Living a healthy life is important to lead a happy life as well. Getting enough sleep and Vitamin D and being around the people who help you grow, from some parts of such a lifestyle.
However, you can’t do much if your physical health isn’t where it should be. Being overweight, and being enslaved to addictions like cigarettes, alcohol or drugs, can all jeopardise your overall health and well-being. And in truth, the solution is often easier than you think. For example, by joining a gym Frankston locals have remedied their bad habits by doing more physical exercises.
Living unhealthily is often, unfortunately, easier. It takes motivation and persistence to stick to a sustainable and workable exercise routine. After all, consistency is key to reaching your goals.
One of the main problem areas as we grow older is to maintain our stomach shape, and belly fat becomes more prevalent over time. Your abdominal muscles are the hardest to maintain, because when you pick up weight, it usually goes to your stomach first!
Read on as we discuss the best ways to get rid of belly fat.
Diet Right
You might not realise this, but a flat stomach is primarily created in the kitchen! The main thing is to cut out – or significantly reduce – your carbohydrate or sugar intake. Too many carbohydrates and sugars in your body will be stored as fat, and the fat always targets your stomach area first.
Eating foods that are rich in plant protein and fiber is a good starting point. You could also consider eating fatty fish to digest more omega-3 fatty acids, as well as vegetables and fruits. These options will always go a long way in losing excess fat.
With regards to beverages, sugarless coffee, green tea and carbonated water are excellent alternatives to your usual, everyday drinks. Don’t be deceived by fruit juices, however. They may seem natural and healthy, but they do have high concentrations of sugar that will derail your weight-loss initiatives.
If you eat and drink right, coupled with doing the ideal exercises, you’ll stand a good chance of losing belly weight sooner rather than later.
Cardiovascular Exercises
Cardiovascular exercises are those that increase your heart rate considerably. These can include aerobic workouts such as dancing, jump rope, climbing, fast-walking and class work-outs. The more common cardio exercises include running/jogging, cycling and swimming.
Certain sports are also forms of cardio workouts. Active sports such as rugby, soccer, hockey and netball require a lot of running, and not just running, but short, frequent bursts of sprinting. Since these types of exercises accelerate your heart rate, they also burn calories rapidly.
Calories are units of energy and you need energy to function. Therefore, when excessive amounts of calories are burnt your body starts digging into its excess fat storage to make up for it.
Interval Training
Interval training entails a range of different workouts, but in routines of short intense bursts, followed by lower intensity contractions or short rests. This is effective because it causes your heart rate to spike during your intensive workouts, before it slows down during your rests.
This burns calories swiftly because your body must regenerate energy each time after your short rest. It then has to use up even more of your energy reserves to continue onto your next intensive workout.
Interval training can include squatting, dead-lifting and other circuit weight workouts, as well as contraction exercises such as jumping jacks, burpees and push-ups. A typical interval training routine would consist of 30 seconds to a minute of strenuous activity, followed by a rest of the same time frame.
The time of your rests and intense workouts, as well as which exercises you do, can all vary according to your level of fitness. To start off, you can go easier on yourself, but make it worthwhile at the same time by pushing yourself beyond your comfort levels.
Abdominal Exercises
To lose belly fat, your abdominal region and waistline are your focus areas. Doing exercises that focus solely on these areas will obviously be crucial. Stomach workouts will strengthen your abdominal muscles, even if it is under a layer of fat. Persisting with this will help your body burn into those layers of fat.
Eventually, you’ll start to develop tone and shape to your mid-region, including adding some form to your obliques. The latter are the muscles on your waist-side that run down into a V-like shape.
Planking is considerably useful because it focuses on your entire core. You can plank for as long as you see fit, but you can increase the time as you get fitter.
Other worthwhile abdominal workouts include crunches, leg raises, sit-ups and bicycle crunches.
Final Thoughts
All of this can be hard to do on your own at first. Through personal training Frankston enthusiasts have gotten help from professionals to kick-start their fitness journeys.
Setting goals and sticking with them would require many sacrifices, but once you start to see the results, motivation will come progressively easier!
