How to Get Rid of Back Fat for Good

There is nothing worse than trying on a new outfit and feeling totally great—you love the neckline, the color is perfect, you look sleek and sexy—until you turn around.

Despite your best efforts, you still have back fat squishing out around your bra, clumping up around your middle, and spilling out over the top of your pants!

I know just how frustrating it can be to feel like your “back boobs” look almost as big as your actual ones, even though you’ve tried everything you can think of to get rid of them.

And regardless of whether you’re wearing a size four or a size fourteen, back fat can be a real challenge to shed!

You would think that your usual weight loss tools—eating right and exercising—would get rid of the extra padding on your back as well, but that’s not always the case.

Similar to belly fat, stubborn back fat is linked to other health problems that require a special approach to eliminate.

Luckily, we know a few tips and tricks to help you shed that stubborn back fat for good!

So let’s cut to the chase, so you can finally slim down your backside and get the smooth, sleek physique you’ve been working so hard for!

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Our Top Tips to Slim Your Back

While slimming down, in general, can be accomplished with a healthy diet and moderate exercise, hormone imbalance can lead to fat deposits in certain areas that are very hard to get rid of.

Some people find this in their belly, while you might notice it in your back (or if you’re really lucky, both places).

Adding insult to injury, a sedentary lifestyle or desk job can lead to poor muscle tone and bad posture—both of which contribute to a flabby, hunched and simply unattractive back.

So if you’re still struggling to get rid of your bra bulge and love handles, it’s time to change things up!

Balance Your Hormones

Hormones play a major role in weight loss and may be the biggest reason you can’t get rid of stubborn back fat even when you lose weight everywhere else.

Here are the most common ones that cause excess back fat, and how to fix them:

1. Cortisol

Commonly known as the “stress hormone”, cortisol will trigger your body’s survival system to hold on to fat for dear life—literally.

Your caveman ancestors may have needed to save that extra body fat to survive after being chased by a lion; but your body can’t tell the difference between stress caused by trying not to die, and the stress of driving through five o’clock traffic. (1)

The solution here is simple—chill out!

I know, I know—easier said than done, right?

Start out by making small, simple changes, like getting more rest, meditating, and practicing mindfulness.

You might be surprised how much those small changes can impact your mood, and your weight!

2. Leptin

If you don’t get enough sleep, you could find yourself munching all day—and sabotaging your weight loss goals!

That’s because lack of sleep can decrease your levels of leptin, the hormone that tells your brain that you’re full.

Plus, lack of sleep can also raise cortisol levels—so extra shut-eye will help you on multiple fronts!

Aim for at least eight hours of sleep every night.

3. Insulin

If your problem area is your love handles, chances are insulin is to blame.

Fortunately, you can rebalance this hormone by reducing or eliminating carbs and sugars from your diet.

For additional reading on how to do this and why it’s SO important, make sure to check out our article on insulin resistance and weight loss.

Bonus: you’ll definitely lose weight in other areas as well when you cut out carbs and sugars!

4. Thyroxine

Bra fat, back boobs, and neck bulge making you crazy?

Upper back fat can be linked to a hormone called thyroxine, which is the main hormone that your thyroid gland produces.

To balance this hormone, start eating more cruciferous veggies (i.e., kale, broccoli, brussels sprouts, etc.), and avoid eating gluten and soy.

If this still doesn’t work, you may have an underactive thyroid gland—so definitely check in with your doctor to make sure you don’t have a more serious medical condition like hypothyroidism going on!

Work It Out

Spot reducing isn’t a real thing, but that doesn’t mean that working out your problem areas (i.e., spot toning) doesn’t help!

In fact, having low muscle tone in your back may be the reason you still have extra padding back there.

While working your back out won’t make you lose weight just from your back, it will help tighten and tone that area, which will reduce the appearance of fat.

Click here for the 10 Best Exercises for Back Fat!

You’ll also be building more muscle mass, which will help you lose more weight overall since muscle burns more calories than fat.

Here is a great back toning workout routine you can do anywhere:

Straighten Up

While straightening your back won’t necessarily help you eliminate back fat, it will make you look slimmer overall!

This is especially true if you have extra fat all over your back, or a bunch at the base of your neck and/or around your bra area.

Correcting your posture naturally is best for posture improvement, since you need to build up your muscle strength. (And trust me, re-training your body to stand up straight is a workout in itself!)

You can correct your posture by tightening your abs, pulling your shoulder blades together, lifting your chest up slightly, and sliding your neck back so that your head is directly over your shoulders.

Pro tip: Set a few alarms on your phone to remind yourself to check your posture regularly!

OR — If you’re still struggling to keep your back straight, a posture corrector can help keep you in line.

You won’t get quite as much muscle engagement this way, but it can help you get used to having a straight back, as well as open up your diaphragm and stretch out tight chest muscles.

Click here to check out our favorite posture correctors on Amazon.

Pass (on) the Salt, Please

While reducing your calorie intake might help reduce fat, your diet could still be sabotaging your silhouette.

Water retention and bloating could be contributing to your puffy backside—both of which can be fixed by making simple dietary tweaks.

Most Americans eat more than 1,000 mg more salt per day than is recommended, which can absolutely lead to water retention and an overall puffy appearance. (2)

Even if you think you’re not eating much sodium because you don’t add a lot of salt to your food, you might be surprised to find how much salt your “healthy” food contains.

Some of the common places salt can hide are in salad dressings, diet sodas, soups, seasonings, diet shakes or bars, and most processed foods.

Make sure you’re reading the ingredients carefully, and don’t consume more than 2,300 mg of sodium per day.

A Plan for Success

You know that you need to make some changes to your diet and lifestyle if you really want to shed fat from your back, or from anywhere else.

Trying to figure out what changes to make when, what you should and shouldn’t eat, and how to pick the best option from the ocean of diet and weight loss choices can feel pretty overwhelming, though.

So we created our 21-Day Fat Loss Challenge for people just like you—people who have tried just about everything under the sun to try to lose weight and keep it off, but just can’t shed those stubborn pounds.

Our challenge provides a step-by-step plan to help you lose up to 21 lbs in just 21 days, with far less effort than you may think!

If you have more weight to lose, you can repeat the challenge as many times as you want to reach your goal weight—and it even works for people with insulin resistance!

The best part? Besides just losing weight, the 21 Day Fat Loss Challenge was designed to heal your gut, rebalance your hormones, and retrain your tastebuds—so you’ll actually be able to keep the weight off.

Plus, the hormone balance also means you’ll finally lose fat from those stubborn problem areas like your back and belly!

If you’re ready to make some changes in your life, this is the ONLY place you should start.  We’ll teach you exactly how to make the necessary changes in your diet and lifestyle, and how to keep them “beyond the diet.”

Click HERE to start YOUR 21 Day Fat Loss Challenge today!

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