16 Ways to Hide Belly Fat (And still feel comfortable)

While belly fat is nothing to be ashamed of, it is not a sight for sore eyes by a long shot. And not everybody is comfortable showing off their extra weight.

So to spare you the possible embarrassment, I’ve put together a guide to help you hide your Christmas weight and still look great.

The best part about fashion is that you can mix and match items to create a statement, even if your primary purpose is simply to hide belly fat.

As long as you don’t make the belly fat hiding obvious, you can practically get away with just about any getup you thoughtfully put together.

The 10 Rules of Hiding Belly Fat

Although fashion and trends are like the sea, ever-changing and never still, there are some rules of fashion that can help you hide belly fat.

Even when adhering to these rules, you can still come up with a wide variety of styles and outfits to suit every occasion and season.

Here are these ten rules.

• Layering: The idea behind layering is simple. After you’re down with your outfit, you throw something on top to add an extra layer to hide belly fat. A jacket or a shawl would do nicely.
  
• Loose Top: Since you’re trying to hide belly fat, you should choose loose tops. Tight tops accentuate belly fat and make it obvious.
  
• Draping: Any long and loose top can be used to drape the upper part of your body and keep belly fat out of sight. You can even use frills to get the same satisfying result.
  
• Flashy Accessories: The idea behind wearing flashy accessories such as a gold necklace or a bracelet is to draw attention away from the fat belly.
  
• Long Dress: A long dress will do a good job not just in hiding belly fat but also in enveloping your body and highlighting your figure.
  
• Dark Colors: Dark colors have the advantage of hiding the angles of the body that you wouldn’t want to reveal. Black, maroon, brown, and navy blue are some of the dark colors that serve the purpose here.
  
• Firm Fabrics: Always choose thick and firm fabrics and avoid flimsy or clingy fabrics. Thick fabrics will keep the belly fat contained and out of sight, unlike clingy fabrics.
  
• Pants and Long Tops: If you’re too shy to wear pants since they push out belly fat, try long tops that drape over the pants and reach the middle thigh.
  
• Mid- to High-waist Jeans: Mid-rise jeans would sit on your belly and push it in. Don’t go for low-rise jeans that push up the belly.
  
• Shape-wear: Shape-wear tends to push your belly fat in and gives you a flat belly. You can wear just about anything on top of it. 

16 Ways to Hide Belly Fat

If the above rules seem a little too strict to you, that’s because they’re meant as guidelines.

Even if you stick to just pants and long tops as your outfit of choice, you can still create countless outfits that look nothing like each other.

Fabrics, colors, and patterns are the three pillars of a good fashion sense. When you mix those three fashion elements, you come up with an unlimited number of outfits. 

Here are some ways that build on the above rules but add a few twists and hacks to help you dress better while hiding belly fat.

1. Tight Top, Loose Bottom

No matter how much you dislike belly fat, there’s no denying the temptation to wear tight tops. It’s human nature to show off our best points.

Although that goes against the rules I mentioned above, you can still get away with it.

You’ll need to match the tight top with a loose skirt to avoid the silhouette con body. A tight top with a tight bottom will only make belly fat stick out and become more conspicuous. 

You can also match the tight top with loose-fit pants that make a bold statement while making your tummy less obvious. 

2. Avoid Skinny Belts

Belts can be pretty tricky. They’re supposed to highlight the dip in your waist and show your figure from the best angles.

If you have a small body, a skinny belt is undoubtedly part of your wardrobe. You probably have half a dozen of those skinny belts in different colors.

The problem is that those skinny belts tend to push up your belly and make it more prominent.

What’s worse, when you wear skinny belts of contrasting colors to the dress, you’re only directing attention to the belly. 

So whether you’re a tall or a short lady, skinny belts should be avoided when you’re trying to hide belly fat. 

I also wrote a guide on how to keep your belts from riding up that may interest you to read next.

