9 Secrets to a Flat Tummy

Following my last post, these are your first steps to getting a flat tummy

     

1) Try not to eat until you tummy is pushing out: we can already the food, Eating till we can see the shape of the food is outlined in your stomach is definitely not the way. Have you noticed your belly is usually flat when you get out of bed in the mornings or when you havent eaten all day. if you try to maintain a belly shape, its only a matter of time before your belly actually assumes the shape.

2)   Replace "WHITE" with "BROWN": this is the first time in a world of racial discrimination that it is generally accepted that "Brown" is better than "white". Here in 9ja, most of our food is full of carbs hence our large and proud bellys. White bread, white rice, flour spaghetti, garri, yam e.t.c are all major culprit in belly fat. While it is almost difficult to eliminate entirely the consumption of these food type, i advice you reduce it, replace it with the healthier version and sometimes alternate. Thankfully we now have brown rice, whole grain spaghetti, whole grain bread, and wheat swallow in Nigeria

3)    Say no to Gas: all gassy/frizzy drinks(coke, fanta, lacasera, etc) contain carbonated water which is directly linked with bloated stomach. Instead, drink water flavored with lemon, lime, or cucumber. Or just reduce the number of fizzy drinks you consume each day and watch your belly deflate.

4)    A little less salt: Salt will not stop weight loss, but it can stall it. Sodium makes your body retain water. When you eat too much salt, you may see the scale go up a few pounds. Conversely, when you significantly reduce salt intake, you'll lose a few pounds as your body expels the water it was retaining. The weight you lose, however, is regained once you resume eating foods with salt. 
  salt really has no direct link to fat loss, however, the water retention in the body making you look bloated. with a consistent consumption of salt, you will eventually be bloated

5)     No alcohol: Drinking too much alcohol can cause your body to burn off 36 percent less fat, lead your body to store more fat from food, and inhibit hormones that help your body burn fat and create muscle. Another vice that contributes to belly fat is smoking. With each extra cigarette you smoke, you are at increased risk of storing abdominal fat as opposed to thigh or hip fat

6)  Eat More Protein. Protein has a higher thermic effect than other foods: your body burns more energy processing proteins than it does processing carbs and fat. That's why high protein diets work great at burning your belly fat.

7)    Eat Healthy: if you eat junk food all day, you won't lose your belly fat. Try eating healthy. Example of healthy food

Proteins. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, turkey, chicken, milk, beans …

Veggies. Spinach, broccoli, salad, cabbage, pumpkin leaf, garlic, onion, carrot…

Fruits. Banana, orange, apple, pineapple, peers, berries, mango, ...

Fats. Olive oil, fish oil, nuts(groundut, almonds, kolanuts etc)…

Carbs. Brown rice, oats, whole grain pasta, whole …

8)    Exercise: first understand that you cant spot reduce, meaning you cant target a particular spot on your body to lose fat, you can only target to build muscles. So, to lose that layer of belly fat, you have to exercise your entire body. A simple brisk walking, or jogging or skipping will do the trick. I know it is hard to exercise in our 9ja centric environment, but I have found a way to sneak exercise in.......click to find out how

9)    Suck it in: This is perhaps the easiest and most looked over secret. The surest way to get that flat tummy sharp sharp! You can even try this now

     Always stand straight, Suck in your stomach so your belly button is drawn towards your spine. While your stomach is sucked in, do not hold your breath just keep breathing normally. You will know that you are doing this properly when you begin to feel a minor burning sensation in the deep stomach

Do this as often as you walk; it is the way I got my belly flat. So get busy guys!

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"Sit up" is not the Way!

 It was a long time ago the big tummies was a sign of good living, now, its just a sign of gluttony and lack of exercise and while the first reaction to reduce belly fat is usually to sit on a mat and start the forceful and almost impossible act of pulling yourself up to a sitting position, hoping that in a couple of months you will be showing your abs...wash!  not gon happen. Its like trying to cure a headache with an anti-fungal cream...

Before you jump on your mat, and ask Tolu to hold your legs please understand that Sit ups or crunches DONT burn fat, they only define your muscles. So whats the point of having a defined muscle tone if there will be a layer of fat covering it? you have to first lose the fat covering your stomach muscle before you begin to see any results for the exercise you do and especially since after we do the 200sit ups, we celebrate with 3packs on noodles and wonder why the flat tummy is playing hide and seek.

flat belly is the "in" thing and to me, it makes sense because no matter your size, your stomach size is a major determining factor of how good you look in what you wear. if you have a clearly defend waistline, regardless of how big you are, you are definitely hot! Besides, i have come to realize that the size of your stomach is directly related to the amount of folds you have on your back which is the thin line between "fab" and "flabby". Everyone knows this, the problem however is how to get the elusive abs.

while i am not  condemning all abdominal exercises(sit-ups, Crunches, reverse crunches, bicycles etc), it shouldnt be your first step, especially if you have a large blanket of fat covering your stomach. Your first step is to get rid of that blanket! So I am going to let you in on some secrets to getting your belly flat....click here!!!

