Rules for a flat stomach

This article is coutesy of Women’s Health magazine

RULE 1

Target your hidden core muscles

Crunches target only superficial muscles, so they aren’t the most efficient way to work your abs. Hard fact: to burn just 450 grams of fat, you have to do 250,000 crunches, according to researchers at the University of Virginia, US. That’s 100 crunches a day for seven years. Uh, no thanks. Instead, you need to target the muscles that lie beneath the superficial ones: your transverse abdominis, multifidis and internal obliques. Strengthening them pulls in your middle like a corset, keeping the area looking flat and toned. “Not only are these muscles weak in many women, but most of us don’t have a clue about how to engage them,” says celebrity trainer Valerie Waters, whose clients include Jennifer Garner.

The core moves in our fave ab workout target these “hidden” muscles. To practise engaging them, try this drill from Waters: lie on your back and place your palms just below your navel. Exhale and allow your tummy to expand as far as you can, then focus on pulling your belly button towards your spine, drawing your abdomen towards the floor. Hold for five seconds. Repeat eight to 10 times. See the ab workout below.

RULE 2

Move your butt

Your bum and your belly are unlikely partners in crime. Here’s why: over time, sitting around too much renders your glutes practically useless and causes your hip flexors – the muscles that connect your hipbones to your legs – to become stiff. This couch-potato combo tilts your pelvis forward, which increases the arch in your back and puts stress on your spine. From an aesthetic standpoint, it pushes your abdomen out, making even a flat stomach bulge. That means, to lose your gut, you’ve got to work your butt.

The glute bridge march and hip-thigh raise will help you get a stronger behind. Combat tight hip flexors with this stretch: in a lunge position, lower yourself so your back knee is resting on the floor. Push hips forward, keeping your back upright, until you feel a stretch in the front of the hip. Hold for 10 seconds, relax, repeat. Switch legs. Increase stretch by reaching your arms over your head.

RULE 3

Eat stomach-friendly foods

You can’t see ab muscles if they’re buried under a layer of fat. Excavate them by following these easy dietary guidelines – and by tucking into the ab friendly foods. See examples below

Pump up your protein intake Replace some of the carbs in your diet with meat, fish, dairy and nuts and you can reduce the amount of fat around your middle. Researchers at McMaster University in Canada assessed the diets of 617 people and found when they exchanged some carbohydrates in favour of an equal amount of protein, they reduced overall belly fat.

Eliminate added sugar We eat a lot of sugar – some estimates put it at 31 teaspoons a day. According to consumer watchdog Choice, 80 per cent of this sugar comes from packaged foods: cereals, baked goods, fizzy drinks, yoghurt – so we don’t realise how much we’re eating. All that sugar increases insulin production, which slows your metabolism. One way to cut down: divide the grams of sugar listed on labels by four – this is the amount of teaspoons in it (that means a glass of orange juice has around 9 tsp sugar.)

Don’t fear fat Research shows that diets containing more than 50 per cent fat are just as effective for weight loss as those that are low in fat. “Fat is filling and adds flavour to your meals – both of which help you avoid feeling deprived,” says nutritionist Alan Aragon. Eat foods rich in monounsaturated fats, such as olives, nuts and avocados; research has even found that it’s OK to enjoy whole foods that contain saturated fat (milk, cheese and butter) in moderation.

Beat the bloat No matter how much fat you lose or muscle you tone, if you’re bloated, you won’t look (or feel) your best. Fizzy drinks; even good-for-you foods like beans and broccoli, can make a stomach swell. And keep your sodium intake in check: nutritionists suggest you stay under 2000mg to avoid retaining excess water. (Most of us get closer to 5000mg a day.)

RULE 4

Stop stressing

Your never-ending to-do list. Your in-laws. Your mortgage. All that anxiety can produce extra cortisol, a hormone that encourages the body to store fat, particularly in the stomach. According to researchers at Yale University, US, your midsection is four times as likely as the rest of your body to store stress-induced fat. Help keep anxiety in check by taking short breaks from work every 90 minutes. “It’s like recalibrating your body – reminding you to breathe and relax,” says Waters.

