5 Activities You Are Doing Wrong When It Comes To Busting That Gut
Stomach fat not only looks unattractive, but it is the most dangerous place to gain weight. If you have a large gut, this means the excess weight is surrounding your vital organs with visceral fat. This can increase the chances of getting type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, hear disease and even dementia. It can be difficult to reduce the pudge around your waistline, but it’s necessary to reduce many health issues. Here are a few reasons why you might be trying to slim down your tummy to no avail.
- You might not be sleeping enough. When you are sleeping your body is able to regulate its appetite hormones, but if you aren’t getting enough sleep then those hormones get all out of wack. The hormone that causes hunger called ghrelin increases while the hormone that curbs appetite decreases. In order to reduce this, make sure to get t least 7 full hours of sleep every night.
- You might be getting your booze on a little too much. Alcohol is calorie-rich liquid that often isn’t factored in as part of your daily calorie count. Not only are you drinking extra calories when you down a few cold ones after work, but your body metabolizes this “poison” quickly, forgetting about the food in your system. This results in food going right into fat storage.
- You’re workout routine isn’t core focused, and I’m not talking about sit-ups. Try doing core-building exercises like plank position- regular and side, bicycle crunches, and medicine ball sit-ups. As you lose your stomach due to healthy eating and cardio, these types of core exercises will help slim your waistline and make way for your new muscles to emerge.
- You are stressed out. Not only does stress eating increase your stomach, but high stress levels can trigger the cortisol hormone, which tells your body that it needs more calories. Unfortunately, your body isn’t craving fruits and veggies, but wants those calories from fatty, sugary foods. The increased cortisol also tells your body to make new fat cells, which end up causing that visceral fat.
- You’re running all wrong. If your idea of a cardio workout includes a slow moving treadmill for less than an hour, you aren’t going to shrink your stomach as well as you might want to. The more intense the cardio workout, the more belly fat you are going to lose. Whether this is hyping up your whole routine or interspersing short bursts of higher intensity levels into your moderate jogging session, you will see a reduction of your waistline.