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lose that holiday weight!

Ahn ahn, rice, dodo, efo, iyan...omo! I declare today a ‘weightloss holiday’ Tomorrow, I will watch my weight!

Just when you're finally getting your weight under control, boom! It's the holidays, and food is everywhere. I can never understand the thing with Nigerians and rice, it’s almost like if there is no rice, the party hasn’t started. I fear that at this rate, its only a matter of before chickens become extinct!

Oh the birthdays, house parties, events, clubbing and do not forget, the owanbe’s, how on earth are we supposed to watch our weight when everyone seems to be getting married in December?

Fear not guys, for I will not sit here and tell you to hold your breath through the holidays to avert temptation but rather to fall into temptation with dignity! Instead of eating 10pieces of fried meat like you normally do during the holidays, try eating 5 instead or even better 2 and walk away, at least you ate meat right? Another tip to minimizing the weight gain during the party season is ‘never arrive at the party hungry” eat before you leave your house, that way, you can reduce the over-indulgence at the party buffet

The biggest problem when trying to lose holiday weight is that the holiday routine becomes “normal.” In other words, you continue buying the ice cream and cake long after zenith bank has removed its Christmas decoration. While it’s okay to add a little weight during the holidays, do not forget to get it off immediately after the holidays. Don’t be found 20days after the holidays still carrying that weight around, if not, you’ll just keep piling on the weight. The holiday is over, let it be over with your mouth and belly too and work on getting back to your pre-holiday weight

Did you pick up an habit during the holidays? Drop it!, do you now have to take a bottle of coke after every meal? Stop it!  or do you still have the chocolates your cousin from canada brought back home for the holidays? Give it out! While you are at it, Cut out the late night eating too…

Stop over eating. First cut out the junk, remember that the holiday is over, next is to try to reduce the amount of food on your plate each time you eat, try not to eat until your belly is swollen. Instead of sitting around feeling stuffed and uncomfortable after a big meal, get up and walk around.

 Drink lots of water.  The importance of water cannot be over-emphasized. Although, water is not associated with direct weightloss, it still has an important role to play in metabolism and portion control  Drink a full 8-oz glass of water when you first get up in the morning, before every meal, and before you go to bed at night.  Another little trick is to take a drink of water between every bite of food.  All of this will help you to eat less and improve your digestion too. Also try lacing your water with lime incase drinking that much water get to boring. Say goodbye to the alcohol for a while please

Exercise! I know that right after the holidays is work work work! So there is really no time to exercise, but there are a couple of exercise you do even while you are work!: pull your seat back and squat even while you are working or maintain a good sitting posture, Sit up straight, and breathe, Try Pulling in your belly. Hold for 8-10 seconds, and repeat several times. Stretch your upper body as far as you can. Try walking around during your break time. But if you can make out time, take advantage of this and lose that holiday weight

The problem with holiday weight gain is that people don’t remember to lose it afterwards. The key is to get back to your old, successful eating routine immediately.

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The wrong way to lose weight (Part 1)

2:00pm….3 more hours, 2:45pm….2hrs 15mins to go, arrrghhhh! something is wrong with the clock!

 It had become a daily painful habit to count down till I allow myself to eat. The wrong thought the being overweight was brought on by overeating caused me to cut down my food intake and painfully rearrange my eating habit. First, I cut out the late-night munching, then reduced my daily meals from 3 to 2 and began to take long walks for exercise.  It wasn’t long before I began to get the “are you sick” comments from people, which only meant whatever I was doing was working. Taking a step further, I started to eat just once daily and my weight fell off rapidly. The best part was the worried look on my mother’s face which only reinforced my anorexic mission and reduced my food intake to naught and yes, the weight kept falling.

However, my joy was short lived, it got to the point I was eating almost nothing but wasn’t losing weight as fast as I should. As the days dragged on and my starving much more serious, my daily thought and nightly dreams became dominated by food and day after day, I would fight the urge to eat in the hopes of losing more weight but still, the number on the scale till did not drop fast enough. After reaching a certain weight milestone, I decided to take a break and eat a little. I gained 5pounds(10kg) within a week and had to starve myself for two months to get it off! . It wasn’t fun anymore; I was starving to death and the weight scale seemed stuck. Something was definitely wrong because the less you eat, the more you lose the weight right? Wrong….

 I figured out after a lot of research that I had been going about it the wrong way and had succeeded in killing my metabolism which only injured my quest to lose weight. I’ll tell you how it works, but first you have to understand the terms in simple “English”

Metabolism: the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy

BMR: Basal Metabolic Rate; The number of calories it would take just to lie in bed all day.

 it represents the amount of energy, usually measured in calories, that your body must burn to keep itself alive while you are at rest and not digesting any food. This varies for different people and could also depend on

Body size and composition: Overweight people are more likely to have a faster metabolic rate — not a slower one.