RULE 5

Work out less

Ditch your daily ab workouts. You need only three sessions a week to see maximum results. “Training every day with endless crunches won’t flatten your belly faster,” says trainer Bill Hartman. “You’ll see benefits quicker if you give your muscles a day to fully recover between workouts.” That’s because stressing your muscles during a workout breaks down the tissues, and they need rest days to rebuild and get stronger. What’s more, you should stick to only 15 to 20 reps of each move. “If you can easily do that many, it’s time for harder moves,” says trainer Rachel Cosgrove.

And if flat abs are important to you, promote them to the top of your fitness to-do list. “A lot of people exercise their abs at the end of their workout, and that’s when you get sloppy or run out of time,” says Cosgrove. “You should do them first and then move on to your cardio. To get them looking great you need to make them a priority not an after thought. ” You’ll be glad you did”

The myths about women’s weight training and female bodybuilding do not ever seem to go away. With this article, I’d like to share the facts regarding weight training and female bodybuilding.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #1 -Weight training makes you bulky and masculine.
Due to the fact that women do not, and cannot, naturally produce as much testosterone (one of the main hormones responsible for increasing muscle size) as males do, it is impossible for a woman to gain huge amounts of muscle mass by merely touching some weights. Unfortunately, the image that may come to your mind is that of professional female bodybuilders. Most of these women, unfortunately, use anabolic steroids (synthetic testosterone) along with other drugs in order to achieve that high degree of muscularity. In addition, most also have good genetics coupled with an unbelievable work ethic that enable them to gain muscle quickly when they spend hours in the gym lifting very heavy weights. Believe me when I say that they do not look like that by accident. Women who conduct weight training without the use of steroids get the firm and fit cellulite-free looking body that you see in most fitness/figure shows these days.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #2 – Exercise increases your chest size.
Sorry girls. Women’s breasts are composed mostly of fatty tissue. Therefore, it is impossible to increase breast size through weight training. As a matter of fact, if you go below 12 percent body fat, your breast size will decrease. Weight training does increase the size of the back, so this misconception probably comes from confusing an increase in back size with an increase in cup size. The only way to increase your breast size is by gaining fat or getting breast implants.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #3 – Weight training makes you stiff and musclebound.
If you perform all exercises through their full range of motion, flexibility will increase. Exercises like flyes, stiff-legged deadlifts, dumbbell presses, and chin-ups stretch the muscle in the bottom range of the movement. Therefore, by performing these exercises correctly, your stretching capabilities will increase.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #4 – If you stop weight training your muscles turn into fat.
This is like saying that gold can turn into brass. Muscle and fat are two totally different types of tissue. What happens many times is that when people decide to go off their weight training programs they start losing muscle due to inactivity (use it or lose it) and they also usually drop the diet as well. Therefore bad eating habits combined with the fact that their metabolism is lower due to inactivity, and lower degrees of muscle mass, give the impression that the subject’s muscle is being turned into fat while in reality what is happening is that muscle is being lost and fat is being accumulated.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #5 – Weight training turns fat into muscle.
More alchemy. This is the equivalent of saying that you can turn any metal into gold; don’t we wish! The way a body transformation occurs is by gaining muscle through weight training and losing fat through aerobics and diet simultaneously. Again, muscle and fat are very different types of tissue. We cannot turn one into the other.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #6 – As long as you exercise you can eat anything that you want.
How I wish this were true also! However, this could not be further from the truth. Our individual metabolism determines how many calories we burn at rest and while we exercise. If we eat more calories than we burn on a consistent basis, our bodies will accumulate these extra calories as fat regardless of the amount of exercise that we do. This myth may have been created by people with such high metabolic rates that no matter how much they eat or what they eat, they rarely meet or exceed the amount of calories that they burn in one day unless they put their mind to doing so. Therefore, their weight either remains stable or goes down. If you are confused about nutrition.

