A flat tummy is high on the list of goals for most people beginning an exercise program. Here are a few tips to make your dreams of a washboard stomach a reality with minimal time and hassle. Good luck!
- Strengthen your Transverse Abs. These are the often neglected deep-lying abdominal muscles that pull in the tummy. Practice drawing in your stomach on every exercise.
- Drink plenty of water. Drinking plenty of clean, pure water will aid metabolism, cleanse and purify, and prevent excessive water retention. Here at Personal Trainers Toronto our clients drink between 2-3 litres of water per day.
- Do interval training to burn belly fat. Recent studies suggest that high-intensity interval training is more effective than regular cardio for burning belly fat. This is believed to be because shorter bursts of high-intensity exercise has a greater effect on fat-burning hormones. In fact, interval training is an important component of the Personal Trainers Toronto program. A good place to start would be by alternating 1-minute periods of high-intensity with 1-minute of low-intensity or “active recovery”. Start with only 10-12 minutes, and be sure to perform a warm-up and cool down. As you progress, you can increase the intensity of your intervals and the duration of your workout.
- Eat 5-6 smaller meals each day that are high in fiber and protein. Eating smaller portions spread throughout the day will help your body better assimilate nutrients and speed your metabolism. Avoid packaged and processed foods, and excessive starches like breads and pastas. Be sure to include a lean protein source and fiber in the form of vegetables and fruit with each meal. A Personal Trainers Toronto meal plan can help.
- Incorporate some resistance training. Resistance training will help you build lean muscle, and fire up your metabolism. If you add even a modest 3 pounds of muscle, you increase the calories you burn by 6 to 8%. TIP: It’s a myth that working out with weights makes women bulky. Muscle is more dense than fat. Therefore, if you reduce the amount of fat on your body and increase lean muscle you will appear smaller and tighter. Consult a personal trainer in Toronto for the right way to do this.
- Stop eating a couple of hours before bed. The last few hours before bed is when your metabolism is at its lowest. Simply put, by eating before bed you are not giving your body an opportunity to burn those calories, and inviting them to be stored as fat.
- Use supplements to fill the gaps in your nutrition plan. It is very difficult to get all the nutrients you require from your food, especially if you exercise. Best practice is to supplement with a high-quality multi-vitamin and multi-mineral, to ensure adequate blood nutrient levels. Also, if you are finding it difficult to get a nutritious meal or snack every 3 to 3 1/2 hours, you may find it useful to introduce low-sugar meal-replacement shakes or bars to your meal plan. Here at Personal Trainers Toronto we recommend exclusively Shaklee products.
