If you're at your wits end when it comes to how to lose belly fat, if every diet under the sun has come and gone and nothing's working, then it's time to dump the miracle diets, dump the fitness fads, and start getting real about losing weight. The truth about burning fat isn't an easy one to swallow, but the fact is that proper nutrition and exercise, as well as drinking plenty of water, is the only fat loss diet that works. Follow these steps and the rest will be easy.

More Water

You need to drink more water, simple as that. Cut back on sugary drinks, energy drinks, even coffee and tea if you put spoonful after spoonful of sugar in it. If you're reading a diet book that does not advise you to drink more water, then throw that book directly into the trash. You don't want to sell it to a used bookstore and risk someone else reading it. If you want more energy, if you want to improve your stamina, improve the quality of your hair, your skin, your teeth, if you want to gain muscle, lose weight, or just improve your digestion, water, water, water is the key to each and every form of fitness and health. Most people mistake feelings of thirst for hunger, so at the very least, you'll be less hungry.

Eat Well Rounded Meals

Any diet plan that tells you that you can just overdose on this or that nutrient, be it protein, fiber or anything else, forget it. You need to eat well rounded meals or you may as well just go on a starvation diet. The fact is that the human body was not meant to live on just meat or just vegetables or just ANYTHING. Follow the food pyramid and organize your meal plan so that you're getting all of your food groups. If you are losing weight after a one-thing diet, you're not losing fat. You're losing bone density, muscle mass, organ tissue and all sorts of other tissues that you need, but not fat.

Exercise

If you're not getting your exercise, then you're not going to experience fat burning. That's simple fact. Fat is energy, that's all it is. It's how your body stores energy. So if you want to get rid of that fat, then start expending that energy. Again, if you're losing weight without exercise, it means that you're losing bone, muscle and organ weight, but most certainly NOT fat. Remember that fat weighs less than anything else in your body. The only way to burn fat is to actually BURN fat, not to starve it off, not to overdose on protein, but to walk more, do sit ups and aerobics and actually put the work in to get rid of it.