What Can You Eat
Each volunteer was encouraged to measure portions based on the size of their hands.
Aim for a daily intake of:
- Three fist-sized servings of carbs
- Two palm-sized servings of lean protein
- Two cupped handfuls of vegetables or salad
- Two fist-sized servings of fruit
- Two servings of fat or oil covering the tip of your thumb.
You can also have 200ml/ pint of milk, or two 125g pots of natural or low-calorie yoghurt.
Generally, you can eat your usual foods, so long as you reduce the portion size. Avoid or limit sugary and high-fat foods, such as fast foods.
The speed of waist reduction varies from person to person, so even if you reduce your calorie intake by the suggested amount, your results may differ.
As time passes you will lose weight and you’ll need to recalculate your calorie requirement. At your new weight you’ll find your daily requirement has dropped. So you need to drop again to keep 500 calories below your daily requirement. By recalculating you will keep losing 1lb a week.
These Steps Will Show You How To Reduce Bloating
When you’re trying to ease the pressure off of your bloated tum , you’ll want to rely on these digestion-promoting methods to help you reduce bloating in just 24 hours. Here, we help you identify which habits and foods can help reduce bloating and rev up your metabolism along the way.
Hopefully, after you follow a few of our 25 tips on how to reduce bloating there will be minimal instances of trying to squeeze into your favorite pair of jeans.
Is There Really One Trick To Losing Belly Fat
When ads claim a “one trick” solution, remember that their main objective is to sell their product rather than to help you. Good marketing means one message, because it is hard to follow too many things at once. So they focus on one fad, and that tickles your curiosity and you click on the link to go their website.
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Keep In Mind That Hormones Play A Role
If you’re struggling to lose lower belly fat, underlying hormone imbalances could be playing a role, explains Maritza Worthington, a functional nutritionist who specializes in digestive and hormone health. “In my experience, the top two culprits behind stubborn belly fat have to do with either excess cortisol or estrogen dominance,” she says. “Typically hormone imbalance issues dont happen overnight, and are the result of insulin resistance, malnutrition, lack of exercise and a high stress lifestyle.”
Worthington shares a few pointers:
- Eat regularly and skip the fastingthe body actually stores more belly fat when skipping meals. “This could be because the body experiences higher cortisol/stress from starvation, and as a coping mechanism stores more belly fat , not knowing when the next meal will come,” she says.
- Focus on balanced meals and avoid eating protein or carbs alone. “Theres a reason why your body uses macronutrientsprotein, carbs, & fatsfor optimal fuel. And skipping one of these macronutrients can actually work against your metabolism.”
Myth Or Fact: Eating Before Bed Can Make You Gain Weight Faster Than If You Eat The Same Foods During The Day
Answer: Myth. Most experts agree that we gain weight when we take in more calories than we burn up. And while it seems logical that foods we eat during an active day will burn more quickly and more efficiently than foods we eat right before going to sleep, Moyad says weight gain is not based on a 24-hour clock. “It’s the total amount you take in over a period of time compared to how much you burn that determines if you will gain weight,” says Moyad.
Recent animal studies suggest that avoiding after-dinner snacks may help prevent weight gain. Eating at night may disrupt the body’s circadian clock and alter hormones that control appetite and ultimately result in weight gain.
That said, Levy reminds us that when we are fatigued or stressed, eating right before bedtime can make digestion more difficult and may cause more gas, bloating, and heartburn. “There is a ‘brain’ in the gut that helps to make sure that food is moved through the digestive system at the right pace, in the right amount,” says Levy. When we are fatigued — like most of us are at the end of a busy day — that ‘gut brain’ is fatigued as well. So, says Levy, there is a decrease in the number of contractions that move food through the system.
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Make A Metabolism Tea
A sluggish digestive system equals a slower metabolic rate. Wake up your innards by starting the morning with a cup of ginger tea. This fast-friendly drink will help improve the digestion and elimination of your food and cut unhealthy cravings for salt or sugar. Boil ½ tsp grated ginger with 1 cup of water and pour into a cup with your favorite tea bag.
Turn Off The Late Show After The Monologue
Or skip your favorite early-morning showwhatever it takes to grab a few more minutes of sleep each day. When researchers at the University of Chicago studied men who were sleep-deprived, they found that after just a few days, their bodies had a much harder time processing glucose in the blooda problem common in overweight diabetics. When the individuals returned to a more normal seven to eight hours of sleep a night, however, their metabolisms returned to normal.
