Saturday, January 22, 2011

Lose Your Belly Fat - By Adding These 4 Veggies To Your Diet

If your waistline has been expanding lately, then you may be suffering from a dangerous accumulation of belly fat. Belly fat, which is more formally known as abdominal obesity, is caused by the buildup of fat around the abdominal area. While a visual examination is enough to make a diagnosis of abdominal obesity, its severity is determined by measuring the waist and the hip.
People who have waistlines greater than 40 inches (for men) and 35 inches (for women) are deemed to be obese. Another indicator is the waist-hip ratio (the ratio of the circumference of the waist and the hips); men who have a WHR greater than 0.9 and women greater than 0.85 for women deemed to suffer from abdominal obesity. Excess belly fat is associated with health risks such as hypertension, heart disease and Type-2 diabetes. You should seek means to lose your belly fat if you exceed the two requirements listed here.
Although you can lose your belly fat by undertaking a regular exercise program and a low-fat diet, you can speed up the fat-burning process by eating more cruciferous vegetables. These are a family of vegetables that are noted for being rich in nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and soluble dietary fiber, as well as phytochemicals that are noted for their cancer-fighting properties. They help you to lose your belly fat by increasing your metabolism and helping to block the effects of estrogens, a female sex hormone that generates arousal in women but has also been shown to facilitate the accumulation of abdominal fat.
The four most important cruciferous vegetables that you can add to your diet are cabbage, cauliflower, radish and broccoli. One cup of broccoli contains 165% of the daily recommended value of Vitamin C as well as having at least 200 mg of plant-based Omega-3s.
If you want to add more of these four vital veggies to your diet, make sure to eat them raw or lightly steamed since overcooking them risks making them unappetizing. You can add florets of broccoli and cauliflower to your green salad or chop up the vegetables and include them with your soups and casseroles. And while the ideal is to eat fresh cruciferous vegetables, frozen and pre-packaged vegetables that you can get at your local supermarket are a good enough alternative. Take action today and you will lose your belly fat!

By John Richly.

I Won't Shop For Clothes Until I Lose My Belly Fat

I must lose weight, especially my visceral belly fat, or I won't buy any new clothes even though I need some. Summer is around the corner and being seen in public in a bathing suit is out of the question. I would be so embarrassed because of my big waistline. I look like an apple on sticks. Pear and hour glass shapes do not apply to my body. I no longer look good in any clothes. My clothes don't fit!
How about you? Are you in the same spot? Have you tried on clothes lately and found that everything makes you look very round and pudgy? That deep visceral fat surrounding your internal organs is much harder to lose than the subcutaneous fat found under your skin. And, it's that visceral fat that is giving you such a large waistline. It makes it difficult for your organs to work properly and puts a strain on your heart besides keeping you from being attractive in clothes. Bummer.
Losing weight has become quite a challenge. When I just had to lose weight from subcutaneous fat, it was pretty easy. But losing weight from my intra-abdominal fat takes dedication and good habits. It can be done! First, you must get a good plan. There are a variety of plans you can get online. Second, you must do exactly what the plan says. Finally, you must make healthy lifestyle changes in order to permanently keep off your belly fat.
Don't take your round stomach area lightly. There is proof that visceral belly fat is dangerous to your health and may even kill you. In addition to making your clothes not fit nicely, it is producing hormones, chemicals, and compounds that are harmful to your body. You and I must lose our belly weight so we won't possibly have a heart attack or get diabetes as a result of our visceral fat.
Besides eating a healthy balanced diet, you must exercise regularly. Even if you are currently not in the habit of moving your body, you must begin to at least walk for 30 minutes three times every week. There are many other options to accomplish the necessary exercise to lose weight, strip your belly fat, and become fit. Some exercise activities are:
• Swimming
• Yoga
• Playing ball in the park with your friends, kids, or dog
• Running
• Tennis
• Pilates
• Weight training
• Exercise classes
Choose your plan, your diet, and your exercise options to begin losing belly fat and weight right now. You will also get a smaller waistline in the process and be able to have fun shopping for clothes.

