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I spent over a year researching this because I had the problem myself and most of the answers I found on the web didn’t tell the whole story.
The techniques I describe below work for stubborn fat on women as well as for men. In my case, when I applied these methods, I went from looking “pregnant” to ripped in a little over 45 days.How are those pictures possible? Is it faked. Nope. A huge part of my problem was bloating, not visceral fat. Bloating can be resolved in weeks. If your belly measurements vary a lot from morning to evening or day to day, you may have a bloating problem too. The other way to find out definitively is to do a CAT scan (most accurate, but expensive) or a DXA scan (pretty good and $50 or so). Or you can abstain from FODMAPs and foods with lactose for 2 weeks.
If you do a DXA scan, you can get an idea of whether you have a bloating problem or visceral fat problem or both.
If you have a visceral fat problem, read on…
The most important thing to know is that “stubborn fat” in both men and women is stubborn for a reason: it is structurally different than regular fat because it has more alpha-2 receptors (which inhibit fat loss) than beta-2 receptors (which enable fat loss). This is why when you lose fat, you lose it everywhere except where you really want to lose it!
Presumably, the biological rationale for this difference is that your body is creating an “emergency store” of fat that is only available for use during emergency situations (like when you are starving). So to tap into those fat stores, you have to set up your hormones to mimic starvation as I describe below.
How did this happen to you and why is it happening now? Combination of age, genetics, your food choices, food availability, added sugar in the food supply, popularity of packaged/processed foods, and bad advice (like eat all the time instead of having periods of fasting).
The solution involves three steps.
Step 1: Set yourself up so you are losing fat, not muscle
Diet is #1. You must fix your diet or you’ll never lose your belly fat. Eat at no more than a 25% deficit to your TDEE. If you are lean, use a 20% deficit; if you are overweight, you can use a higher deficit. I use the Fat Secret app to track my macros. I can eat anything I want if I log it and it fits my caloric goal; this approach to flexible dieting is known as the IIFYM diet. I used to use My Fitness Pal but it was so annoying since it “updates” every time you bring up the app so I ditched it for Fat Secret which I’m very happy with. I also weigh all my food on a food scale. If you are serious about losing weight, you have only two choices: 1) stick to pre-calculated meals or 2) log your calories. If you go too high or too low, you will add fat. So there is a very narrow range for losing fat. That’s why you need to track. My TDEE is 2500 calories so I shoot for 2000 calories/day for no longer than 2 weeks. Then I’m back at 2500 for the next 2 weeks.
Eat at least 1 lb of protein per gm of body weight. The carb/fat ratio doesn’t matter much; body builders generally go for 1 gm of carbs per lb of body weight; the rest in fat. The higher protein intake minimizes lean mass loss during a caloric deficit.
Do heavy compound weightlifting. 40 minute sessions done 3 times/week is sufficient. So a total of 2 hrs/week. This helps you preserve/build muscle mass during your cut.