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Make Metabolism Boosting Water
Stay well-hydrated during the day to help your body to achieve its optimal water balance to support overall health. Drinking more water is essential for liver and kidney health, fat loss, and brain function.
As always, merely drink when youre thirsty or hungry. To detoxify your body and increase metabolism drink lemon ginger water by starting the morning and during the day.
This fast-friendly drink will improve the digestion and elimination of your food and cut unhealthy cravings for salt or sugar.
Weeks One And Two Skip Breakfast
Have a drink of fruit or vegetable juice instead of breakfast to help get rid of the previous days gastronomic abuse. Drink water throughout the day. By lunchtime, provided you’ve been to the bathroom, eat yourself to the full. Ditto for dinner time. By the third day or so, your belly will already shrink slightly from skipping breakfast. Do this for two weeks.
Weaning the Stomach
The stomach is a bit like a child: give it something and it will want more until it is full. If you dont start eating first thing in the morning, when the digestive system has not even had time to empty its contents, your body doesn’t really want any food. Not having been active since the big dinner you gulped down last night, the energy gained from that dinner has not yet been used. You might be in the habit of eating first thing in the morning, but as you will notice, and contrary to common beliefs, your body does not need any food at this early hour.
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Drink Plenty Of Water
Hydration is key to weight loss. Did you know that the brain struggles to recognise the difference between being hungry and thirsty? As it turns out, thirst is often mistaken for a sugar craving so rather than heading to the cupboard and grabbing that secret chocolate bar you’ve got hidden at the back, try drinking a glass of water instead.
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Or Some Varied Cardio
If a cardio workout is more your speed, consider going for a walk or run, but remember to vary your speeds. “Why?” you ask. Research has shown it will help you learn how to shrink your stomach. In a Danish study reported by the American Diabetes Association, two groups of people with type 2 diabetes were put on a walking program. One group walked at a steady speed, while the other group varied their walking speed. After four months, the interval-training group lost eight more pounds than the steady walkers. Even better, the walkers who changed up their speeds lost visceral belly fat and improved their blood sugar control.
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Pick A Set Number Of Foods And Stick To Them
As it turns out, there’s something to be said for being a creature of habit and eating the same foods day in and day out, especially if you’re on a mission to shrink your belly. When researchers looked at the diets of 6,814 people, they found that the more diverse one’s diet, the more likely one was to experience weight gain. In fact, those who ate the widest range of foods showed a 120 percent greater increase in waist circumference compared with those who had the least diversity.
Make A Cup Of White Tea
There are several different teas that can stimulate weight loss and help you burn belly fat, but because white tea works with your body in multiple ways to promote fat-burning, it’s really in a league of its own. According to a study published in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism white tea stops the formation of new fat cells while simultaneously boosting lipolysis, the body’s process of breaking down stored fat. Brew this and watch your belly shrink!
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Eat More Fiber And Avoid Refined Flour
Foods made with white flour like white bread, white pasta, and white rice are relatively low in fiber and may cause you to get a little, uh, backed up. Instead, opt for whole-grain varieties. A simple switch from white bread to whole wheat or from white rice to brown will keep things moving along smoothly.
High fiber foods that are free of indigestible fibers mentioned before include:
- Whole grain bread
Flavor Your Food With Garlic
A little garlic in your meals could mean a lot less weight around your middle. The results of a Korean study found that mice given a high-fat diet supplemented with garlic lost significantly more weight and abdominal fat than those who just ate fatty foods. Even better, they also improved their liver health, making it easier to stay healthy and burn off that excess fat in the long term. For more flavorful ways to make your food more enjoyable, turn to the metabolism-boosting spicy recipes and watch those pounds melt away.
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Eat Several Small Meals
To keep your metabolism revving throughout the day, focus on small, protein- and fiber-packed snacks or small meals every 3 to 4 hours. You will not only burn more calories eating a series of smaller meals, but also avoid the afternoon crash and end of the workday slump.
Eat This! Tip: Use your smartphone or computer to remind you of these intervals. Some go-to healthy snack ideas include:
- Apple with peanut butter
Take Time To Meditate
The older, wiser, less-bendy sister of yoga, meditation is an amazing activity that people can reap major rewards from. A 2014 study in Eating Behaviorsfound that individuals who meditate are less likely to overeat or give in to emotional eatingand this is key if you want to stay on track with your anti-bloat plan over the next day. To get started, unroll a yoga mat or sit on a carpet in a sunny room and take five uninterrupted minutes thinking about something that you’re grateful for.
