Need to know how to lose face fat fast?
Getting rid of chubby cheeks and double chins can do a lot for your self-image. Yet, it might seem like it’s impossible to lose the fat in your face.
I’ve had people come up to me asking how they can get rid of their big puffy cheeks. They even went so far as to tell me they feel self-conscious smiling in photos because of them.
If you have trouble losing your facial fat then there’s a good chance that’s where it feels like you gain weight first. But unlike gaining weight on other parts of your body you can’t hide your face.
Even if you lose weight, you might notice that the facial fat will last. But don’t let this scare you off or lose hope.
I’m sure you know what it’s like to not want to smile in photos and to feel self-conscious for having cheek fat. But have no fear I’m going to show you how to slim down your face so you can finally drop your facial fat fast.
Can You Lose Weight in Your Face?
Having big cheeks is most likely because of genetics. If you have facial fat then your body is most likely wired to distribute fat to your cheeks.
Just like how some people have an apple or pear-shaped body but you tend to store more fat in your cheeks. You can thank Mom and Dad for this one.
But just because your genetics are giving you excess fat on your face it doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with the cards you were dealt. At the very least you’ll be able to slim down your face much better than it is right now.
Many people who suffer from excess face fat simply have too much fat on their bodies. Their inflammation levels are probably high as well as their insulin and blood sugar levels. You can improve all of these to slim down the facial fat quickly.
Your age can also have a big impact on gaining facial fat in the first place. As you age your body tends to store more fat in the lower part of your face. This is why you see older people with higher amounts of fat in the chin and jowls.
There are a few causes of facial fat that we’re going to have to get rid of if you want to lose it…
- overweight
- body fat is too high
- inflammation
- fluid retention
- too much salt, sugar, processed foods, refined carbs
- high stress
- not enough sleep
So the good news here is all of the above causes of excess facial fat can be eliminated through lifestyle changes. We’ll get more into this next…
Reduce Body Fat to Lose Facial Fat
The problem with only losing weight is that it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re lowering your body fat as well. Fat loss is just as if not more important as weight loss when it comes to getting rid of stubborn fat.
Weight gain is clearly going to make your facial fat increase but simple weight loss isn’t always the first answer. Yes, you’ll want weight loss but not at the expense of losing your muscle tone. The trick isn’t just weight loss but fat loss too.
The problem with having too much body fat on your body is you’re much likelier to have chubby cheeks. Most people who end up losing weight lose a lot of muscle too. So it makes sense you will not have weight loss in stubborn places like the face, neck, and cheeks.
It goes without saying that along with losing some weight you’re also going to have to lower your body fat. Fat loss is key to getting results.
The recommended body fat percentage for average men is less than 20% and for women, it’s less than 32%.
But if you want to reduce facial fat then I would aim for a fat percentage of less than 15% for men and less than 25% for women.
There are no two ways about it you’re going to have to work out with some strength training to preserve or even gain some lean toned muscle on your body. Facial exercises can help to build your cheek muscles but you’ll get better results with overall fat loss.
We’ll get more into the most effective workout plans to burn fat and keep your lean muscle later.
Exercises to Lose Face Fat… Do They Work?
It might seem a little silly but doing facial exercises can work to lose your face fat. You may have heard spot reduction doesn’t work but that’s not the final word.
Now you won’t burn much fat off your face doing these facial exercises but they’ll at the very least help to tone it. Spot reduction can only work if you lose fat throughout your entire body too. Then you can add facial exercises to build muscle which will help to tone and shape the specific area.
Then once you lose the excess facial fat your cheeks will appear smaller than before. You should get a better face shape and jawline from doing them when combined with the methods below. This is how spot reduction is possible.
A study found middle-aged women doing facial exercises for 30-minutes daily were able to improve their facial appearance. The women in this study ended up having a younger appearing face that was firmer, more toned, and better shaped.
Another study by the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research found face exercises could be useful for strengthening the muscles on the face. Once again, none of these studies say facial exercises help reduce facial fat directly but will help to better shape and tone it instead.
