, or stalls as calorie burn drops and your body fights back.
• Layer 3 (Stubborn layer): lower abs/love handles/hips — visually dramatic progress, but the hardest battle.

How To Get Rid Of Belly Fat — Layer By Layer

Layer 1: The Outer Belly Fat

What DXA Scans Reveal About Belly Fat

Now, one of the cool things about DXA scans is that they don’t just give you an overall body fat percentage. They let you split the body into regions so you can see your body fat percentage in your arms, legs, hips … and even your belly, where Nimesh clocked in at 34.4%.

More than anywhere else on his body.

Nimesh thinks he's genetically cursed.

And the uncomfortable truth is … he wasn’t wrong.

Almost every single guy I’ve run through a day 1 DXA scan has shown their bellies carry more fat than anywhere else.

Which can become a serious health risk. As large population studies have shown, every few centimetres you gain around your waist increases your risk of metabolic disease and death — even if your weight stays the same.

But to see how consistent this belly pattern is, and whether it holds true for women, my team and I analyzed 8 years of DXA scans from nearly 18,000 American men and women.

And what we found actually paints a pretty clean picture of why belly fat seems so hard to get rid of. That “3-layer” pattern is exactly why people get frustrated trying to figure out how to get rid of belly fat.

For men with under 25% body fat, belly fat levels are actually about the same as the rest of their body.

But once you go above 25%, your belly becomes the preferred place for fat storage.

And this doesn’t just mean belly fat becomes easier to gain. It also means it becomes harder to lose.

We plotted the data to show the rate of fat loss from different body parts as you get leaner, with the belly in red.

Now, the flatter the line, the slower the rate of fat loss.

So at higher body fat levels, notice how fat quickly drops from the arms, legs, and hips while fat in the belly remains much higher.

But right around 30% body fat, belly fat actually starts to nosedive, while the other areas flatline. By the time you reach 25%, the belly is no longer fatter than the other areas and continues to progress faster.

So it seems like once your body has burned off enough fat from “easier to access” areas, it’ll eventually start pulling more and more from your stomach. This is the crucial bit on how to get rid of belly fat.

Now, for women, the picture looks a bit different.

They tend to store less fat in the belly to begin with and more in the hips, legs, and arms.

For example, this is my friend Nicole, who is starting her fat loss journey at 33%. When I looked at her belly fat, though, it was almost identical - 33.7%, whereas her legs and hips clocked in much higher (36%).

And if the data from our DEXA scans proves reliable, we should see that, on their respective how to get rid of belly fat journeys, when Nicole and Nimesh see a similar drop in body fat, Nicole will probably see more fat loss coming from her belly compared to Nimesh.

At least as they're both working to burn through what I like to think of as the First Layer of Belly Fat.

What “Layer 1 Belly Fat” Actually Is

First step in figuring out how to get rid of belly fat? Strip off layer 1 of your belly fat.

This is the soft outer layer of belly fat that prevents you from seeing any ab definition.

When men burn through this, you should see some upper abs poking through and usually some shape in the rest of their abs. For women, the waist tightens up and rolls smooth out, but there’s not quite yet any clear ab definition.

This is typically achieved at roughly 20% body fat for men and 28% for women.

Now, the good news about this layer is that it actually requires the least effort to burn off. This is the stage where how to get rid of belly fat is mostly about consistency, not perfection.

For Nimesh, all he needed was four core habits, plus a bonus one to help him push through the biggest challenge this layer poses.

The Layer 1 Playbook: 4 Core Habits (+ 1 Bonus)

First, I set Nimesh up with a workout plan of just 3 workouts per week to ensure any weight Nimesh loses comes directly from fat. And we may even see some muscle gains at the same time.

Second, I gave him a few simple diet rules.

At every meal, include a portion of lean protein about the size of your fist. Prepare most of your meals at home, where portions and ingredients are easier to control.

And build each meal around these core foods.

With these changes, he shouldn’t even need to count calories to start seeing change in his how to get rid of belly fat journey.

Third, I set him a baseline goal of 8,000 steps per day to bump up his daily calorie burn.

