Let Your Healthy Belly Bacteria Thrive
There are healthy belly bacteria, and then there are bad belly bacteria, the later of which studies indicate overweight people have more of in their gut. To keep the fat-causing bugs at bay, you need to eat a variety of foods that support their healthy counterpartsâthe kind found in the bellies of slim people. Examples of probiotic-rich foods that help you lose weight by aiding digestion include kefir, kombucha, and yogurt.
Build More Muscle Via Strength Training
Strength training is a great way to stay in shape and build up muscle, and because muscle mass burns more calories than fat , the more muscle on your skeleton, the quicker you will lose the fat throughout your body, especially around your abdomen. If you can pack on just five pounds of muscle and sustain it, you’ll burn the caloric equivalent of three pounds of fat over the course of a year, and be even closer to obtaining that lean physique you’ve always wanted. A simple way to build up muscle via strength training is to do push-ups or planks.
Eat More Healthy Fats
When youre trying to burn belly fat, dietary fat is not the enemy. While it may seem counterintuitive, eating healthy fats can increase satiety, which mitigates the risk of future weight gain. It also makes weight loss easier because you will be less tempted to overeat. Try adding fatty foods to your diet such as fatty tuna, salmon, almonds, olive oil, and whole milk.
At the same time, you should make a conscious effort to limit your consumption of unhealthy fats. Do not consume processed food that includes trans fats. Eat foods with saturated fat in extreme moderation. The best foods to eat include only monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat unless the food is natural. For instance, a cup of milk has 1.5 grams of saturated fat, but this occurs naturally.
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The Best Exercises To Tone Your Stomach And Sides
The following exercises are some of the most effective that will help you achieve a flatter stomach and tighter toned sides fastest.
There are so many to choose from but these are some of my favorites that I use with my clients and what we do at home.
There are exercises for every level so you should be able to start working on getting your midsection tighter.
You dont need any equipment to do these ab and oblique exercises maybe just an exercise mat.
We will start with the best exercises to tighten and tone your sides and then move on to your tummy.
After youve read through and tried all of the following exercises you will know how to tone your stomach, front and sides.
Dont Give Up On Grains
You dont have to go low-carb to ditch those extra pounds around your waist in a short period of time. In fact, opting for more whole grains might just get you there faster. Researchers at Tufts University have linked eating three or more daily servings of whole grains to as much as a 10 percent reduction in visceral body fat, the kind that ups your risk for chronic diseases, like diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
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Day 2: Side Plank With Reach Through
- Start in a forearm side plank on your right side. Stack or stagger your feet.
- Reach your left arm to the sky. Thread your left arm under your waist, rotating your torso.
- Bring your left arm back to the starting position. Repeat 50 times on the left side. Switch to the right for another 50.
Day 24: Rest and Recover!
Exercising To Flatten Your Stomach
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Abs In 4 Weeks Is That Even Possible
Can you really get better abs in just 1 month? If you mean a stomach that’s tighter, more toned, and slimmer — yes you can.
Fire up the following workout and cut some calories and you can reasonably lose a couple pounds a week, say the pros. In 4 weeks, that’s a possible 8 pounds, and “8 pounds of flab covers a lot of area,” says Paul Frediani, ACSM, certified fitness coach, and co-author of Boot Camp Workout. Burn off 8 pounds, and “you will definitely be able to see and feel it.”
But be smart. Before you can blaze through a few sets of these belly-busters you’ll need to build up to it. And to do that, think about putting ab exercises at the front of your workout.
Most people tend to save ab work for last, says exercise physiologist Rich Weil, MEd, CDE, yet you’ll “be fresher at the beginning of your workout and so you may get a superior response” working your abs when they’re strongest.
Eat Eggs Instead Of Cereal
There’s arguably nothing easier than pouring some cereal into a bowl to start your day, but loading up on Frosted Flakes in the a.m. is detrimental for your belly. Tony the Tiger’s favorite cereal, while tasty, is packed with sugar and empty calories that are keeping you from having the body you want. Forgoing the Frosted flakes in favor of eggs is an easy way to change that. Since they are an excellent source of protein, eggs have the power to keep you fuller, longer. In fact, in one International Journal of Obesity study with 21 participants, half were fed a breakfast of bagels while half ate eggs. The egg group had a lower response to ghrelin were less hungry three hours later, and consumed fewer calories over the course of the next day than the bagel eaters. What’s more? Egg yolks contain choline, a nutrient with powerful fat-burning properties.
