Getting rid of that belly bulge is not only important to look good in a bikini, but also for keeping the vital organs healthy. But belly fat can be one of the hardest thing lose, and some people can spend days working their abdomen out and not see results. If you are one of those, then here are 7 reasons why your belly fat busting efforts are producing no results.
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1. You gain as you age. Research shows that as we get older, especially after the age of 25, our metabolism decreases. There are three reasons for this: Low muscle mass, fluctuating hormonal levels and lower caloric need for the functioning of vital organs. Also, after menopause, the estrogen levels take a nose dive causing women to gain weight in their belly, giving them a muffin top.
2. You are only doing cardio. Cardio is great to create a calorie deficit, but most times it fails to incorporate your abdomen muscles. Also, unless you engage in an intense cardio session, you do stop burning calories just five minutes after stepping off that treadmill. Solution? An ideal fat-busting workout is one that blends cardio with weight training. It strengthens our core, and best of all, the metabolism rate remains high for up to 24-48 hours.
3.Your diet is rich in processed foods. Packaged foods can save you a lot of time, but will cost you thousands of dollars in medical bills down the line. Canned and boxed foods are filled with sodium, carbohydrates and unhealthy fats, all of which causes visceral fat to build up around your organs and causes our belly to bulge.
4. Your traditional cardio isn't challenging enough. Running hours on a treadmill might not create the drastic impact on your waist size. To significantly increase your caloric loss, you need to engage in a high intensity workout plan, specifically high intensity interval training where you alternate between short bursts of intense exercises followed by a rest period. This will increase your muscle mass, causing you to burn up to five times more calories than what you get from burning fat tissues.
5.You are focusing too much on crunches and sit up. You cannot spot reduce your belly fat. The crunches and sits-ups might strengthen your abdomen muscles, but they will still be hidden underneath that layer of fat. Instead, what you need to focus on is getting an intense total body workout, burning fat from everywhere, abdomen included.
6. You are leading a stressful life. Stress, off course, stimulates the production of the stress hormone cortisol, which likes to store fat in the abdomen. Along with that, cortisol also enlarges the preexisting fat cells giving them access to store more fat. Plus, everyone knows how during a stress attack, we don't reach for a salad but for the greasiest food we can think of.
__7. You have poor sleeping habits.__Too little sleep has been linked to an increase in belly fat. Lack of sleep lowers your energy expenditure, increases your appetite, and makes you hang on to fat more aggressively. A consistent, short sleep routine, will eventually lead to a total body weight gain with most of it situated in your abdomen.
This post was originally published on June 12, 2014.