And lastly, I got him a scale to track his morning weight, with a weight loss goal of just 1 lb per week.

I also set Nimesh up with our BWS+ app to help him track his weight loss, coach him through his workouts every week, and get healthy meal recipes to try.

The Layer 1 Trap: You Feel Like Nothing Is Changing

But even though losing Layer 1 in the how to get rid of belly fat quest requires the least effort physically, it’s often the hardest mentally.

Day 30 Check-In

Nimesh found this out when he checked back in on Day 30.

Despite being 7 lbs down on the scale, he didn’t feel like his belly had changed at all — he actually texted me afterwards, doubting the plan was even working.

But if you look closely at his chin, chest, and arms, you can clearly see that those areas have leaned down. And when I measured his waist, he was already down 3cm. Which meant he was definitely losing belly fat, just not at the rate he expected.

And if you remember from earlier, that’s exactly what our DXA data predicted.

In the early stages, fat comes off from easier areas first, while the belly lags behind. So by day 60, even though he had lost another 3 centimeters around his waist, visually his belly hadn’t progressed as much as his chest and arms, where he even had some new veins showing.

Day 60 Check-In

But when you compare Nimesh’s progress to Nicole’s, who had lost a similar amount of total body fat, she was down 8 cm around her waist and already had some ab definition starting to poke through.

And while we were finally starting to see where Nimesh’s abs would eventually come through, the abs are relatively small, “flat” muscles.

Compared to your big arm and shoulder muscles, you simply have so much more fat to lose before your abs can start poking through. Remember, the goal of layer 1 in your how to get rid of belly fat journey is not to get six-pack abs, and if I wanted to prevent Nimesh from quitting right before the going gets good, I needed a way for him to see all the progress he was clearly making everywhere else.

Which leads me to his bonus habit: where I asked Nimesh if he’d be willing to take a progress photo after his morning weigh-in.

When reviewing these photos, I wanted him not just to hyperfixate on his belly fat but also to see the progress he was making in his chest, shoulders, and arms, which he was overlooking.

And with the ability to look back at his pictures every week, Nimesh genuinely started to notice the progress he was making. Plus, now that he was below 25% body fat, the progress around his belly finally started to pick up.

Day 90 Check-In

Until we made it to day 90, where, after losing 12 lbs of fat, layer 1 was successfully burned off, revealing some clear upper ab definition.

Layer 2: The Plateau Layer

Now, although it may not seem like it compared to most of the influencers you see on Instagram, at this point in his how to get rid of belly fat journey, Nimesh is already leaner than about 84% of men.

But to push this even further, he’s going to have to get through layer 2, which for most men brings you down to 15% body fat and 23% for women.

But I’d say layer 2 is where most people give up on how how to get rid of belly fat quest.

Layer 1 SEEMS like nothing’s changing, whereas layer 2 is where fat loss actually slows or even stops. Because your body starts to fight back, and the strategies that worked for layer 1 no longer do. It’s also the stage that decides whether you truly learn how to get rid of belly fat long-term.

Nimesh:

“So we are two weeks at the same weight. My progress photos don’t feel like they're changing much either. I don’t think anything has changed with my diet, so gotta figure this out.”

Why Layer 2 Stalls Happen

For starters, depending on how much fat you lost in layer 1, you’re going to now be carrying less weight than you did before. It’s like taking a 24/7 weighted backpack off your body, which now decreases your calorie burn.

Plus, your body has now sensed the fat loss and tries to counteract it by conserving your energy. It’s subtle at first, but you might sit down more and walk around less without you even noticing.

And when I was younger, I would try to counter this by ramping up cardio, adding 20 to 30 minutes of intense running or cycling after each workout. It worked, but eventually I’d stall again and just didn’t have the energy to add any more.

The Layer 2 Playbook: Steps, Strength, And Calorie Targets

Steps

Which is why, for Nimesh, we decided to simply move his steps from 8,000 a day up to 10,000 a day at this point in his how to get rid of belly fat journey.