3. Contrasting Color Layers

Designers often like to play with contrasting colors to create dramatic effects. Even if the design is not that great, the use of shades can transform the dress into a piece of art.

And that’s what you’ll be using to hide a fat tummy.

Start with a matching outfit of dark color. A black top with a black skirt or pair of pants will do. But you can also go for brown, gray, or navy blue. 

Then throw on top a light-colored jacket. The jacket should be open to reveal the layered colors under it. 

All three items of clothing work together to give you a stylish look while keeping your tummy well hidden.

4. Asymmetrical Hem

You might have noticed that we’re diving deep into fashion designing territory as we play with colors and fabrics. In a way, your own best fashion designer.

Nobody understands your figure and your best angles like you. 

Our next fashion hack to hide body fat is to use asymmetrical hems. These are hems that have one side longer than the other.

While the observing eyes take in your whole figure, they overlook the fat belly as they’re distracted by the asymmetrical hem.

5. Peplum Design

Do you know how the peplum dress or top tends to flare out at the hem? That’s the best camouflage for belly fat. The flare is a natural disguise for a big stomach.

You can pull this off without even looking like you were trying.

The ruffles not only distract but also hide. But they need to fall on the largest part of the belly to hide it. Otherwise, they’ll expose belly fat instead of hiding it.

Choose a peplum top where the flares start just above the belly fat and drape it completely. Short frills won’t serve the purpose so avoid them.

6. Ruched Design

The concept of a ruched design is similar to asymmetrical hems. It tends to distract from belly fat.

But while asymmetrical hems are nothing more than a distraction, a ruched design top or dress will actually hide belly fat while making you look chic.

The ruching is often around the waist. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re wearing a top or a dress. The waist looks rumbled, and the folds do a great job of hiding belly fat.

If your midsection bothers you, owning a few ruched items of clothing can help you prepare for any occasion, be it casual or formal.

7. High Waist Pants

Leggings and tights are not the only pieces that come with a high waist. Jeans also have mid- to high-waist.

And that’s your weapon against belly fat. 

Even slacks and regular pants can come with high waists as well. They help you tuck your midsection in and give you a flat belly without trying too hard. 

Skirts, too, didn’t want to be left out. Nowadays, you can find high waist skirts that cover the part of your tummy that usually sticks out.

The effect is almost immediate. Once you slip into a high waist bottom, you feel your tummy flattening out, and you don’t have to worry about it anymore.

High waists should feature prominently in your wardrobe. They are for all seasons.

I also wrote a guide on how to stop your pants from riding up, and two on how to avoid camel-toeing and prevent showing bulge that may interest you.

8. No Paper Bag Styles

Paper bag pants are all the rage these days. They have a ribbon and a knot around the waist to give the pants a stylish look. But they put too much focus on the waist.

Moreover, these pants do little in terms of hiding belly fat. If anything, they shift focus to the midsection area, which is the last part you want to draw attention to.

The other issue, of course, is the ribbons and knots. While they look stylish on a flat tummy, they tend to exaggerate a heavy midsection and even add to the bulk.

That’s the last thing you’d want when you’re trying to hide belly fat.

9. Shift Dress

A shift dress does away with the waist altogether and gives you straight lines up and down. That will come in handy when you’re feeling self-conscious about your midsection and don’t want it to stick out.

The straight lines of the shift dress balance the body curves and give you ample room to move around without the dress tightening around the tummy and revealing belly fat.

The best part about a shift dress is that it works for different occasions and events. You can wear it for a casual outing with friends or take it for a formal occasion.

10. No Oversized Clothes

A common mistake that people with belly fat go for is to wear oversized clothes. These styles only draw attention to that which you’re trying to hide.

Instead of hiding a muffin top, they exaggerate your figure and make you look larger than you really are.

So try not to go overboard with the size of your tops. A top that is one size too large is perfectly good for hiding a large midsection. But a top that is way too large gives the person a frumpy look. 