Chewing gum can be considered one of the facial exercises too. This study found chewing gum was effective for strengthening the masseter. These are the muscles used for chewing gum that are right behind your cheekbones.
Just don’t go overboard chewing gum. Chewing it for an hour a day or so will probably be enough to give you some good results.
Best Exercises to Lose Face Fat
Most people recommend you do more cardio exercises like jogging and cycling to help reduce facial fat. But this isn’t going to be the best and fastest way to get there.
Instead, you should be doing HIIT workouts. These have been backed by science to burn much more fat in a shorter amount of time.
With HIIT workouts, you’ll keep your metabolism elevated for many hours after you finish your workout. This is opposed to cardio workouts where your metabolism shuts off pretty quickly after you finish.
I’d also recommend combining HIIT workouts with metabolic resistance training. Metabolic resistance training workouts combine the best science-backed principles to burn the most amount of fat possible while also gaining lean-to muscle at the same time.
When you combine both of these you’ll get Afterburn workouts that will help to lose fat throughout your entire body. Plus you’ll be preserving and even gaining some lean muscle to shape your face and your body.
If you do cardio exercise make sure you do it after the strength training part of your workout. Doing your cardio exercise post strength training will help to better burn fat stores for energy since you’ve used up more glycogen (stored carbs) first. Strength training should improve your muscle mass and muscle tone helping to lower your body fat.
You can get a complete hit plus the rock resistance training workout plan in my Flat Belly Formula system.
Reduce the Inflammation
Having too much inflammation in your body is going to cause you to get a bloated and puffed-out look. And this is a perfect recipe for having the appearance of puffed-out big cheeks on your face.
The best thing you can do is to cut out the foods that are causing higher amounts of inflammation in your body.
Some of the foods that you’re going to want to get rid of that are causing inflammation in your body include…
- sugar
- refined carbs
- processed foods
- sugar
- artificial sweeteners
- high alcohol consumption
- vegetable oils
- alcohol
Just cutting these bad foods out alone will do wonders for lowering the inflammation in your body. High alcohol consumption can increase inflammation in the body. While some studies have found low to moderate alcohol consumption can lower inflammation it’s really easy to go overboard.
If you aren’t willing to completely give up your alcohol consumption then there are some approved alcohol drinks for weight loss you can take and still get results.
If you’re looking to quickly reduce your inflammation then I recommend taking an omega-3 fatty acid like krill oil. Taking turmeric curcumin extract has also been found to be a powerful anti-inflammatory.
Nature's 4 Other Ingredients to Support Young-Looking Skin, Youthful Energy, a Youthful Body and Brain Health
- 4500% Better Absorbed Than Typical Tumeric
- Boosts antioxidant capacity of the body & promotes healthy inflammation levels
- Younger looking skin, peak energy, healthy joints, clear focused brain, less stress & good mood
Drop the Water Weight
Now another big cause of having excess fat on the face is water retention. The more water you’re holding in your body the more bloated and puffy you’re going to look in the face.
But this doesn’t mean you should stop drinking water. When you stop drinking water your body can become dehydrated causing it to hold onto your water stores for survival. So ironically drinking more water can help to reduce bloating.
As said earlier cutting out your carbohydrate intake is key to lowering water weight in the face. Weight loss will be near impossible if you’re eating too many carbs. Carbs cause you to hold water when these excess carbs are stored as glycogen.
Reducing your salt intake will also be beneficial to reducing your water weight. Excessive salt intake from processed foods causes your body to store more water in your body weight. Not only look to reduce your calorie intake but also the salt content in the foods you eat.
Cut the Carbs Out
Reducing your carbohydrate intake (especially from refined foods) will help to slim down your face faster.
The problem with eating too many carbohydrates is your body ends up storing them as glycogen in your body for future energy use.
The glycogen to water ratio is around 1:3. This means for every gram of glycogen you have you’ll have around 3 grams of water. So you will be carrying more water weight in your body.
And the more fluid retention you have in your body the more likely your cheeks are going to look like they are puffed-out and bloated.