Women’s Weight Training Myth #7 – Women only need to do cardio and if they decide to lift weights, they should be very light.
First of all, if you only did cardio then muscle and fat would be burned for fuel. One needs to do weights in order to get the muscle building machine going and thus prevent any loss of muscle tissue. Women that only concentrate on cardio will have a very hard time achieving the look that they want. As far as the lifting of very light weights, this is just more nonsense. Muscle responds to resistance and if the resistance is too light, then there will be no reason for the body to change.

Something isn’t quite right about your exercise routine. You’re about to find out what it is.

You don’t go to the gym to hang out. You’re there to get fit, to feel better, and to gain more energy to get through your stressful day. So why is it not working? Here are a few common reasons your body may not be responding how you want it to after a good hour or two at the gym.

Your Body Has Peaked

If you’ve been working out for a while and have stopped seeing the results you saw during the first few weeks, your body may have hit its peak. This happens most often when you perform the same exercises over and over, day after day, without any change in your routine. But don’t worry – you can get past this problem with relative ease. All you have to do is add some variety and spice into your routine.

An easy way to do this is by changing the type of weights you use. If you usually workout exclusively with plate weights, grab some dumbbells – or better yet, kettlebells. If that isn’t enough to get your body to start responding to gym time, talk with a personal trainer about new exercises to sprinkle into your regimen for continual improvement.

You’re Not Committed

Many people get frustrated with their gym routines only to realize they aren’t spending enough time in the gym to see any noticeable difference. And while you may spend hours each day thinking about how you need to get in the gym, thinking isn’t doing. Yes, the right mindset will improve your physical fitness and help you push your body in the gym, but you’ve got to be in the gym to actually push your body.

If you’re spending two hours in the gym every day but leave without any results, you may be committed to visiting the gym, but not using the gym. When working out, make sure you’re giving 100 percent the entire time. That doesn’t mean you have to lift hundreds of pounds with each repetition, but you should be focused, using proper posture and moving from one exercise to the next without a 20-minute water break between each set.

Your diet doesn’t Mesh

Working out regularly is a must if you’re going to obtain optimal fitness. But if you think you can eat whatever you want on your way to good health, think again. Your exercise routine is only as good as your diet. Therefore, eating a healthy diet is essential to making the most of your gym time.

In fact, if you don’t eat healthily, you probably won’t feel up to pushing yourself in the gym, making it even harder to reap the rewards you so desperately want. To make sure your gym time is well spent, you may need to modify your diet to include more fresh fruits and vegetables, fewer late-night snacks, and more lean protein sources, such as lean meat and peanut butter.

You Can’t See

If you’re like many people, you may be your worst critic. While everyone around you is gawking at how good you look, you wish you could lose three more pounds and another inch or two from your waist. How do you get over this problem? With a diary.

When you begin working out, keep track of your routine, noting repetitions, weight lifted, and time spent on the treadmill. Over time, you will certainly notice an improvement in your endurance, strength, and overall fitness – even if your waistline isn’t the tiny circle you think it ought to be. Keeping track of fitness in this way helps you keep a healthy tab on your improvements over time and will keep you committed to the gym and a healthy diet!

With the silly season in full swing, we are all out and about eating and drinking to our hearts content. While you might have a plan to keep your food consumption in check, have you thought about the damage your alcohol intake may have on your weight loss goals.

Before you throw caution to the wind and hit the champagne celebrations with avengence, read this article below. It might change your mind about having another drink.

Alcohol and kilojoules

Alcohol contains kilojoules (even hard liquor) and has other effects on your appetite that may interfere with your weight loss efforts. First of all, 400ml of hard liquor (gin, vodka, rum, whiskey, or scotch) contains 270kj for 80 proof varieties and 335kj for those that are 100 proof. The proof refers to the percentage of alcohol in the liquor (80 proof is 40 percent alcohol; 100 proof is 50 percent alcohol).