When you move in an oversized dress, you look like you’re swimming inside the dress. So avoid oversized clothes of any type. 

11. No Tight Clothes

Just as oversized clothes exaggerate your body size, tight clothes reveal more than you’re comfortable revealing. When it comes to belly fat, it tends to stick out in tight clothes.

If your idea of a tight dress or a tight top is that it’s the kind of outfit that will flatten your tummy or smoothen a bulging midsection, you need to think again. 

Tight clothes accentuate every curve and angle in the body and make them more prominent. So these types of clothes should be avoided as well.

Both oversized and tight clothes are the two extremes on the fashion spectrum. Taking a middle path is the recommended advice of many fashion experts. 

12. No Sheer or Thin Fabrics

Neither sheer nor thin fabrics help you keep the belly fat from the observing eyes. Sheer tops and dresses reveal more than you think.

What’s more, they leave nothing to the imagination when it comes to a bulging midsection. 

The same goes for thin fabrics that do little in terms of disguising belly flaps. When you move, the thin top or dress lets every crease become more prominent. 

13. Smart Layering

I talked about laying clothes in the fashion rules section. But there’s more to laying than meets the eye. When it comes to using laying to hide a muffin top, the top layer should never end around your waist.

It should be draping and flowing down to your mid-thighs or knees. That way, it will cover the midsection and keep belly fat out of sight.

14. Vertical Lines

More often than not, it’s the style you choose that can either reduce belly fat or make it more obvious.

If, for example, you chose striped tops with horizontal lines, you’d be practically putting the spotlight on the part of your midsection you want to keep hidden.

That’s where vertical lines come in. Fashion experts recommend using vertical lines to hide the curves you’d rather keep to yourself. But vertical lines don’t just mean vertical stripes. 

You can create vertical lines with long and open cardigans on top of a fitting top and tight pants, leggings, or a skirt.

The key to the success of this fashion recipe is to keep the under layers dark while the top layer, the one that creates the vertical lines, is light and bright colored.

15. No Tucking

It goes without saying that tucking is the number one enemy of hiding belly fat.

By tucking your top or blouse in the pants or skirt, you’re not only emphasizing the bulging midsection but also adding to it with the crumbled hem of the top, which adds more girth to the waist area.

So no to tucking and let your top flow freely and drape your midsection.

It would be even better if the top had an asymmetrical hem that distracts with its ups and downs and lets the muffin top enjoy its obscurity in peace.

If you don’t like the hem of your top and don’t like the way it flows down to your mid-thigh, choose a top with a short hem that barely rests on the edge of the pants.

Another option is to do a partial tuck-in of the top. Hold one side of the hem and slightly push under the edge of the pants near the hip bone. Leave the rest of the top draping your waist.

This creates an asymmetrical hem of your own design.

16. Prints

Prints are as good a distraction as any. In fact, they work much better than many of the other fashion tips and tricks on this list. That’s why I kept them to the end. 

The reason prints are an ideal way to hide belly fat is that they’re convenient.

Most often, you won’t have to do anything, alter them in any way, or wear them in a special fashion. You just put them on and let the flowing designs confuse the eyes.

Not to mention that you have plenty of color and pattern options to choose from.

After taking an inventory of the bottoms you have in your wardrobe, you can select a few choice print tops to go with a lot of the bottoms. 

And prints don’t have to be flowing, loose, or have asymmetrical hem to work either.

They can be fitting without snugly hugging your mid-section, and they’d still do a great job hiding a wayward mid-section that defies containment. 

Conclusion

Hiding belly fat is not as daunting as one might think.

If you follow the fashion rules of sticking to mid- to high-waist pants and skirts, avoiding sheet and thin fabrics, and opting for dark colors, you can easily hide belly fat while still looking chic and stylish in all seasons and all year round.

I have written a comprehensive guide on how to keep all other parts of your body from showing as well. Feel free to check it out next.