Burn More Calories Than You Eat
Losing belly fat really does boil down to burning more calories than you eat. If you cut 500 calories every day for one week then you would lose one pound of fat.
Counting calories every day can be quite tedious, so an easier approach would be to cut your meal, entrée or sandwich in half at lunch, for example, and save the other half for dinner.
Plus, eating foods that are high in fiber such as fruits, vegetables, oats, whole-grain breads can slow down digestion and help you stay full longer. Aim for 25 grams of fiber per day.
Have a look at our healthy fat burning foods list !
Drinking To Flatten Your Stomach
Adopt An Eating Ritual
Feasting rituals, research suggests, are a form of “mindful eating,” which has the power to make food more pleasurable, and may help prevent overeating. Pleasure, according to research published in the journal Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, catalyzes the relaxation response, promoting parasympathetic and digestive activities. In other words, you’ll metabolize dessert faster if you really, really enjoy eating it. In one study, participants who were assigned to eat a chocolate bar in accordance with a particular breaking and unwrapping ritual found the candy much more enjoyableand even more flavorfulthan a group who ate the bar informally.
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Two Of The Worst Exercises To Flatten Your Stomach
People exercise for lots of reasons to get stronger, lose weight, increase their endurance, or get better at a sport, among others.
But often, they hope to get a secondary benefit from working out: they want a flat stomach.
And to do that, they follow an age-old prescription: they ramp up their output of steady-state cardio and follow that up with a heavy dose of crunches.
But thats old-school thinking and its not the best remedy for a flat stomach. Lets see why it doesnt work and what you can do instead.
Eating To Flatten Your Stomach
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Reduce Your Stress Levels
Stress and anxiety are very common, and most people experience them at some point in their lives.
Stress is linked to the development of many diseases, and it is also a common reason why people tend to eat or binge eat, often without being hungry in the first place (
How much protein you need depends on many factors, such as your age, gender and activity level.
Generally, you should aim to get 2030% of your calories from protein on a daily basis. This can easily be achieved by incorporating a protein source in every meal.
Bottom Line:
High-protein diets may increase your metabolic rate, reduce your appetite and help you retain muscle mass during weight loss. They are also linked to lower abdominal obesity rates.
Your Flat Stomach Strategy
Don’t abandon ab-specific moves add them to a total-body strength-training routine. If you already lift weights, keep going and make an effort to hit the gym three times per week. If you don’t lift, it’s time to start.
Stay physically active during the day to further help prevent excess weight from accumulating at your belly. Aim for a minimum of 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise, or 75 to 150 minutes of high-intensity, recommends the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. Hiking, jogging, dancing and tennis all count as cardio and helps your belly stay slim.
Read more: A Diet and Exercise Plan for a 60-Year-Old Woman
Tip
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Focus on a diet that consists mostly of lean proteins andfresh vegetables. You may need fewer calories than you did in your 30sand 40s, as the natural reduction in muscle that you experience as youage leads to a decrease in your metabolism.
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Meal ideasinclude eggs with mushrooms and peppers for breakfast, a green saladwith chicken breast and an apple for lunch and seared salmon with sweetpotato and green beans for dinner. Snack on plain yogurt with berries,nuts and hummus.
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Limit Added Sugars And Refined Carbs
Its true, you cant out-exercise a bad diet. And you may not want to hear it, but limiting or better yet eliminating added sugars and refined carbohydrates is key to hitting your weight loss goals, including decreasing belly fat.
Added sugars like those in soda, juice, cookies, muffins, processed meals, and candy are the enemy.
Added sugars increase your hunger and desire for more sugar, neither of which make weight loss easier. Also, drinking a lot of sugary beverages is linked to an increased amount of visceral fat, a kind of deep belly fat associated with conditions like diabetes and heart disease.
Refined carbohydrates are typically found in processed, packaged foods like frozen pizza or food made with white flour like pasta and bagels. These carbs act just like added sugar in your body.
Refined carbs release glucose into your bloodstream much faster than complex carbs like quinoa, sweet potatoes and whole grains. This results in blood sugar spikes, which lead to crashes that can trigger hunger and cravings for more high-carb foods.
Refined carbohydrate foods also usually lack essential nutrients and can be considered empty calories.
Creating The Illusion Of A Flat Stomach
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How Can I Flatten My Stomach Naturally
Furthermore, How can I lose tummy fat fast? 20 Effective Tips to Lose Belly Fat
Secondly, How do you get a flat stomach in 2 weeks?
Additionally, check out these tips for how to burn belly fat in less than a week.
How can I have a flat tummy?
Techniques that may help people get a flat stomach include:
What Is The Quickest Way To Flatten Your Lower Stomach
The quickest way to flatten your lower stomach is by reducing any present fatty tissue and strengthening the abdominal muscles. Although its commonly thought that doing more sit-ups will flatten the stomach, the truth is you need to reduce the top layer of fat thats covering your abdominal muscles.
