Avoid common fat loss mistakes and craft abs of steel with these top waistline-reducing tips
Unless you burn fat while building mass,
your hard-earned muscles will be hidden. The quickest way to fail on
your fat-fighting mission is through a lack of discipline. But even if
you are properly motivated, you need to ensure you aren’t making silly
mistakes that will stall your belly fat burning progress.
Lots of people make critical but common errors – and achieve
amazing results when they correct them. This is a definitive list of
what you can do to avoid common pitfalls that prevent you achieving a
lean, hard body. It assumes that you aren’t doing any of the things that
obviously impede weight loss and cause poor health, such as drinking
large amounts of alcohol or not exercising.
1. Banish stress
Minimising stress lowers your cortisol levels. It is well
established that chronically high cortisol results in fat gain,
particularly around the middle. No matter how much you exercise or how
healthy your diet, you’ll struggle to lose weight if your cortisol is
elevated.
2. Get plenty of vitamin C
Vitamin C can help balance the cortisol spikes that occur while
you're stressed. And as well as being a good way to boost you immune
system and prevent colds, Vitamin C is also essential for making
carnitine, a compound that helps your body with the process of turning
fat into fuel.If you’re going through a particularly stressful period
then increase your vitamin C and it’ll go some way to help counteract
the negative side-effects. However, don't just neck a load of orange
juice to up your intake. OJ may be a great vitamin C source but it's
also full of sugar (even though it's naturally occurring it will still
hamper your weight-loss efforts). Try including more chilli peppers,
kale and kiwi fruit in your diet. These all have even more vitamin C
than oranges, along with a host of other health benefits.
3. Train with weights
Strength training is essential for weight loss because it burns
calories while improving insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake. It is
preferable to cardio training because it produces a more favourable
muscle-building response and burns more fat. For the best results,
follow a periodised strength training programme that changes regularly –
so you are not doing the same thing for longer than two months – and
include anaerobic sprints.
4. Don’t avoid fat
Avoiding fat to shift fat from your body may seem logical, but when
you appreciate the role of fat in the body you’ll realise it isn’t. You
need a decent amount of ‘good’ fat in your diet because all the cells
in your body are made up of two layers of fats, or lipids, which are
composed of good fats or bad fats depending on the type that’s
predominant in your diet. If the cell lipid layers are made up of
healthy fats, it will make them more sensitive to insulin and allow the
receptors to bind more easily, which is necessary for good metabolism
and energy production. Of course, removing trans fats from your diet is
essential because they will make you fat and then they will kill you.
5. Balance your fat intake
To get a balanced intake you ideally want a nearly equal ratio of
omega 3 to omega 6 fats. Most people get way too many omega 6 fats
because they are abundantly found in the most commonly used vegetable
oils. Omega 3 fatty acids are those that come from fish oil (usually
known as DHA, EPA and ALA) but they also are found in grass-fed beef and
wild meats. So for better insulin health and body composition I suggest
taking a high-dose omega 3 supplement and eating wild meat and fish.
6. Take a probiotic
Probiotics are tiny bacteria that live naturally in the
gastrointestinal tract and are commonly found in dairy products such as
yoghurt. It’s difficult to lose weight if you don’t have a healthy gut.
Why? More than half the neurotransmitters that send messages from the
brain to cells and hormone receptors throughout the body are made in the
gastrointestinal lining. If your gut is not healthy, it negatively
affects the production of the neurotransmitters, leading to poor
cognitive function, low mood and lack of motivation to exercise. Gut
health is also essential because it improves digestion. Your metabolism
will be supported so that nutrients are broken down, absorbed and used
by the body effectively.
7. Top up your nutrients
Another trick for supporting digestion and fat loss is to make sure
you have adequate stomach acid to break down food. Take a hydrochloric
acid (HCl) supplement
to improve acid levels in the stomach and to allow your body to
completely break down food. The increased acid levels in the stomach
will improve the absorption of protein, calcium, vitamin B, magnesium,
zinc, iron and other basic nutrients.
8. Get a good night's sleep
When you’re tired you produce more of the hunger-stimulating hormone called ghrelin, which triggers cravings for sugar and other foods that will do your waistline no favours. Losing sleep can also alter your hormone production, which affects your cortisol levels and can cause insulin sensitivity - one of the main offenders when it comes to seemingly unshift able belly flab. Getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night is one of the best things you can do if you want to lose weight and reveal your abs.9. Start your day with protein
Skipping meals will set you up to fail to lose weight, and eating
breakfast is one of the simplest, healthiest things you can do to feel
better and have more energy – but it’s vital that it includes protein.
Cereal is bad for breakfast because it’s typically packed with sugar and
additives. Setting the neurotransmitters up for the day is the reason a
high-quality protein breakfast is essential. The macronutrient content
of the food you eat for breakfast will prime the chemicals that send
messages from the brain to all your muscles and tissues throughout the
whole day.
10. Drink green tea
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that drinking four cups of green tea each day could help people shed around 2-3kg in two months because there is a compound in the brewed tea that temporarily speeds up your metabolism. If you want to up your intake even further keep a jug of iced green tea in the fridge for a bit of variation.source : mensfitness