An Aid to Lose Stubborn Belly Fat - 3 Tips

Do you notice that your belly is the main place that fat seems to be camping out at? If your belly is the main spot, then stress could be the cause. Stress causes your body to release cortisol and your stomach have more cortisol receptors than any other part of your body. This is the reason why most body fat gathers to your stomach.
Stress will cause you to get hungry, then you begin to eat more, then you gain fat and it goes to your belly where most of the cortisol receptors are located. What you would want to do is to get rid of the stress. Now even when you get rid of the stress you still have the problem of dealing with the fat that has accumulated in your belly. Getting rid of the stress will eliminate a cause of the fat. Over eating is another cause especially when you don't exercise. The combination of over eating and not exercising is a sure way of developing this problem.
Also, not eating at all will cause belly fat because your body will hold on to the fat for energy since you're not feeding it in order to get energy. For years I've had a pudgy belly. Others did not think so but I knew the real deal. I would try sit ups but it never seemed to have worked for me. What I learned was, sit-ups and/or crunches tighten your muscles after or while you're loosing the belly fat. Now it is definitely possible to lose fat, while doing sit-ups and crunches however, I found that for me it wasn't the best solution.
Reduce the Calories
Reducing the quantity of calories you take in without going into the starvation mode is the most effective way to get rid of belly fat. Reducing your intake of food packed with sugar will help you to lose tummy fat. Start eating foods that burn fat! This combined with daily exercise will help you shed that extra belly fat weight.
Walking and Exercising
Walking is one of the best ways to lose belly fat. You should also maintain a daily exercise routine. Aerobics and strength training are both good forms of exercising to help you lose belly fat. Working only your abdominal muscles isn't going to benefit you much. Use resistance training to keep and firm your muscles.
Drink Plenty of Water
In order to lose belly fat, you need to drink plenty of water, particularly when you workout or sweat. Your body requires water in order to function at its best and your body will not be able to function properly if you are not drinking enough water. Try to drink at leat 8 glasses of water each day. Avoid consuming drinks with high sugary content.
Don't forget to include proper amounts of sleep otherwise you will be stressed again and the battle of belly fat continues.


By Martha C. Johnson.

Losing Your Fat Belly the Natural Way - 3 Best Tips on Naturally Trimming Your Waist!

Fat belly is unsightly and finding a natural way to trimming or losing it may sound a little unrealistic to some if not many. What are the 3 best tips on naturally trimming your waist? It will be discussed and dealt with as we go along in this article. Fat belly is fact of life. How do we get fat belly? We acquire this by eating foods that packed with very high calories that our body fails to utilize. In layman terms, we eat more than we can burn. For most women give birth, losing fat belly the natural way sounds very impossible?
Why, because it's natural to gain so much weight on the course of pregnancy and especially around the belly where the baby resided for 9 months. When the baby is out though, unfortunately the belly fat does not go away as easily and in fact is a challenge for most. Men are not spared too. As they grow older, losing belly fat the natural way becomes harder and harder. In short, both men and women face the same dilemma.
So what are the 3 best tips on naturally trimming your waist? They are:
Make over your eating habits.
Does this mean that you need to start a starvation campaign? No. Just choose foods that are high in fiber content so you don't have to eat a lot. Opt to breakdown your meal times into 5 or 6 meals eating smaller portions.
Another 1 on the 3 best tips on naturally trimming your waist is to get moving!
Do you remember your doctor telling you that you need to exercise to keep your body healthy? Do exercises that help in losing your belly fat like stomach crunches for one.
The 3rd tip on naturally trimming your waist is to get into the habit of tucking you tummy in. The principle is that when you tuck your tummy, you strain your muscles and these help a lot when you're exercising.
Now you want to have more energy, be Healthier, look Younger, lose weight, and cleanse your body, right?
 
 

Skip Cardio to Lose Fat and Get Into Better Condition

Cardio exercise, such as jogging, is far from the best type of exercise to lose fat and get into better physical condition, in fact, it can be harmful to your health.
Obviously, many experts will scoff at this idea but it is a concept which is rapidly gaining credibility in the fitness world. More and more true fitness experts are pushing the concept of conditioning your heart by doing short burst of intense exercise rather than doing long, boring cardio.
Your body wasn't designed for long, repetitive exercise. Worse, it can make you more vulnerable to disease. This type of long continuous, strenuous workout, without rest, mimics stress and causes your body to adapt in a way that is counterproductive to your health and longevity.
Our ancestors didn't run marathons or jump around for an hour doing aerobics. And they didn't sit in front of computers or the television the entire day. They moved around a lot at a low level of exertion. And then every once in a while they exerted themselves at nearly 100% of their capacity - hunting prey or escaping from it. This pattern of doing short intense movements, followed by rest, and lots of lower level activities is implanted into your genes. Your muscles, bones and organ systems are reflections of this genetic design. The way they work together is the formula for strength, vitality and long life.
Your body is not a machine - it's an adaptive organism that has its own intelligence. Nature has designed your body to adapt to whatever environment it encounters. If you ask it to perform the same activity over and over again, it will gradually switch the systems involved to meet the challenge more effectively.
Endurance exercise causes your heart and lungs to adapt for endurance. But these organs are already endurance machines. Your heart beats continuously and your lungs expand and contract with every breath you take. Forced, continuous, endurance exercise prompts your heart and lungs to "downsize." Reducing to smaller capacity allows you to go further, more efficiently, and with less rest and less fuel.
But shrinking the output of your heart and lungs means you've traded reserve capacity - which you might need in an emergency - for overall efficiency. Heart attacks don't occur because you lack endurance. They occur when there is a sudden increase in cardiac demand that exceeds your heart's capacity. That's why you need some output to spare.
As far as losing fat, specifically belly fat, short intense bursts of energy is the way to go. While the long cardio workout may burn more calories while you are jogging the workout that incorporates short bursts of energy will increase your metabolism so that you are burning those excess calories long after the workout.
An extra advantage to doing the short bursts of energy as opposed to cardio is that it takes less time and isn't boring at all.
An example of this kind of workout would be running sprints, but don't let that scare you off. It can be adapted to any form of exercise. You could swim intensely, as hard as you can for 30 seconds and then take a break for 2 minutes and the repeat it 5 more times and you get a fantastic fat burning, heart building exercise.
You could also adapt this type of exercise to whatever gradient is needed. If you aren't able to walk around the block once without keeling over you have to scale it back to start out. In that situation, you could walk rapidly for 10-20 seconds, then stop and catch your breath and repeat the action. The important thing to concentrate on is to gradually do a little more in each of your workouts even if it's only a few steps.
If you can adjust your thinking away from long, boring cardio and start to do the type of workout I've described here you will start losing fat and get a much stronger heart.


