How to reduce belly fat
This month at Mio we welcome the return of a classic:The Get Waisted Challenge. Tasking customers with use of Get Waisted every day for 30 days, it helps them tone, tighten and sculpt their tummy, with consistent use enhancing the appearance and elasticity of your stomach.
What Get Waisted won’t do unfortunately is remove large fat deposits, so to help you on your quest for a flat tummy, we’ve collated some simple yet effective lifestyle changes you can make to help reduce belly fat.
Reduce Sugar Intake
When we eat sugary foods, our bodies break down the sugars consumed, turning them into glucose. This is then transported around the body and used for energy wherever we may need it, be that our organs or tissues. When it’s not needed however, our body stores the excess in our liver and muscles as glycogen, which then turns to fat once this storage is full.
This means that eating lots of foods which are high in sugar can rapidly increase the rate at which our tummy grows, meaning that it becomes increasingly tough to reduce belly fat. Make sure you check the labels of the foods you eat, watching out for hidden sugars such as corn syrup, sucrose and fruit juice concentrate, and being especially sure to avoid any processed or refined sugars.
Chew your food
We know what you’re thinking, this is a given, right? Although we all chew our food (obviously!), it’s recommended that each bite is chewed around 30 times before swallowing. When we do this, our bodies undergo several processes that trigger digestion, releasing digestive enzymes in our stomachs, which in turn convert our meals into energy.
On top of this, chewing food properly can help prevent indigestion and bloating, as well as triggering the production of hydrochloric acid which helps speed up the pace at which we digest our food, so is super important if you’re wanting to really reduce belly fat.
Get a good night’s sleep
Sleep is so imperative to every aspect of our health, and if you’ve ever had a bad night’s sleep, you’ll know just how true that is. You wake up irritable, groggy and with completely depleted energy levels.
Sleep deprivation has the exact same impact on our metabolism and the body’s ability to manage fat. Studies have shown that after just four days of disturbed sleep, your body’s insulin sensitivity drops by more than 30%, with this resistance then causing the body to store fat in all the wrong places. To avoid this happening, it’s important that you get a minimum of 7 hours’ good sleep a night.
Reduce your stress levels
Easier said than done, we know, but if you’re truly on a mission to reduce belly fat, then it’s a lifestyle change that you need to actively seek. Stress causes the body to release the hormone cortisol, which increases our appetite, meaning that even if you believe you’re hungry, your body may not really require that food you’re so desperately craving. Check out our blog here for tips on how to de-stress and love yourself.
Food sensitivities
Address them. If you think that you get unusually bloated when you eat pasta, or drink milk, it may be that you have a sensitivity to gluten or lactose. Many people suffer from sensitivities which go undetected for years, thus suffering from inflammation of the gut which can not only cause bloating, but infection too. It’s always worth speaking to your doctor about this or alternatively undertaking an elimination diet, avoiding said foods for a month to see if it makes a difference.
