Wednesday, October 29, 2008

What's Good and What's Not to Trim your Tummy

By Teresa Brown

Burning calories can be hard when you don't have enough time to work up a sweat. Trimming your tummy doesn't have to include hours at the gym or simply subsisting on lemons and maple syrup. Here is a list of what's Hot and what's Not when you need to trim your tummy.

1. Cardiovascular Workouts

What's Hot: Interval training is where it's at when you want to strengthen your heart and shed pounds. If you are going for a hike or even a walk, try and speed up your stride every few minutes to increase your heart rate. By always challenging your workout you are able to mix it up enough to trim your tummy.

What's Not: Long winded runs on a treadmill will not get the results if your body is in its comfort zone. Instead your body gets used to the pace and your heart rate stays at a plateau during your cardio. You may be burning some calories but not challenging your system to burn off the reserve fats it holds. Break out of doing the same workout routine and trimming your tummy will be effortless.

2. You are what you Eat

What's Hot: The classics never fade and that is the key when choosing your life long commitment to eating healthy. Moderation is the best basis for your diet to trim your tummy. You don't have to cut out an essential food item like carbs or sugars out all together, just keep them in check. Make sure you don't substitute real raw sugar for high fructose cornstarch or whole grain bread loafs for simulated white loafs.

What's Not: Skipping meals doesn't help when you need to trim your tummy. If you take a week just on broth, you are depriving your body of much needed nutrients. Starving yourself makes your metabolism "sluggish" and this will backfire on your dieting efforts when you start eating again becasue your body is still operating in starvation mode and will store the food. The end result will be that the pounds you lost will come back faster and then some.

No matter what is the current pulse of the public, just try and remember that old wives tales dies hard. Being able to trim your tummy isn't a new invention like these fad diets or exercise routines - women have been doing it for centuries and they did it without signing up at that expensive gym or buying into that vogue diet. - 15343

About the Author: