Sometimes curvy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes I just want to trade in a little booty and/or boobage to get rid of what I call the kangaroo pouch.
It will always be a trouble spot of mine. I had gotten it together with diet and exercise but every since I’ve moved I haven’t been working out regularly and my diet is terrible. I literally have to start over from SCRATCH! I’ve joined a gym but I’ve done a little research on some lower stomach exercises.
Things You'll Need:
- time
- commitment
- journal (pretty notebook and pretty pen you enjoy writing in every day)
- optional:
- stability ball
- medicine ball
- cardio equipment
1. Commitment: The first thing to understand is there is no way to really isolate fat loss in one specific area. That being said, there are THREE pieces to the weight loss puzzle. They are not difficult to understand, but they are difficult to commit to.
2. CARDIO: Cardio exercise is the main ingredient in burning stored body fat. This should be done 5 days a week at MINIMUM 30 MINUTES!! An hour is best especially during the weight loss phase. When you are just maintaining you can cut back.A few key things to remember is
a.)keep your heart rate up. You need to be sweating!
b.)variation is key. If you walk on the treadmill 5 days a week at 4.0 eventually your body will adapt to that calorie expenditure (homeostasis). It will not be as effective. Switch it up.
3. STRENGTH TRAINING: Lifting weights and building lean muscle is called anaerobic exercise. When you do an hour of anaerobic exercise you continue to burn calories for 24 hours. Strength training is very important because the more muscle you have the more fat you burn at rest (the faster your metabolic rate becomes).
4. DIET: Last but definitely not least is diet. This is believe it or not, the hardest but most important part to commit to. Everything you eat every time you eat it effects you. Remember that when you are trying to lose weight or lose fat it is important to be more strict than when you are trying to maintain. Some tips:
a.)Eat every 3 hours.It is important to speed up your metabolism. You should have 4-5 200-400 calorie meals per day.
b.)Sugar is your enemy more than fat. If you constantly look at labels and frown at the fat content, you must now reverse your thinking. Look at the sugar content. Excess sugar is stored as fat. So those jelly beans that say 0g of fat? Guess what? They forgot to tell you how many grams of fat they are once your body converts the sugar!!
c.) Limit (do not cut out) carb intake. Many people are confused as to what defines a carbohydrate. Most people think bread and potatoes. Fruit and vegetables are also considered carbs. Think about carbs as sugars. You want sugars that your body will use as energy not sugars it will immediately convert to fat. Something very difficult to fathom is that fruits are simple sugars and easily stored. You want to limit your fruit intake to once a day and I recommend it in the morning. I know, I know, the age old thought is fruits are healthy... well they ARE healthy, BUT there is a difference between eating for fat loss and eating for health.
d.) eat carbs with a protein. This limits how much carb is stored as fat and ensures protein is used properly for muscle growth. Some examples: Tuna and salad, chicken and steamed veggies, eggs and a grapefruit. Some other carbs you can add are brown rice and sweet potatoes
e.)When in doubt, eat from the earth. If it is processed, chances are there are chemical additives. These additives many times inhibit our ability to loss fat. Processed pertains to anything made in a factory.
f.)Supplements: Multi vitamins are very important, as well as Essential Fatty Acids (EFA's) which are Omega 3-6-9. You can pick this up in tablet form and take them with each meal. This helps activate fat burning enzymes in the body, minimizes enzymes involved in storing fat and is an excellent energy source.
5. AB TARGET EXERCISES: Work your abs with every weight training session! It is important to strengthen the muscle underneath the fat. Once you do the other 3 things and lose all the surrounding fat, you will have nice lean, toned muscles underneath!
6. CORE TRAINING: A great way to strengthen and tone abs is by core training. This can be done daily!
3 comments:
I hate the phrase 'weight loss' :-(
When you jog for 30mins 5 days a week you're probably losing a good amount of muscle too. yeah the scale may go down, but some of that will be muscle and that's not good. You'll gain "weight"(fat) much easier if u ever stop working out. Muscle weighs more than fat of course, so you may go up in weight. But so what. How do you look in the mirror? That's how you should judge your results.
You should do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) once or twice a week to take the place of one or two 30min jogs. So maybe 3 days of steady state and 1 day of HIIT.
Most people say compare a sprinter's physique to a long distance, marathon runner.
Most importantly, losing weight starts in the kitchen...not the gym. C
#1 is def. commitment, without that you'll get nowhere.
P90X, is great too; no pain, no gain, just keep doing what you can do and work on pushing yourself to new levels every workout.
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