The alcohol in your 3 to 4 drinks could be contributing anywhere from 300 to 1300 kilojoules. That’s if you’re using only one ounce per drink (many drinks at bars or made at home are made with more than an ounce). If you’re also adding a mixer, the kilojoules may soar! Consider that a cup of orange juice contains 455kj, regular cola or lemon-lime soda has about 420 kj and regular ginger ale, tonic, or quinine water has around 330kj.

If you are having mixed drinks, you can easily be taking in over 2000kj per day from your libations. That’s nearly one-third of the minimum total daily intake range of 6500 to 9000kj for an “average” sized, moderately active woman.

Low Kilojoule options

Which drink (approximate kilojoule content)?

Your liver has a preference for one fuel source at a time

In addition to the calories that all alcohol contains, alcohol interferes with fat burning, something important for weight loss. Normally, the liver metabolizes fats, but when a person drinks, alcohol takes preference. The liver breaks down alcohol for energy first, causing a build-up of fatty acids. What this means is that the body uses the kilojoules supplied from alcohol before it is able to expend the kj’s from fat.

It will always get rid of the toxic substance (alcohol) first. That means that as long as there’s alcohol in your system you won’t be burning any body fat. If you have one or two drinks, you might stall your fat loss for a few hours. If you have quite a few drinks, it might be as long as four days before you’re metabolizing fat again.

This characteristic is referred to as “fat sparing,” meaning alcohol’s presence spares the fat from being utilized for energy.

Alcohol and fluid balance

Besides adding empty kj’s, your alcohol intake may be jeopardizing your health. Messages in the media about alcohol can be quite confusing. Let’s start with an explanation about how alcohol influences your nutritional status, and then about how it impacts your risk for other diseases. First of all, alcohol affects the hormones responsible for fluid balance. As a result, it causes drinkers to urinate frequently, losing body fluids.

When thirsty drinkers have another alcoholic beverage, the vicious cycle of urination –> dehydration –> thirst continues. The only way to break the cycle is to have water or another non-alcoholic beverage. Along with the fluids drinkers lose, they excrete important nutrients as well: calcium, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. Alcohol also interferes with the absorption of vitamins B-1 (thiamin), B-6, B-12, and folate. It causes problems in processing Vitamins A and D, too. As a consequence, nutritional deficiencies are often seen in people who over-imbibe alcohol.

Appetite Stimulator

Alcohol also stimulates appetite in many people (hmm pizza or kebab anyone). This may thwart your weight loss efforts even more. (Ever wonder why restaurants serve you bread first or why the bar is stocked up with peanuts and salty snacks).

Lean bodies and excess alcohol do not mix

The bottom line is that the odd drink now and again is not going to harm you but lean bodies and alcohol just dont mix.

If you really like drinking wine with your dinner and you do not want abs like a cheese grater, why not experiment by having one less drink per night or drinking one less night per week.

More important info

There’s been some recent research about alcohol’s protective benefits from heart disease, specifically by increasing HDL, the “good” cholesterol. A report published by the British Medical Journal in 2002 found that the benefits and risks of drinking alcohol vary by age and sex.

However, the risk of death from diseases including many types of cancer (colon, breast, liver, and oral), hypertension, liver disease, heart disease, and others is positively linked with alcohol consumption. The greater the amounts of alcohol women drink, particularly at younger ages, the greater the likelihood of death from one of the above-mentioned diseases.

This latest study also shows that the risks are lowest for non-drinkers under the age of 35, for both men and women. For 16- to 24-year-olds, risks increase when women drink more than 8 drinks per week and men drink more than 5 drinks per week. Risks also increase with age when women have 8 to 20 drinks a week, and when men have 5 to 34 drinks a week.

To learn more about your own drinking pattern, have you thought about why your drinking is at the level you describe? For example, you may want to ask yourself questions, such as:

• What does drinking 3 to 4 drinks of hard liquor every day offer you?
• What might happen if you cut down to one drink a day, or gradually limit yourself to 3 to 4 throughout the week?
• What is encouraging you to lose weight?
• Might a desire to be healthy motivate you to modulate your drinking?

