If you cut out 500 calories a day and exercise regularly, you will lose about a pound every week.  This will also help you reduce your back fat.  Use a food diary or online food tracker to help you cut out 500 calories daily. These food trackers in addition to online calculators can give you an estimated total daily caloric intake to help you lose weight.  Everyone's needs will be different, so using a calculator can help give you a more specific calorie range. Do not cut out too many calories.  This can slow weight loss, lead to nutrient deficiencies or make you feel tired and fatigued.  In general, health professionals recommend to eat a minimum of 1,200 calories daily.  Cutting calories will help you lose weight, but without the cardio and back strengthening exercises, your back muscles will not get toned.  It’s important to include both diet and exercise to get your desired result. Even if you’re cutting calories to help reduce back fat, it’s still important to eat a balanced diet.  Including a variety of foods from each food group will help you consume an adequate amount of nutrients each day.  When you have a poor quality, unbalanced diet, this may work against your weight loss goals. Include protein at each meal.  Protein is an essential nutrient in your diet.  Foods like poultry, eggs, dairy, legumes, seafood or tofu provide adequate protein to your diet.  Aim for a 3-4 oz (21-28g) portion at all meals. Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables each day.  These foods are low calorie and nutrient dense making them great foods for a low-calorie diet.  Try making ½ your plate a fruit or vegetable to help support your weight loss. Lastly, it’s important to include healthy sources of grains like bread, rice or pasta.  Grains provide fiber and a variety of B vitamins important to your health.  If you can, choose 100% whole grains for more nutrients. When you're trying to lose weight and cut calories, managing hunger can be an issue.  It's hard to stick to a diet plan, if you're feeling hungry often.  Combining certain types of foods and including the right types of foods at each meal and snack can help you stay satisfied longer after meals and decrease your overall hunger level. Healthy fats are a great addition to a weight loss diet.  Fat takes longer to digest compared to foods rich in carbohydrates and helps keep you satisfied longer.  Include one to two servings of heart healthy fats every day.  Try:  olive oil, avocado, nuts or nut butters, flax seeds, olives, salmon, tuna, sardines or mackerel. In addition to healthy fats, the combination of protein and complex carbohydrates helps you stay satisfied longer as well.  Choose lean proteins or proteins with healthy fats like:  seafood, poultry, beef, pork, low-fat dairy, legumes or tofu.  Pair these with fiber-rich complex carbs like:  starchy vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts and whole grains. So often we forget about the liquid calories we consume.  Replace the sodas and juices with water and hydrating, no-calorie beverages.  Drink adequate amounts of fluids like water, decaf coffee, decaf tea or flavored water to stay hydrated.  Everyone requires different amounts of fluids, but aiming for 1.5-3 liters each day is a good place to start. Studies show that drinking high calorie beverages can promote weight gain.  Liquids do not necessarily make you feel full and most people will not count their liquid calories into their total daily intake. Although switching from regular soda to diet soda may save you calories in the short term, it's not yet clear if it's effective for preventing obesity and related health problems. Part of healthy eating is including the occasional treat or special indulgence.  But when you're trying to lose weight, you'll need to limit and monitor how often you eat a few extra calories.  When you indulge too often, you may consume too many calories.  This may slow or even stop your weight loss. If you really want a treat, try to compensate throughout the day or week to make up for it.  You might want to work out a little longer or skip your afternoon snack.
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One-sentence summary -- Cut your daily calorie intake. Eat a balanced diet. Fill up on satisfying foods to cut down on hunger levels. Eliminate high-calorie drinks. Limit treats and indulgences.


Cardiovascular exercise, or "cardio," is any exercise that raises you heart-rate for an extended period of time. It can be running, swimming, biking, dancing, or playing pick-up soccer with some friends. Aim for 3-4 hours of cardio a week, at minimum, to start seeing your stomach flatten. Interval training is a workout that requires short bursts of vigorous activity followed by longer periods of low activity, like jogging around a track and sprinting every 4th lap. Researchers believe that interval training helps burn fat four times faster than exercising at the same intensity for longer times. Water is essential to build muscle, aid digestion, and fuel workouts. You should be drinking between 24 and 36 ounces of water every day. It may also have the benefit of helping lose weight by limiting over-eating. Fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and a little protein are all that a good diet requires. Try to eat smaller meals, eating more frequently if you need, as this keeps you from eating too many calories at once and feeling bloated.  Substitute baked potatoes for a side salad. Eat yogurt and granola in the morning instead of eggs and cheese. Cut back on red meat and eat chicken or turkey instead. Plan small snacks like fruit and vegetables to keep from hungrily over-eating during a meal. Eat slowly -- it takes 20 minutes for you to feel "full," but if you eat quickly you'll continue eating food until this point. While they may taste good, donuts, cake, and soda will eliminate any gains you've made by working out and prolong your goal of great abs. Some foods to avoid include:   Refined carbohydrates, such as white bread, pasta, and rice.  Processed Sugars, found in sweetened juices, soda, and candy, are absorbed quickly into the bloodstream but brings your metabolism to a crawl.  Saturated Fats, found in fried food, fatty red meat, and most fast-food. The formula for losing weight is easy-- you need to burn more calories than you eat. This is why exercise and limiting fatty foods is so important. Running two miles can eliminate 250 calories, but eating one slice of cake might add 350 more. There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat, so you can use this number to plan your diet: eliminate 500 extra calories a day and you can lose a pound of fat a week.  If you maintain similar diet each day, simply adding 30 minutes of daily exercise will burn away calories and flatten your stomach over time. Similarly, switching from a high-calorie breakfast like bacon and eggs to sometime like yogurt and granola will decrease you "net calorie" use significantly. Use a fitness tracker, like Nike Fit, Fitbit, or MapMyRun to monitor how many calories you burn when you exercise.
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One-sentence summary --
Do a cardiovascular workout 4-5 times a week. Drink plenty of water. Eat small, healthy meals. Avoid high-calorie, low nutrition foods like sweets and fats. Balance your exercise and diet to lose more calories than you eat.