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Start With Some Fiber
Naturally sweet oatmeal recipes in Zero Belly Diet were the key to panelist Isabel Fioleks dramatic 13-pound weight loss. I happen to have a big sugar addiction, says Fiolek. But the recipes have been surprisingly satisfying for my sweet tooth. Fiolek also made dramatic health strides: A checkup after her six weeks on Zero Belly Diet revealed shed dropped her total cholesterol by 25 percent and her blood glucose level by 10 percent.
So cook up some oatmeal and top it with some fruit. Whats so special about this combination? Each provides soluble fiber that helps reduce blood cholesterol and feeds the healthy bacteria in your gut. By doing so, you trigger your gut to produce butyrate, a fatty acid that reduces fat-causing inflammation throughout your body.
How To Tone Your Chest And Stomach
If a flabby chest and stomach arent exactly what you have in mind for your next trip to the beach, its time to get into the gym. The right mix of cardio and strength training exercises can burn excess fat and build lean muscle mass. And dont forget your diet. Nutritious foods and calorie control are key to a toned physique.
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Use a mix of steady-state cardio, weight training and high-intensity interval training to burn fat and tone your muscles.
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Mountain Climbers 15 Times
The Mountain Climber is an advanced, high-intensity exercise that will get your heart rate up. Its perfect to incorporate into your daily routine for some cardio.
Exercise technique:
- Get into a plank position, on your hands and toes.
- Position your hands at about shoulder-width apart from each other.
- Then, pull the right knee into your chest as far as you can.
- Switch and do the same thing with your other knee and remember to keep your hips down.
These exercises are ideal for a home workout. You do not need any special equipment to perform them, just your own body and your own will. Please feel free to share with us in the comments which exercise is your favorite and which one you think has helped you the most.
Have a happy workout!
Tone Your Flabby Belly With Exercise
For those of us who are lucky enough to be able to hire a personal trainer, the obvious answer is to ask them to focus on your belly when working out. If you dont have hired help there are plenty of exercises you can work on at home or in the gym.
Unfortunately you cant directly tone up fat, but you can get rid of fat and tone up your muscles at the same time for a slimmer, toned belly. There is no magic quick fix, just hard work but you will reap the benefits.
First of all, in your two weeks you are going to want to do as much cardiovascular exercise as possible. This will really help burn off the fat, not just from your belly but from all over your body
Great cardio options include jogging , cycling,using the stair climber or elliptical. If you want a fat loss workout that is easier on your joints, try swimming.
Next you should focus on muscle and skin toning workouts. This is where crunches come into play. Combine them with cardio and youll see amazing results. A favorite exercise of mine to tone your flabby belly is dry swimming:
- Dry swimming is when you lay down on your belly, put your arms out in front of you and lift your legs up. Be sure to keep your hips pressed against the ground and hold your arms and legs up for 10 seconds. Repeat until you cant do any more and carry out every day for best results. Dry swimming works your arms, legs, and most importantly your abs.
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Tone Your Stomach Muscles
Step 1
Engage in strength training exercises two to three times per week to build muscle mass. This will help your body burn calories more efficiently, leading to more weight loss all over and in the stomach area. Perform strength training exercises for approximately 20 minutes per session and include resistance exercises that train other muscles besides the stomach muscles, such as lunges, squats and presses.
Step 2
Get down on one knee to tone your abdominal and oblique muscles with Wood Chops. Hold a medicine ball or kettlebell in front of your torso with both hands. Raise the weight above your left shoulder, while drawing your stomach muscles in and maintaining a straight back. Keep your torso and hips facing straight ahead as you lower the weight across your body to your right hip. Lift the weight up and across your body to return to the starting position and complete one repetition. Perform eight to 16 repetitions on each side.
Step 3
Step 4
Work toward your goal of a flatter stomach by performing stability ball knee tucks. Get down on all fours in front of a stability ball, and then place the fronts of your calves on top of it. Draw in your abdominal muscles as you pull your knees in toward your chest, rolling the ball toward your upper body as you bring your knees in. Slowly straighten your legs, moving the stability ball away from your upper body again. Do eight to 16 stability ball knee tucks.