Are You Destined to Inherit Your Mother’s Body Shape?

Mom’s overweight and you’re hoping not to be? Find out how much control you have over your genes…

Some of Elizabeth’s* fondest memories of her teen years are of baking with her mom. They’d stand in the kitchen, aprons tied around their trim waists, licking cookie batter from wooden spoons. “You could be sisters,” people would remark, gazing admiringly at their similar slim-but-curvy figures.

Fast-forward a few years, and there’s little chance anyone would confuse mother and daughter now. In her late forties, Elizabeth’s mom became broader, thicker, and softer, and all traces of the Charlie’s Angels-esque proportions of her twenties, thirties, and early forties were erased. And no one was paying closer attention than Elizabeth. “We have the same body type, and I worry that I’ll gain weight like she has,” says the 22-year-old Chicago artist. “Neither of us ever exercised or watched our diets, but now I’ve started to do both because I’ve seen what could be in store for me.”

But peeking into your future isn’t as simple as taking a look at your mom. Studies suggest that while your genes may determine up to 80 percent of your weight and body shape, environment and personal choice still play a significant role. So even if you’re a dead ringer for your mother in old family photos, it doesn’t mean you’ll enter middle age with the same body. See, she grew up in a world where women never sweat—and never passed up a slice of pie— while you grew up with soccer and diet-meal delivery services, and experts say this distinction can make all the difference. WH dissected the variety of factors that count…and looked at what control you can exert over them.

Body of Evidence

In the 1990s, studies done on identical twins indicated that genes pretty much determined adult shape and size. But new research is uncovering a more nuanced view. Some aspects of shape and size, it turns out, are more closely tied to genes than others. The ease with which you develop muscle mass, for example, is a highly inherited trait. A study that appeared in the International Journal of Obesity found that while you need physical activity in order to build muscle, people who have “muscular” genes require far less exercise than others to look fit. This finding may have surprised certain geneticists—but not 41-year-old Laura. The Nashville state housing director was adopted as an infant and grew up in a sedentary family. Even so, she was always muscular. “When I met my birth mother when I was in my thirties, I saw she had the same lean, fit body. It was like looking into a mirror.” Nature, one; nurture, nothing.

The other major finding: Apple-shaped bodies are more genetically linked than pear-shaped or skinny ones. Some speculate this is because you also inherit genes from your father, and men typically store extra pounds in their guts. So if your mother carries weight in her stomach too, it could increase your chances of being an apple. From a medical standpoint, this is worrisome because central abdominal fat is associated with several serious conditions, including type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease.

“You inherit half of your genes from your mother and half from your father, so you’re a blend. You can be unlucky and get the worst possible combination from both parents, or be lucky and get the best,” says Harvard medical professor C. Ronald Kahn, M.D.

New research has also uncovered a gene that may affect how much you eat. Neurexin 3, one of the genes recently implicated in regulating waist circumference, is also involved in brain function and has been linked to addictive behaviors such as alcoholism.

Scientists believe this gene, which is carried by about 20 percent of the human population, may trigger a compulsion to overeat— which could explain why obesity tends to run in families the same way certain body shapes do. “Considering how many factors are involved in obesity, it’s interesting that research is increasingly pointing to the brain’s involvement in its development,” says Kari E. North, Ph.D., an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Because this gene has been associated with addiction, we need to think about the psychology of weight gain too.”

Regrettably, these shape-determining genes can be stubborn. Even disciplined dieters often hit a wall after losing the first few pounds or regain weight they’ve lost. Researchers believe this is because each person has a baseline weight, a genetically influenced set point where the body naturally wants to be. If you end up more than 10 percent below your set point, your body will fight back. “The more weight you lose, the harder your body works to compensate,” says David E. Cummings, M.D., a professor of medicine at the University of Washington. “You become hungrier, and your metabolism becomes more efficient. Increasingly, you begin to crave food—and such a drive is very difficult to resist.”