But as you begin to reduce your carbohydrate intake your body will soon burn through these glycogen stores. Then you’ll lose water weight quickly.
When your body has burned through its glycogen stores it’ll then turn to fat stores to burn off instead. This will also help to lower your body fat as well.
Those with excess fat on their body will also end up having excess fat on their face and neck. This is fat overflowing to the rest of the parts of your body causing your face to become fatter as well as gaining neck fat too.
As you lower your carbohydrate intake you’ll be stabilizing and reducing your insulin levels. The better control and more stable your insulin levels are the more likely you are to lose stubborn weight in places like your face.
Fruit is also loaded with sugar that can raise insulin levels and lead to increased fluid retention. Even though fruit contains so-called “natural sugars” they can still cause you to pack on water weight. It’s a much better idea to eat more green and cruciferous veggies than fruits.
Lastly, try skipping breakfast and use intermittent fasting to slim down your cheeks. The less frequent you eat between meals the lower your insulin levels will be throughout the day. This will keep your insulin spikes down and thus slimming your face.
One trick to upgrade your intermittent fasting results is to take C8-MCTs like the ones found in Keto Elevate. They will signal for your body to start burning stubborn fat for fuel just like if you were on the keto diet.
Support Many of the Keto Benefits Associated With Increased Ketones, & Support Them FAST, but Without the Difficulty of Doing Keto...
Increase Ketone Levels Inside Your Body to Boost Metabolism, Elevate Energy & Enhance Mental Focus
- 3X Better Than Coconut Oil, Butter or MCTs
- Heightened energy levels
- Reduced cravings & appetite
- Graceful aging
- Healthy metabolism
- Increased mental clarity & focus
- Heightened physical performance and recovery
Stress Less and Sleep More
Most of us today are sleep-deprived and have way too much stress.
One of these alone is enough to cause you to gain fat on your face but when you have both then it’s going to double the impact.
Now it might seem like your high-stress levels and lack of sleep aren’t going to cause your facial fat. But I can promise you that it does play a vital role.
The more stress you have pumping through your body the more your body is going to release the fat-storing stress hormone cortisol. High cortisol levels are linked to increases in fat in stubborn places like the belly. It also causes your body to retain water which will contribute to having puffed-out cheeks.
It’s also going to make it more difficult to lower your stress levels when you aren’t getting enough sleep. Sleep deprivation can cause an increase in the hormone ghrelin which plays a vital role in controlling your appetite.
Most people generally need 7-8 hours of solid sleep to feel more rested the next day. This is the time your body needs to properly recover and rejuvenate so it’s of the utmost importance that you give your body the time it needs.
Sleep deprivation can increase your cortisol levels so it’s an important part of your weight loss strategy. If you’re having trouble lowering your stress levels and improving your sleep quality then I’d recommend taking a greens supplement.
What causes face fat?
Excess facial fat is caused mostly by genetics but there are also a lot of lifestyle factors that play a role.
Just losing weight on your body may not be enough to lose the fat on your face. You’re also going to have to lower your body fat as well as get rid of all the bad foods and lifestyle factors that are causing it in the first place.
The Last Word
The problem with finding the one answer on how to lose face fat fast is it can be different for everybody.
It can be more difficult for some than others to lose their facial fat depending on their genetics, lifestyle choices, gender, and age.
But this doesn’t mean you are out of luck because you can improve the appearance and size of your facial fat by following the strategies and principles laid out for you here.
I know it can feel frustrating even if you lose some weight to still have facial fat. But this doesn’t mean you’re stuck with big cheeks forever.
Find and stick to a routine using the strategies above and you will quickly notice just how fast you lose your face fat.
Josh holds a Bachelor’s degree in Exercise Physiology and Nutrition Science. He’s a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) by the National Strength and Conditioning Association and he’s a Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) by American Council on Exercise. He’s worked as a Strength and Conditioning Coach at the high school and college levels. He has over 15 years of experience as a personal trainer and nutrition coach. He strives to bring inspiration and results for people to live healthier lives through smart diet and exercise.