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Weighted Modified Russian Twist
a) Lie on your back with your feet on the floor and both hands holding the weight above your chest. Use your abs to raise your torso to a 45-degree angle with the floor.
b) Slowly twist your torso to the right side, keeping your arms straight and raised. Pause and then reverse the twist to repeat on the left side. Thats one rep.
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Do Some Weight Training
The best way to lose weight is by lifting it. While, as nice as it would be, you cant actually train your body to shave pounds off specific places, you can increase your full-body fat-burning potential by adding some resistance exercise to your routine. In a study published in Obesity, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that men who stuck to a routine of just 20 minutes of weight training a day significantly reduced their risk of gaining belly fat as they aged when compared with men who did a comparable amount of aerobic exercise.
How To Lose 5 Pounds Of Belly Fat In 30 Days
You want a trimmer waistline. You want to lose a few pounds of belly fat in a relatively short period of time. Shoot, you’d even love a set of six-pack abs.
That’s great, because when you reduce your percentage of body fat , you reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, and if you do it the right way, you improve your overall health and fitness. So while losing some belly fat will help you look better, it will also make you healthier.
Can’t beat that.
Reducing your body fat percentage isn’t easy, though. If it was, everyone would look like this. But if you follow the right program, you can. Stick to the following plan and reducing your body fat percentage — and losing some pounds of belly fat — is almost assured.
But, first, let’s get a couple of things out of the way.
One, it’s impossible to “spot reduce.” While you can target certain areas of your body in terms of building up the muscles in that area, you can’t decide to just lose weight in your stomach, or your thighs, or your rear. It doesn’t work that way. You can’t remove subcutaneous body fat from specific areas of the body by doing exercises that target those areas. Doing hundreds of crunches will certainly strengthen your abs, but that won’t reduce the amount of fat stored in your torso.
Want to lose pounds of belly fat? You’ll have to lose pounds of weight. Some will come from your stomach. Some will come from the rest of your body.
Here’s how it works.
You have to go hard.
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Reduce Your Intake Of Inflammatory Foods
The foods we consume can cause inflammation within our bodies, which can then contribute to lower belly fat. Some foods that promote inflammation include the saturated fats found in meat and dairy products, processed food, fast food, fried food, palm oil, and more.
Saturated and trans fats damage blood vessel walls, which triggers the immune response associated with inflammation and encourages blood fats, like cholesterol, to stick and become imbedded in the artery wall leading to atherosclerosis, the underlying cause of heart disease, stroke, and even some forms of dementia, explains Elizabeth Somer, a registered dietitian and Medical Advisory Board Member at Persona Nutrition.
But we have some good newsthere are many foods that can help inhibit inflammation, like the fats in fish oils, nuts and flaxseed , olive oil, many fruits and vegetables, mushrooms, nuts, soy, whole grains, tea, and spices like turmeric and ginger.
Cutting back on calories and increasing exercise will shrink your waistline, including the dangerous visceral fat around the middle, especially if youre overweight, Somer says. To lower inflammation and reduce belly fat, focus on unprocessed foods, such as colorful fruits and vegetables, 100% whole grains, nuts and seeds, legumes, fatty fish such as salmon, and low-fat milk products. Then watch portions and exercise daily.
Cross Press Dead Bugs
How to: Start lying on back, left arm lifted toward ceiling at shoulder height, right leg lifted toward ceiling at hip height , left leg bent at 90 degrees, and right hand pushing into top of left knee. At the same time, slowly lower left arm backward until biceps is by ear as you lower right leg forward to hover above mat. Return to start. That’s one rep. Repeat for 30 seconds, then immediately switch to opposite side. Rest 30 seconds. Continue for 7.5 minutes total.
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Dont Do Endless Crunches
You can do a hundred crunches every day, but you wont see a toned tummy unless you burn the fat covering your abs. Thats not to say you shouldnt do ab exercises you definitely should.
Ab exercises help build your ab muscles, which will be revealed when your body composition shifts. Its also important to strengthen your core muscles for proper body mechanics and injury prevention. But youll make more progress if you spend that crunch time doing cardio and total-body strength training.
Also, compound movements, such as squats, dead lifts and pushups, all strengthen and tone your abs. If you include these moves in your routine, you may not need specific ab work at all. But feel free to add a couple of abdominal exercises to each workout. Just dont go overboard.