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Slash Calories By Adding Oil
Great news for carb-loving weight watchers: There’s an easy, natural way to make rice less caloric and, oddly enough, it involves adding fat. After numerous rounds of testing different rice varieties and cooking methods, researchers from the College of Chemical Sciences in Sri Lanka found the best way to cook rice. Their calorie hack works on two levels: Cooling the hot rice changes the nature of starch into a form that resists being broken down, and the added fat acts as a barrier against rapid digestion.
So what should you do? Boil a pot of water and drop a teaspoon of coconut oil. Add half a cup of non-fortified white rice and cook it for about 40 minutes. After cooking, stick it in the fridge for 12 hours. Rice cooked this way had at least 10 times the resistant starch and 10-15% fewer calories than normally prepared rice and researchers think that with certain kinds of rice, the method could cut calories by 50-60%. The best news: the low-carb hack is safe for leftovers, as reheating the rice didn’t affect the resistant starch levels.
Be Patient And Stick With It
Achieving a flat stomach takes time. Go in with a long-term outlook. “Going for the immediately perfect result is unrealistic and, when you fail, you will likely quit,” says Quebbemann.
Instead, commit to these lifestyle changes for a period of several weeks or months and enlist the support of a friend who can help hold you accountable.
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Jogging Your Belly Away
If you don’t have any knee problems, include jogging in your belly fat burning routine as you get fitter and stronger. A study by Duke University Medical Center on sedentary adults aged 18 to 70 found that jogging approximately 12 miles per week at 80 percent of maximum heart rate, effectively burns belly fat.
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To Perform The Goblet Squat:
The movement is challenging because the weight forces your core to work to keep yourself from rounding over. So, not only do you work the legs, but you are also getting a nice tummy workout!
You Go For Hot Items At The Salad Bar
“Generally speaking, the salad bar’s spicy hot chicken, Mexican rice, and mashed potatoes may sound like good comfort food, but the sodium levels can be enough to put an entire office to sleep!” explains celebrity personal trainer Ashley Borden. “You can absolutely get a healthy, low-sodium, high-protein choice at a salad bar: choose hard-boiled eggs, beans, tuna, chicken, lots of colorful veggies, and a little feta cheese to top it off.”
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What Muscles Make Up Your Core
What many people dont realize is that the abs are made up of four major muscle groups: external obliques, internal obliques, rectus abdominis and transverse abdominis. And the best ab workouts target all of these areas.
The external obliques are the muscles on the sides of the upper part of your stomach, while the internal obliques are the muscles on the outer, lower part of your stomach. The rectus abdominis consists of a pair of muscles that start at the sternum and run down vertically. These are responsible for giving your core that six-pack look. Lastly, the transverse abdominis muscle runs from side to side, helping with balance. This muscle is directly under the belly button and is focused on heavily in Pilates.
I often get asked by clients: how do I tone my stomach? The answer is to work all of these areas. So skip the endless crunches, and try this well-rounded routine that hits all the muscle groups that make up your abdominal region.
How Can I Get A Flat Stomach Or Make My Stomach Flatter
First off, if you’re looking to make strength gains you probably don’t wanta flat stomach.Strong abdominals if your body fat is low enough have a naturally muscular look.
However, and this is an important point to make strengthening your stomach muscles alone won’t help you achieve the strong and lean aesthetic you’re after.
That comes down to lowering your body fat percentage to a point where abdominal muscles are visible that’s between 14 24% for women. However, common thinking suggests that most women should not dip below 18% body fat, at the risk of interfering with their hormones.
Also, if abs come at the cost of your mental health or you find yourself feeling preoccupied with fat loss, take a step back and ease off for a little while. Fuelling your body well with regular exercise, enough sleep and minimising stress is far more important than any body fat percentile. Trust us.
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Sit Up With Overhead Press
a) Lie down on your back. Bend your legs and place your feet firmly on the ground to stabilise your lower body. Hold a dumbbell with both hands.
b) Curl your upper body all the way up toward your knees. Exhale as you lift.
c) As you curl up, press the dumbbell out directly above you, keeping a soft bend in your elbows.
d) Slowly, lower yourself down, returning your arms and body to your starting point. Inhale as you lower.
Why Is A Strong Core So Important
As mentioned, it pays to look beyond aesthetics and the idea of a ‘flat stomach’ when building up core strength it’s also a crucial factor in maintaining good overall health and mobility of your body. Some of the strongest people in the world dont have six-packs, but they can lift a lot or perform tremendous feats of athleticism, describes Klika.
A strong core is a major factor in staying free from injury particularly in the hips and knees, says Michelle Arent, director of training and conditioning at Rutgers Center for Health and Human Performance in the US.
However, and this is important, the core is more than the muscles running alongside the front of your stomach. In fact, the core itself is a 3-dimensional ‘box’ shape that includes:
- Your abdominals
- Your glutes
- Your lower back muscles
So, when we talk about building a strong core, we’re actually talking about building a strong ‘trunk’. Capice?
We’ve collated a mega list of both bodyweight and weighted stomach exercises for women… keep scrolling for the best tummy exercises with weights.
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