Sex: Men burn more calories than women of the same age

Age: The older you get, the less calories you burn

It is important to understand that  Even when you're at rest, your body needs energy for functions such as breathing, circulating blood and repairing cells meaning that every single thing you do — from breathing to eating to sleeping — burns calories

That being said, my point is the human brain's first priority is survival, meaning that if you skip meals, your brain receives the starvation signal and hence conserves whatever little food you eat, so instead of burning calories, your body is saving calories and the way it does this is by slowing down your metabolism.

Inotherwords, "Your body is trying to protect you from starvation. Once you start eating normally again, you have a metabolic rebound, and your body tries to hold on to every calorie you eat."

While starving myself, over time, my body adapted to my lifestyle and built a tolerance. Its no wonder I wasn’t losing any weight.

After many months of falling face down on my weight loss goals, i finally have a solution...........

To prevent metabolic rebound, set a realistic goal of losing weight at a rate of about one pound(0.5kg) a week. Remember that one pound of fat is equal to about 3,500 calories, and you need to cut that amount from your diet — or burn it off through exercise — to lose one pound. "That means if you cut back on 500 calories each day, you can lose that 1 pound(0.5kg) a week without shocking your metabolism,"

 Starving actually has the opposite effect over time............

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How to Sneak Exercise Into Our Busy 9ja Routine

wake up- traffic- work- traffic- home- bed...spells STRESS!

where is the time?! 24 hours a day doesn't seem like nearly enough time to fit in work, school, and family, errands and of course, traffic!. did you know that an average Nigerian spends almost half of his life in Traffic? how do we then make out “me-time” talk less of workout-time?. Its almost impossible! I found out the hard way that riding against the current of stress will only fuel exhaustion.

Knowing the importance of exercise, I started out with the determination of a bull, deciding to do 30 minutes work out before taking my bath and dressing up for work and another 30 minutes at nights before bed and also jogging on Saturdays before sun comes out. Yes, it worked out the first week, and early second before I started backsliding. The stress was getting to me. I would work all day, only to end up sitting in 3hrs in lagos traffic, Will I do my sit ups when I get home 10p.m? definitely not!, all I think about is how good my bed looks under the yellow bulb. So I made a decision to shift my work outs to weekends, who would complain about not having enough time on weekends right? Promising myself vigorous work outs on Saturdays especially, to make up for the week, I mapped out a plan.

“wake 6:00 am, do a one hour jogging around my area before the sun comes.

          7:00am- get home and skip (30mins)

          7:30pm- a mix of different routine (30mins)

A 2hours intense work out plan. Still burning with determination, first week went as planned, but by the second week, it was getting uncomfortable, my bed was my biggest foe, 6:00am! Haba! After the stress of the week? Saturdays are my no-joke-with-sleep day. So I shifted the time an hour forward, but the still didn't help, especially with the blinding sun and the evenings were worse!. Subsequently, I began to look for mental excuses to stall or just not do it. So I decided, may be if I paid for it, I will try harder, but between traffic, work, stress and tiredness, I just couldn't find the motivation to go to the gym.

Motivated by the need to exercise but hindered by the lack of time to do so, I have finally figured out how to beat our 9ja induced “hurry”. My failure has open my eyes to see that everything you eat contains calories, and everything you do uses calories, including sleeping, breathing, and digesting food. Any physical activity in addition to what you normally do will burn those extra calories. No matter how small or insignificant it may seem. A simple standing, sweeping or even tapping your feet will burn calories.

 SO DON'T CHANGE YOUR ROUTINE, EXPLOIT IT! as the time for exercise in hidden within our daily routine!

Do not drive or take a bike or bus when we can walk! We are so guilty of this.

Forget the elevator! Take the stairs.

Dont send Adamu to buy your lunch or the new intern to make the photocopies, instead walk down and do it yourself because believe it or not those little things will add up at the end of the day.

Park farther from the office building or stop before your bustop and walk the rest!.

Lay the bed, the stretching will be burn more calories.

WHILE IN TRAFFIC,

Sit up straight, and breathe,

Try Pulling in your belly. Hold for 8-10 seconds, and repeat several times.

Stretch your upperbody as far as you can.

Ignore the gala and plaintain chips hawkers, 1 gala has more calories than a cup of white rice

We can sneak exercise into our routine without having to make out time for it, by simply staying actively conscious and taking advantage of the opportunities.

