The Dirty Little Secret to Slimming Down Your Midsection
By this point in the year, most people have long since given up on New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and get fit and have moved on to the new motivation of looking their best in fashionable swimwear. We are inundated with images and messages dictating what we see as attractive, and we chase that as our ideal. For most people, short of plastic surgery, this means focusing 99.9% of our attention on the gut region. Guys want to lose the “beer belly” and “love handles.” Women want to lose the baby pooch and/or fit into an x-sized pair of shorts or jeans. Everybody wants the toned abs!
There’s a dirty little fitness secret that holds the key to achieving that goal. The secret is that exercise will not help you discover your six pack. I will dare say that no amount of exercise in and of itself will bring your abs to the surface or slim your midsection down. Without a doubt, the easiest way to get the abs and shed the pounds begins and ends with what you consume and when you consume it. Committing yourself to an hour of daily moderate to advanced cardiovascular activity at a time when you are drinking one or more sodas, energy drinks, and/or lattes a day is not going to help you achieve your goal. Committing yourself to doing hundreds of sit-ups, crunches, and/or knees-to-elbows is only going to make your abdominal muscles really strong (which is great!) – underneath whatever fat you carry around your midsection. As long as you are drowning your salads in sweet and/or heavy dressings, you are not going to reach your goal as fast as you would like.
Here are some simple steps towards healthy consumption:
1. Avoid high fructose corn syrup. Check the ingredients list on any product you buy. If the corn syrup is listed in the first three items, find an alternative. A good alternative is water, black coffee, or honey-sweetened tea. Ideally, you should avoid the product if HFCS is anywhere on the ingredients list.
2. Avoid fast food restaurants and eating out regularly. As well as many chains and restaurants are doing at adding healthy alternatives on their menus, it just isn’t worth the temptation or the expense. Brown bag healthy choices.
3. Make dinner the smallest meal of your day. Most Americans make dinner the biggest, and that is usually a mistake for a myriad of reasons. Dinner meal options tend to run heavier in calories than breakfast possibilities. There tends to be more things to fry and butter up for the dinner hour. The later you go into the evening, the more your body’s metabolism tends to slow down and the more you tend to turn sedentary.
4. Instead of eating three larger meals, eat five smaller ones. This helps your body digest and metabolize, which is a good thing.
5. Ditch chips and junk food in favor of fruits and vegetables.
6. Drink a steady amount of water throughout the day. Filling up with water tends to curb your appetite (as a person who has gone without food for seven days, take my word for it).
7. Bake or grill instead of frying.
8. Substitute virgin olive oil and nonstick cooking sprays in place of butter.
9. Never starve yourself beyond the suggested serving sizes listed with your food’s nutritional information. Some suggested serving sizes feel like starvation, but that’s ultimately healthy. (We don’t need to be eating 20 Doritos in a sitting.) It’s when we decide to avoid eating altogether that we’ve crossed a line.
10. Lay off the sugar! Some people pour sugar in their coffee, on their cereal, on their sweet potatoes (which, by themselves, are incredibly good for you) – even in their water! Refined sugar is terrible for you. Substitute honey when you can. While I’m not a fan of artificial sweeteners, Splenda is better for you than white sugar.
If you incorporate these 10 things as a part of your lifestyle with only a moderate amount of daily activity, I assure you that you will notice positive changes within a month or two. Will you have the six-pack abs or be able to wear the same sized jeans you wore in high school? No, most likely not. While not shedding three sizes, you should observe some weight loss. You should also notice increased energy and mental focus. You will start to see the changes that can carry you the rest of the way.
Reach for your fitness goals. You can get there.
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