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Eat Only Natural Sugar
Sugar is a high-calorie food, it contributes to weight gain. So better stay away from chemical sugar and only eat sugar in its natural form such as it occurs in fruits.
Sweets, ice creams, beverages, carbonated drinks and the likes are sugar devils, it is best to stay away from them. They increase your body fat, especially around your abdomen and thighs.
The Bottom Line: You Shouldnt Slash Calories To Shrink Your Stomach
Thats a long-winded, science-y way of saying this: Drastically cutting your portions not only wont shrink your stomachitll probably backfire. And if you managed to lose any weight, youll likely regain the pounds with interest, Dr. Kumar says.
None of this is to say that losing weight is impossible. But in order to do it successfully, you need to cut back on food graduallyso your body doesnt suddenly freak out and think that its never getting food again. That means instead of embarking on a crash diet, try cutting back by just 100 or 200 calories a day, Dr. Kumar says. Its enough to help you lose weight slowly and sustainably, but not so much that your body mistakenly thinks that youre starving. Need some direction? Here are 100 simple ways to cut 100 calories or more.
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Ways To Lose Belly Fat And Live A Healthier Life
Maintaining a trim midsection does more than make you look greatit canhelp you live longer. Larger waistlines are linked to a higher risk ofheart disease, diabetes and even cancer. Losing weight, especially bellyfat, also improvesblood vesselfunctioning and also improves sleep quality.
Its impossible to target belly fat specifically when you diet. But losing weight overall will help shrink your waistline more importantly, it will help reduce the dangerous layer of visceral fat, a type of fat within the abdominal cavity that you cant see but that heightens health risks, says Kerry Stewart, Ed.D. , director of Clinical and Research Physiology at Johns Hopkins.
Heres how to whittle down where it matters most.
Embrace High Intensity Exercise
One way to target lower belly fat is to engage in high intensity exercise a couple times a week. But keep in mind that high intensity is a relative term and will be different from person to person. “The key is to create intervals for yourself so that you’re getting your heart rate up high several times during your 30- to 40-minute workout,” Pelc Graca says. “This could mean a HIIT workout, a jog to fast run interval workout, a slow walk to brisk walk interval workout, or any other exercise modality you prefer.”
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How Does Stomach Size Affect Appetite
Your stomach and brain regulate your appetite in a number of ways. One of them is through messages transmitted via nerves when your stomach stretches a certain amount. An example is the vagus nerve, the major nerve that provides sensations to the stomach and transmits messages to the brain.
The vagus nerve has different monitoring nerve cells that send messages to the brain about how full the stomach is as well as what kinds of nutrients are present. When the stomach is stretched full with food, the vagus nerve sends signals to the brain to tell you its time to slow down or stop eating.
While its not possible to shrink your stomach, it is possible to change how your stomach adjusts to hunger and feelings of fullness. Researchers have found that over time, you can become accustomed to feeling fuller with smaller amounts of food.
While its not possible to shrink your stomach, its possible to change how your stomach adjusts to hunger and feelings of fullness.
On the flip side, its possible that when the stomach is empty, the nerves in your stomach can send messages to your brain. This can influence hormones in your body, such as ghrelin. Doctors call this the hunger hormone because it stimulates hunger.
Stomach size alone isnt what affects hunger. Factors like low blood sugar, the thought or smell of foods, and much more also have an impact. All of these play a factor in your appetite.
Learn To Love Whole Grains
While there’s no doubt many fruits and veggies can help you lose that bulge in your midsection, certain grains can lend a hand, too. A Tufts University study found that participants who ate three or more servings of whole grains per day had 10 percent less belly fat than people who ate the same amount of calories from refined carbs. In other words, swap out white bread, rice, and pasta in favor of oats, quinoa, brown rice, or wheat.
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Ode To The Digestive System
Think of your digestive system as an employee working every day for no pay, doing one of the most important jobs of keeping you alive. Do you ever give it a thought? No, it’s taken for granted. Even when the digestive system is protesting with heartburns, bloating, constipation, desperately trying to tell you it isn’t happy in its job, you ignore it. While all your digestive system wants is to be kept clean and given enough time to do its job properly. So why not show some responsibility and respect for this hardworking employee in the tower block of your body?
Take An Epsom Salt Bath
Relaxing in any tub is always nice, and adding two cups of magnesium-rich Epsom salt may help deflate your belly more effectively Your skin also absorbs the mineral and electrolyte, magnesium, which can help reduce inflammation and may even reduce muscle cramps. Soaking in an Epsom salt bath for 20 minutes can help alleviate constipation as well, which is another cause of bloating.
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