Achieving a healthy, toned stomach is an attainable goal.
If you’re just starting out on your weight loss journey, focus on nourishing your body with healthy foods and engaging in regular exercise.
As you approach the point where weight loss becomes more challenging and toning specific areas feels like an insurmountable task, don’t despair.
It’s time to switch things up and start fresh.
Incorporate these effective weight loss tips into your routine and you’ll notice significant changes in your body within a week!
1. Work your abs with every exercise
If you think you need to just do crunches, think again. You use your core muscles to help you stabilize, lift, lower, coordinate, inhale and exhale, protect the lower back, cut, kick, shift, start, stop and everything in between. Without your abdominals, you’ll have a heck of a time getting things done. Make sure you’re engaging the core with every exercise, either by pulling the naval into the spine or tilting the pelvis forward; use it.
2. Use weight and resistance
Add weight to your exercise routine, more than you’re doing already. Try weighted sit-ups, Russian twists with a kettlebell, plates on your back during a plank, even cranking up the Stair Master will do the trick or try ball slams. Include body weight resistance, like pull-ups and pushups. In both of these exercises, you’re relying on your core to keep the upper and lower body muscle groups in coordination. Remember, when you increase the weight, lower your reps until your muscles catch up.
3. Do more cardio to burn more fat
You could do a million crunches and still get better results with mixed cardio. Cardio burns fat, and fat likes to go into storage in the belly, thighs and buttocks for women. By initiating cardio, you’re flipping on the fat-burning switch. You might actually have a very strong core, but you can’t see it for yourself because it’s covered by fatty tissue. Try a dance class, short runs or brisk walking a couple times a week to check this off the list.
4. Switch up your workout routine
Getting a tight stomach isn’t easy! It’s time to shock the system. You might have a schedule that really suits your life, but apparently not your needs. Make sure you’re mixing it up with different types of workouts. Incorporate a spin class, roller blading around the park with a friend, initiate lunch-time walks at work, run up hills, stairs and tracks for intensity training and more. But remember: always allow your body time
combine strength and cardio when you can.
5. Try pilates
One of the top exercise practices for core strength is Pilates. It’s not about how much you can lift, how fast you can do however many reps, but how well your body works as one. The core is the center of the body and it supports everything else. Sign up for a Pilates class at a reputable studio, and you’ll quickly understand. This type of workout is also great for rehabilitation and muscle-specific strengthening.
6. Ditch the sugar
You’ve been focused on calories, fat and protein as you scan food labels, but what you’re probably skipping is the sugar level. Protein bars with 16 grams of sugar in them are a terrible idea. In addition to checking the sugar content, look at how much fiber is in there. Fiber is often massed in with the “total carbohydrate” amount, so if fiber isn’t listed, look there. The ratio should be about 10:1 (total carbs/fiber to sugar). Fiber slows down the absorption of sugar and pushes the digestion process along; in fact, fiber isn’t absorbed or digested by the body at all. Bottom line: more fiber, less sugar.