The Lifestyle Link

These new scientific findings are certainly compelling, but don’t count nurture out just yet. “Environment and personal choice can have an impact on body shape,” says North.

The national obesity rate is one clue to the big role that environment can play. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 65 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, a 16 percent increase in fewer than 10 years. Genes have been around as long as human beings have, but the current obesity epidemic is brand-new.

One simple explanation, says Cummings, is the supply of calorie-rich food in our culture. “A couple hundred years ago, not many people had ready access to a lot of food, so only those with an extremely high susceptibility to weight gain became overweight.” Today, for a few bucks, even someone with skinny genes can buy enough food to supersize herself. “We are living in an environment for which our genes just weren’t designed,” Cummings says.

But perhaps one of the biggest wild cards in determining body development is fitness. Women in their twenties and thirties who exercised as kids have less typically “feminine” body types than what was common amongst that same age-group 25 years ago. They have wider middles and narrower hips, and more muscular legs and defined arms—the result of years spent playing sports.

Credit Title IX, legislature that was passed in 1972 giving girls the same athletic opportunities as boys. “Women in their thirties and early forties today are the first generation to benefit from Title IX, and many of them have bodies that look different from those of their mothers, who exercised sparingly, if at all,” notes exercise physiologist Cassandra Forsythe, Ph.D., R.D.

“When you build a lot of muscle as a teenager, your testosterone levels can get slightly higher, and this could contribute to a slightly wider, more boyish middle. You don’t see a lot of 23-inch waists these days.” Exercise also limits body fat in the hip and butt area—where women typically store flab—which explains the slimmer hips.

Diane, a 31-year-old graphic designer from Macungie, Pennsylvania, is a perfect example. “I know I have a tendency to get my mother’s stocky body type,” she says. “But because I grew up swimming and started competing in triathlons when I was in my twenties, and my mom never exercised, my body doesn’t really resemble hers. I’m much leaner and fitter.”

The question is, will all those miles logged override her genetic destiny to morph into her mom? According to Forsythe, you can’t override a genetic predisposition, but building muscle can reshape your body to a degree and delay the point at which your figure starts to widen.

However, muscle mass begins to diminish as you reach menopause, so eventually your body will probably wind up nudging its way back to its genetic set point. The glass-half-full perspective: That hard work will buy you more years of owning a hot bod, and if you stay active into your fifties, you’ll put on less weight than someone who has been using her gym membership card as a bookmark.

Fear Factor

Still, to some women, their mother’s shape is a black cloud that perpetually hangs over their head. Diane took up swimming and triathlons out of a sheer passion for sports, but she acknowledges that being the daughter of an overweight mom affects how she feels about her body and how hard she trains. “I hate to say this, but whenever I start slacking on my training, I picture my mom, and I pedal faster or run harder.”

Clinical psychologist Sherrie Delinsky, Ph.D., hears this sentiment echoed in her private practice in Wellesley, Massachusetts. “When talking with patients who have body-image issues or disordered eating, it often comes out that women have very specific feelings and anxieties about their mothers’ bodies. Women who have never been overweight can become paranoid about gaining, because they’re concerned about looking like their heavy moms,” she says. This is especially true of women like Elizabeth, who come from skinny stock and have seen firsthand what eating too many processed foods can do to naturally thin women over a period of time.

You’d think the daughters of moms with Christie Brinkley-like bodies would have it made. Truth is, girls who aren’t as thin as their moms often feel inadequate. “There’s a lot of competition between mothers and daughters in general, but it often manifests itself in terms of weight and size, because so much cultural importance is placed on appearance,” Delinsky says.

Winning the Genetic War

Despite the slew of new research indicating that certain body shapes are largely preordained, it’s by no means a fat sentence. At the end of the day, you’re in the driver’s seat of your own life and the navigator of your own body. “No matter what your genes or your environment might be, you can’t gain weight unless you’re taking in more calories than you’re expending,” Kahn says. In other words, while you may not be able to change being apple-shaped, it’s certainly well within your power to be the healthiest, fittest apple possible.