This works as an insurance policy to help keep his daily calorie burn consistent, without spiking his hunger or burning him out.

How To Get Rid Of Belly Fat: The Importance Of Strength Training

The one exercise I asked Nimesh to increase was his strength training.

Most research suggests that just 2 to 3 full-body workouts a week — around 4-6 hard sets per muscle — is enough to prevent muscle loss while you’re in a deficit.

But I’m curious whether, by going above this minimum, Nimesh can actually build muscle even as his fat loss gets more intense. So we took his 3-day workout split per week and changed it to this 4-day split, focusing more volume on muscles Nimesh had been struggling to grow, like his shoulders and arms.

And we’ll do a final scan and measurements at the end of his journey to see if he was able to put on muscle.

But the extra steps and workout aren’t actually going to bump up his daily calorie burn all that much.

Calorie Intake

The more impactful side of the fat loss equation is his calorie intake. Up until this point, he hasn’t been tracking calories. In Layer 2, learning how to get rid of belly fat usually means you start tracking — at least for a while — so the deficit is actually real.

But to get rid of layer 2, it’s almost a non-negotiable to make sure he’s consistently in a deficit.

To find out how many calories he needs, I entered Nimesh’s current weight and activity into our BWS+ app. We landed at a daily calorie target between 2000 and 2200 calories.

If you’re not on our app, then take your bodyweight and multiply it by 10-11, it’s not perfect but for most people that’s around the calories you’ll want to aim for in this stage.

But with his favorite order at Chipotle already coming in at just over 900 calories, I needed to show Nimesh a better way to use his calories. Which meant setting him up with a 2100 calorie meal plan that includes Apple Cinnamon Overnight Oats, freezable chicken burritos, and for dinner:

Jeremy:

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I got you some buttered Chicken."

Nimesh:

“No offense taken.”

And this meal plan also comes with multiple low-calorie snacks Nimesh can enjoy in between meals while he's progressing on his how to get rid of belly fat journey.

And what I think is most important is making room in your diet for one treat at the end of the day to look forward to. For me, the go-to is always a Ninja Creami Ice Cream that I make with our Built With Science Protein.

For Nimesh, it was a combination of either sugar-free Jello, caffeine-free Coke Zero, and smart sweets.

I’ve made a full PDF for each recipe. Click the link below, and I’ll give you each of these meals a try yourself.

Click the button below to download the full recipe PDF:

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Spendthrift Vs Thrifty Metabolisms (Why Progress Rates Differ)

But what’s perhaps the trickiest thing about this phase is that not everyone’s metabolism will respond the same.

Researchers in 2019 discovered that most people’s metabolisms fall into one of two categories.

The first is what researchers called a spendthrift metabolism. In this group, when their calories were restricted, their metabolism stayed high, and they continued dropping weight.

That’s why each person's journey in navigating how to get rid of belly fat can look slightly different, even with the same plan.

However, the second group is what researchers labeled as a thrifty metabolism, and when this group was placed in the same deficit, their bodies adapted to reduce their calorie burn and slow their weight loss to a crawl.

Now, there may be an advantage to having a thrifty metabolism, as you typically have an easier time gaining muscle. But when it comes to fat loss, you may have to restrict their calories further or increase their daily activity in order to keep up with individuals in our spendthrift group.

The question we needed to figure out was which group Nimesh would fall into. If his metabolism is spendthrift, 2100 should be enough to keep seeing progress, but if he has a thrifty metabolism, our app will notice if he’s not progressing and likely recommend dropping his calories a little more.

Luckily, Nimesh’s body was clearly responding to his calorie intake as fat loss around his belly was really starting to pick up. With visible definition in his upper abs, his obliques finally come in.

How To Get Rid Of Belly Fat: How Long Will Layer 2 Take?

Now, for most guys, burning through all of layer two of your belly fat will usually take about 10-16 weeks, depending on how aggressive you are with your diet.

By this point, you should see a visible 4 or even 6 pack, depending on how your fat is distributed. Whereas for women, your stomach will look visibly tighter, and depending on the lighting, you might even see some definition in the upper abs and down the middle.

