Tuesday 26 July 2011

How To Lose Tummy Fat With A Two Pronged Approach

When it comes to getting in shape, especially for a lot of women, there is one question that comes high in every list - how to lose tummy fat? Maybe you've had kids, or you just got so busy with life that you didn't have time to workout. Perhaps you got into a relationship and fell victim to the comfort living factor, or maybe you just have a sweet tooth that won't rest. It's even possible that you eat well, and find time to exercise here and there, but since you hit your thirties you have noticed that tummy fat growing a little bit each month...

There are many possible causes for why you have extra tummy fat, and unless you have a medical condition causing it, the good news is that the same solution - outlined below - will work for both, and should answer the question of how to lose tummy fat.

How To Lose Tummy Fat: The Two-Pronged Approach

You are probably sick to death of hearing it, but no amount of exercise or diet alone will totally get rid of your tummy fat - the only real long-term effective strategy is to combine both diet and exercise and form a two-pronged approach.

As you age your metabolism slows down, happens to all of us. For women, once they pass the 30 year old mark, the difference becomes quite noticeable. You can't eat the same foods as before and stay slim, you maintain the same diet and workout routines that worked just fine in your twenties, but you still find the odd pound creeping it's way in here and there.

Around this time your body is changing and what used to work no longer works. Your body is changing, and you need to change too.

How to Lose Tummy Fat - Prong 1: Diet

Quite simply, if you eat the wrong foods in the wrong balance (or even eating the right foods in the wrong balance) you are going to put on weight. If you consume more calories than you burn in any given day, your body will convert the remainder to fat and store it for use later on... guess where?

Here are some simple, yet effective, diet tips that will help.

Avoid processed foods where possible. Your kidneys play a major role in calorie use in the body, but they are also responsible for processing all the junk you consume from processed food, which takes priority. If your kidneys are working all the time to filter junk, they can't properly function to burn calories.

Focus on eating low sugar foods (less sweets, candies, desserts, and soda) - sugar is your worst enemy when it comes to tummy fat, so cutting back as much as possible will help prevent you gaining excess tummy fat, and help you get rid of what you already have faster.

Manage portion sizes, and make sure you get a balance of proteins and carbs to keep your body healthy and energized, but without eating more than you need - remember where the excess goes!

How to Lose Tummy Fat - Prong 2: Exercise

The lean tissue - your internal organs and muscles - in your body is what actually burns calories, and this happens all day long, even during periods of rest. So it makes sense that if you have more lean tissue, your bodies ability to burn calories is higher.

Now, the more active your muscles are, the more calories they burn. Let me repeat that - the more exercise you do the more calories you burn, it's simple mathematics.

Additionally, exercise helps promote a higher metabolism, can improves muscle health, cardiovascular functions, and even help maintain a healthy heart.

If you are feeding and fueling your body correctly - eating the right balance of proteins, carbohydrates, and healthy fats - when you exercise you start working right where you need to - your muscles go to work and burn calories. A good workout is going to have you tapping into your bodies stored energy reserves (remember that tummy fat?) before you are done.

The net effect of regular working out is that you improve muscle health and muscle mass, which means that even during rest periods you are burning more calories than you were before - double win.

How to Lose Tummy Fat In Summary

Each of the two approach's outlined here for how to lose tummy fat will help keep your weight in check. You can eat less and lose weight, but you won't get that flat tummy unless you work the underlying muscles. Conversely, it doesn't matter how much exercise you do, how many sit-ups or crunches you perform - if your diet is poorly balanced you won't ever see those muscles.

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