Easy ways to flatten your tummy without doing crunches
- Written by Tess Sanders Lazarus
According to fitness industry expert and founder of the 30 Minute Blitz, Carlos Elysee, there is a misconception that you need to undertake high intensity high impact exercises and gruelling gut crunches to reduce your waistline and flatten your tummy.
"The good news is there are some easier ways to flatten your tummy without doing abdominal crunches," Carlos Elysee said today.
"The key is to achieve a good balance in your lifestyle between movement and food consumption. Making changes to the type of food you eat, when you eat and how much you eat can have a huge impact on your weight.
"I have developed a list of tips to help people to lose weight around the midriff combining good eating habits and low impact exercise.
"If you like drinking hot drinks, opt for green tea. It is full of antioxidents and better for you than drinking sugar based drinks and milk coffee and it cleans the digestive system.
"Drink plenty of water. This helps with hydration, clearing the system, has no calories, and cuts your appetite, as opposed to sugar based drinks which make you more thirsty and contain a lot of calories. Get into the habit of carrying a water bottle around with you or have a bottle of water with you at your desk while at work.
"Undertake cardio based exercises like the 10 minute turnaround (part of my 30 Minute Blitz) – it burns calories, makes you sweat, targets visceral fat and is great for the cardio-vascular system. Many people believe you need to exercise for a long period of time to get any benefit from it. This is not the case. High intensity exercise, even low impact high intensity exercise, is like throwing accelerant on to your metabolic flame and will get your body burning fat fast - and it will keep burning even after you stop excercsing.
"Add vegetables to your meals, especially green vegetables that contain fibre and also antioxidents which are great for your metabolism. When choosing vegetables, the more colour they have, they better. Many green vegetables are rich in protein and other nutrients.
"Eat smaller portions of food more often and don’t wait until you’re starving to eat. This just creates over eating and bloating as well as choosing bad foods due to hunger. Eating more often with small portions will mean you’re less likely to over eat as your digestive system will remain satisfied during the day.
"Cut out as much dairy as possible as it contains lactose which causes bloating and is harder to digest as we get older.
"Strengthen your core. Do a few minutes of core exercises each day. If you do these with a good balanced diet your abdominals will strengthen.
"Finally, cut out high sugar and salt foods. High sugar stores as fat when not burned and also carbonated drinks cause bloating, while high levels of salt can cause bloating as well, not to mention both not being good for your blood pressure or cardio-vascular system."
Carlos Elysee is a highly respected fitness entrepreneur and has developed several programs - the 10 Minute Turnaround and the 30 Minute Blitz. The 30 Minute Blitz is approved by Fitness Australia is being embraced overseas in countries including India, Singapore, New Zealand and the Middle East.
www.30easy.com