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The bottom of your plate will make you fat!

sttrp........shtwp........thhtw, its usually the sound of my tongue or fingers against my saliva shiny plate. I finished first! I would scream for all my cousins to hear, for the first to finish cleaning their bowl gets reward ranging from Ice cream to chicken. My mum always told me 'God frowns on those that waste food' which in my understanding meant I had to finish whatever food is in my plate and stop not til my plate was shiny. In the habit of listening to my taste buds which constantly wants more and ignoring the loud protest of my belly and brain, I would eat until my belly was protruding and my leg staggering and all I want to do is sleep, an habit I horned from my boarding life where food comes only once in a while so when it does, we eat for the present and shaky future.

Out of school,I never remembered to unlearn it, so I would go about eating till the bottom is up regardless on the type of meal.

My wake up call came when Wura and I decided to take a break and eat an elaborate meal at barcelos, ordering a burger and french fries, it was time to gossip!. Half way through the meal and chattering, I noticed Wura going quiet with her fork in the air as if pondering something important. "what are you doing?" i asked, "I'm trying to decide if I'm full, i think i am" she said, and with that she dropped the fork into a plate still half filled with burger and fries, lunch was over.

A couple of days pass bye and I'm still wondering if Wura was crazy. Truth be told, she was slim and never had a problem with weight gain but that didnt make it easier to understand, "for petes sake, who leaves her burger unfinished!" where i come from, i was taught to clean my plate completely and the reward for doing so was dessert.

Slowly, i started the painful process of tearing myself from my plate before it hits the bottom and believe me when i say it wasn't easy. Dropping my fork half way through the meal wasnt working for me, so i tried something different. drinking water before my food and in between mouthful thereby tiring out before i hit spoon 10

It takes about 20minutes for your stomach muscle to communicate with your brain that you are full, so i also tried eating slowly and taking time to savor the taste of each spoon. Eventually, I found it easier to slash my meals from its preparations,reducing deliberately, my cups of rice , my packs of noodles, my slices of yam. thereby cooking only half of what i usually eat and subsequently removing the temptation to overeat. Also eating with my little sis helps me eat slower and reduces the amount I take in

Now,  i have choosen to believe that being full is psychological, you are full when you tell yourself you are. Discipline is the watch word.....


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The miracle diet Pill!!!

I would save N100 everyday, so maybe next two years i would be able to buy that herbal tea"......I said to my little sister, while 'borrowing' my mother’s diet tablets and my father slimming tea.

Fast-forward a couple of year later, my obsession with my weight is on a different level as being fat has taken an entirely different meaning. The world as it advances is now being judged by the Hollywood size 0-2 standard,  while my job is definitely cut out for me, my only fear is that eventually we all will have to disappear to fit the future standard.

Still with the stubborn mentality that pill and teas are my answer, especially since I was now able to afford my own pills, I had chosen to believe that my parents didn’t loose any weight because of their inconsistency and unseriousness with their dosage but it didn’t matter because, I would find the pills that do work and adhere absolutely to its directions

The Large cycle had begun, i would fixate on a said miracle pill  and stick to it spending like a dog with a bone all my money and time but after frequent and painstaking trips to the toilet with no visible change in my body size I would decide it was time to switch brands to the new miracle pill my friends have been rising hell about or to the next big appetite suppresant on the internet, or to the next......next.....and next. In time, I found myself jumping from pills, to tea, herbal rems and back with no acceptable result.  Frustration was setting in, I was beginning to question my reliance on these products. When I eventually find a drug that works and do lose a little weight,I pile them back on before I can finish my pack of chocolate.  Considering how bitter or tasteless most of these herbal teas are, the pain they sometimes bring and my frustration for lack result, I soon got tired all together.

After while and a lot of jumping around before it finally dawned on me, diet pills are made to be complimentary and not substitutes! they will work hand in hand with a careful lifestyle which includes your eating habits and exercise pattern, and if it indeed works without any adjustment in your routine, it’s only a start-stop mechanism, meaning that it will work for the duration you are taking it by increasing your bowel movement(metabolism booster/fat blocker) or making you fill up easily or suppressing your appetite(appetite suppressant).

Considering your lifestyle hasn't changed, the question is, while these pills may help get the weight off, can they keep it off? Ofcourse not! Because once you stop taking these pills, whatever aid they were giving your body stops too and it’s only a matter of time before the weight creeps back on aggressively. Also, overtime, the body will build-up a tolerance to them and once that happens, the pills won’t be as effective. Another questions is, are they as harmless to the health as they claim? I sincerely doubt it; They have scientifically been proven to increase the risk of high blood pressure, Gastrointestinal problems, stroke, Increased heart rate and many more, also their effects are largely unproven and come with many side effects that are not really worth the hassle. It’s my opinion that if there was a magic pill that could make people lose weight overnight, we would be living in a slim world and all fat related diseases will be eradicated.

Everyone wants the easy way but has taking the easy way out ever helped in other areas of your life?, if it hasn’t, why should it work here?


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