By Al Stevens.

Essential Ways to Tighten Your Loose & Fat Belly

You can use these essential tips tighten your loose fat belly. I have focused on these 3 key areas which has given me great results: diet, exercise, and anti-stress strategies. It's not difficult to tighten your loose fat belly. It needs some dedication and perseverance.
Cool Relaxation Tips to Shed Body Fat
Everyone knows stress kills. Did you know that stress is fattening too?
When you encounter stress, including lack of sleep, your body will produce a hormone called cortisol. This will keep your appetite stimulated and also keeps glucose production high. The body converts excess glucose into fat, which is usually stored in the midsection for quick access by your body.
So, get enough sleep. Only you know how much sleep you need, but if you are routinely dragging during the day feeling sleepy, lethargic, exhausted, etc., then you probably need to get more sleep.
Simple Diet Tips to Tighten Your Fat Belly
Eat lots of vegetable and fruits that have a low glycemic index to tighten your loose fat belly. To reduce fat in your diet, steam your vegetables or stir fry in broth. Additionally, drink your fruits and vegetables! This is an easy way to eat healthy. Blend up smoothies, vegetable drinks, or quick puree soups. If you eat meat, buy organic meats which have lower saturated fat content.
Easy Exercise Tips to Tighten Your Loose Tummy
Hold your belly muscles in to remove belly fat during the day whenever you can think of it. This will strengthen your abdominal girdle and create a flatter belly. You should also sit up straight and pull in your belly muscles when sitting. You might want to create physical reminders to do this such as a post-it note at your desk or a loose rubber band around your wrist.
I've struggled with my weight and have tried all sorts of methods to shed my extra pounds - from fancy ab contraptions to expensive diet pills. Finally, after years of mistakes and heartache, I realized that to tighten your loose fat belly effectively, I needed to take a holistic approach. This is it!


By Claire P. Summers.

Lose Fat Through Dancing

Many people are of the misconception that in order to lose fat belly, one must hurt, suffer and sweat. That's not necessarily the case. In order to burn calories, you need physical activity but physical activity doesn't always mean painful exercise. As long as your body is moving and working, then that's enough for you to burn off fat.
One of the most overlooked methods of keeping in shape is dancing. It's not only fun to do but it also uses all kinds of different muscles, hence prompting the whole body to work. In fact, compared to lose fat exercises, dancing can burn approximately up to 500 calories per hour, depending on the intensity of the movements.
Belly dancing is one such activity that you could really enjoy. Not only is it a good cardiovascular exercise, but the movement specifically focuses on the belly muscles. However, belly dancing is not your only option. The world of dancing is actually very large and won't just make you lose fat belly.
When it comes to dancing, muscles work together in pairs to perform a specific movement. Also, dancing prompts a person to improve his or her flexibility, balance and body coordination. However, if you aren't really used to dancing, then you might want to start off with small moves. Actually, there are various fitness dancing videos available that could help you dance your way to fitness.
Of course, like most exercises, dancing can also pose risks to your body and health. Some dance movements are very intense and require joint flexibility. For this, one must take extra care when doing said movements.
The good thing about dancing is that you can do it with other people. Organize a group and start moving your way to a good sweat. It need not be fancy or with great moves. All you need is a big space and good fast music that would prompt you to move your body.
Like with most lose fat exercises, what you must remember are that there is no such thing as spot reduction. You need a full body workout for a full body fat loss. This is why dancing is such an excellent exercise type. Like walking or jogging, it utilizes all body faculties, developing the muscles, burning up calories, stretching the muscles and toning the body.
I suggest that you first try out dancing to your favorite tune by yourself. Even watching the music videos of those songs can prompt you to move your body along with the melody. Try it out for a few days and if you like it, then allot at least one hour of dancing per day. It doesn't have to replace your exercises, but it's definitely one way to keep the blood pumping.
During your dance regimen, you might also want to try going on a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables. After all, regardless of how much exercise you do, without a proper diet, it won't really be of much use.

By Bob Brendon.