But even after burning through Layer 2, there’s usually still some softness left — especially in the lower belly and around the love handles.

For those areas, you’ll need to burn through the most stubborn, third layer of belly fat, where less than 1% of people ever succeed. This is the part most people are really asking about when they search how to get rid of belly fat.

Layer 3: The Stubborn Layer

And while this final layer is the hardest to lose, it’s actually when your belly visually progresses the fastest. If your goal is figuring out how to get rid of belly fat in the lower abs and love handles, this is the final boss.

Because there’s now much less fat covering your abs, even a small loss makes a noticeable difference.

So instead of waiting months or several weeks to see changes, now you might see sharper ab definition every few days.

But there's a catch: every pound of fat you lose now is going to feel like a battle. Part of the reason for this is that not all body fat is created equal.

Why Stubborn Fat Fights Back

Certain fat on your body is packed with beta receptors, which you can think of like a gas pedal, making it easy for your body to burn for energy.l.

Most of the fat you’ve burned off up to this point is from those areas. Whereas the “stubborn fat” left on your body is full of alpha-2 receptors, which instead work like a brake pedal, slowing down fat release so your body always has some fat reserves.

Your lower abs, love handles, and hips are typically the most stubborn areas to burn off, and this is why “shredded glutes” in professional bodybuilders is seen as the holy grail of elite conditioning.

The Layer 3 Playbook: 2 Strategies To Keep Moving

At this stage in your how to get rid of belly fat journey, your body ramps up hunger, lowers your energy, and does everything it can to prevent more fat loss. So I introduced Nimesh to 2 simple strategies.

The first was with his food selection.

Nimesh’s diet had a ton of wiggle room when he was on layer 1, and when we moved onto layer two things had to get a bit tighter. But for layer three, our margins are thin. We need every calorie he’s eating to go as far as possible to keep him full and energized.

That meant no more cream in his morning coffee and fewer nights out for drinks. We also strategically swapped the rice in his meal plan for yellow potatoes, which, in a well-known “satiety index” study, scored as the most filling food you can eat.

In fact, I’m currently working on another project where we tested a simple no-calorie-counting diet mainly around potatoes … and let’s just say the results were pretty mind-blowing, so make sure to stick around so you don’t miss it.

Why The Scale Can Lie At Layer 3

But no matter what you eat, your body’s resistance to fat loss will continue to get stronger the longer your diet lasts and the leaner you get. One side effect of this is that stress hormones like cortisol start to rise.

This is where many people get blindsided during their how to get rid of belly fat journey.

Higher cortisol levels make your body hold onto more water. So at this stage, you can wake up and feel like your belly looks worse than it did the day before, softer and more bloated. And when you’re this lean, even a small amount of water around your midsection becomes very noticeable.

Now, when this used to happen to me, my first reaction was to assume my belly fat wasn’t coming off.

So I’d panic, adding more cardio to my workouts and dropping my calories even lower. But this only made things worse, putting more stress on my body and even causing me to lose muscle.

But once you understand what’s really happening, rather than trying to fight harder to lose fat, your best move might be to stop fighting at all. Ironically, this is often the smartest move for how to get rid of belly fat when you’re already lean.

Which brings me to our second strategy: diet breaks.

They’re one of the most underrated tools for how to get rid of belly fat without burning out.

As soon as I could tell Nimesh’s body was starting to hold onto more water and wasn’t responding to his plan, instead of lowering his food, we increased it. Roughly 500 calories higher than he was dieting at, and mainly by adding more carbs to his day. Rice, bread, and some of his favorite snacks. Usually, you’ll want to do this for anywhere between 5 and 14 days.

That’s often enough time for cortisol to come down, sleep to improve, and those relentless hunger signals to finally ease off.

For Nimesh, five days was all it took.

Even though he was eating more, his abs came back looking sharper, his energy improved, and he felt ready to push forward again.

Is Layer 3 Worth It For You?

The only question I needed him to answer now was how far he wanted to go in his how to get rid of belly fat journey.

Based on where he was currently at, if we wanted to push all the way to 10% body fat, which is when the vast majority of your stubborn fat is actually gone, it would probably take another 8 weeks.

But for many people, chasing that level of leanness isn’t always the smartest move.

Take my brother-in-law Dayton.

He dropped from 33% body fat down to about 18% in just five months — the leanest he’d ever been in his life. And by that point, his body was definitely starting to resist. If I had tried to push him to get even leaner in one go, it would’ve almost guaranteed a crash and uncontrollable weight regain afterwards.

Instead, we hit pause on fat loss and shifted to maintaining his new weight, followed by a lean bulk to gain some more muscle. And now that his body has actually settled into his lower level of body fat, he’d be ready to tackle another diet if he wanted to get leaner.

But the second reason Layer 3 isn’t for everyone in their how to get rid of belly fat journey is that most guys overestimate how much muscle they have and underestimate just how much fat they have to lose. In fact, every person I’ve dieted this lean has been surprised by just how low the scale has to go to get there.

So if you don’t have much muscle to begin with, you may end up feeling and looking much skinnier than you’d hoped after your how to get rid of belly fat journey.

Nimesh’s Final Results (And The Realistic Timeline)

Fortunately, it seems like Nimesh has been able to build some muscle as he’s lost fat, but today is actually the day he is getting his final DEXA scan, which will tell us how much fat he lost and how deep he made it to losing his third layer of belly fat.

But first, I should also mention that from the start of his how to get rid of belly fat journey until now it’s taken Nimesh 275 days.

Most people expect those results in half that time.

But for context, Nimesh also took a 5-week trip in the middle of his plan, where his goal was just to maintain his weight while keeping up with his training. And he also just personally found the slow and steady approach worked best for him.

So while taking almost a full year may SOUND like a long time, think about how many years it took for you to gain your belly in the first place. And think about what you were doing this same time last year. That time is going to pass regardless, so Nimesh just focused on making small improvements week after week, until he was here ...

Nimesh’s total body fat dropped from 29.5% on Day 1 all the way down to just 16.7%. But when we zoomed in on his belly fat, the change was even more dramatic.

From 34.4% down to just 13%. That’s a drop of 20 percentage points.

And the best part is, he gained almost 7 lbs of lean mass throughout the entire process — with a good chunk of that being actual muscle.

TL;DR — How To Get Rid Of Belly Fat (3 Layers, 3 Strategies)

• Layer 1 (outer layer): Belly usually lags while arms/chest/face lean out first. Win this layer with 3 strength workouts/week, protein-first meals, ~8k steps/day, and ~1 lb/week loss.
• Layer 2 (plateau layer): When weight/waist stalls for ~2 weeks, your burn has dropped. Fix it by pushing steps to ~10k/day, increasing lifting volume, and tracking calories to keep the deficit real.
• Layer 3 (stubborn layer): The “last bit” changes fastest visually but fights hardest (hunger + water retention). Make calories count (high-satiety swaps) and use diet breaks (5–14 days) when your body stops responding.
• Bottom line: How to get rid of belly fat isn’t one trick — it’s using the right tool for the layer you’re in.

How To Get Rid Of Belly Fat: Final Takeaway

Now the crazy part is, I only saw Nimesh in person a handful of times throughout this entire journey.

My goal has always been to build a system that can help people transform, no matter where they are in the world.

That’s exactly why we built the BWS+ app. A personal trainer in your pocket that uses proven science and smart technology to create a personalized plan for you and guide you every single week.

It’s what allowed Nimesh to stay consistent and make the right changes at every stage of his journey. So whether your goal is fat loss, muscle gain, or simply building healthier habits, you can try BWS+ free for 2 weeks by clicking the button below.

Click the button below to try the BWS+ app for 2 weeks, for free, no strings attached:

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And if you want to learn how to specifically target the deep, dangerous belly fat around your organs, check out this article next, where I break down the science behind visceral fat and how to reduce it safely.

Thanks for sticking to the end, and I’ll see ya next time. If you want a step-by-step system for how to get rid of belly fat, this is the exact framework we used.