Monthly Archives: August 2011

Second Step to lose muffin top

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The last post on how to lose muffin top touched on exercise and I will be coming back to that in a future blog post but this one is going to be about what you eat.

Exercise and nutrition go hand in hand .There are only 2 ways to lose body fat, exercise more or eat less (in a healthy way). The best and quickest results come from combining the 2.

In my previous post on exercise I said to choose something that you enjoy, that way you are more likely to stick to it. Same goes for changing what you eat when you change your diet (I am not talking about those fad diets people keep coming up with I am talking about what you normally eat day in day out). Diets tend not to work as they encourage you to make a drastic change for a set amount of time and yes you may see results and they are fast but as soon as you stop that diet you will find the pounds piling back on. The fat will go right back to where it was before as fat cells don’t disappear they grow or shrink. New fat cells can be created though. So when you change what you eat make sure you choose foods you like…

If you are exercising but eating the wrong types of food then you are unlikely to notice much change in your body, there may be some but it wont be as quick as it could be and that pesky muffin top is likely to still be hanging around.

You also need to think about the amount you are eating. If you eat more calories than you use then you put on weight, if you eat less calories than you use then you lose weight. It all sounds so simple and it is. You may find it useful to keep an activity and food diary (every activity you do uses some calories – even having a shower) that way you can see if you are eating more calories than you are using.

A balanced diet should consist of eating the right amount of foods from the 5 following groups:

  • Fruit and vegetables
  • Meat, fish, eggs, beans (other non dairy sources of protein)
  • Bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods (wholegrain varieties where you can)
  • Some milk and dairy
  • small amount of food high in fat and/or sugar

Yes that’s right you need some fat in your diet here are only a couple of reasons why:

  • fat provides energy
  • fat helps your body absorb certain vitamins

The key here is the type of fat that you should have. We want mainly unsaturated fat (as opposed to saturated fat) which can be found in plant based food and oily fish.

I don’t find it is realistic to expect people to completely cut out certain types of food (chocolate for instance) but just think about the amount you are eating of that particular food and how much extra exercise you would need to do to burn the extra calories off.

Remember if you don’t take a look at what you eat and change your diet accordingly then you will probably need to make friends with that muffin top as it will be around for a while, it could even grow.

Here on how to lose muffin top I recommend any change you make to be one that’s sustainable so that you stick to it, the change has to be a lifestyle change. If you do something regularly for 3 months or more you have a higher chance of continuing with it as the change will have become a part of your life and routine.

Anyone with special dietary needs should check with a dietician before changing their diet.

 

 

First step to banishing that pesky muffin top

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Exercise! Now don’t groan I know exercising is not necessarily what gets people jumping for joy but this is really one of the keys to help you lose a muffin top. Remember we need to reduce body fat and that’s only going to happen if we start to put in some effort and start exercising.

Enjoyment is key here, you need to pick a type of activity that you are going to enjoy, be it walking, cycling, swimming, playing a sport or any other form of physical activity that is going to get you raising your heart rate. Hey some find shopping can do that too.

If you haven’t exercised for a while then you need to start gently, I would recommend starting with walking and increase your intensity over time once your fitness has increased. If it has been a long time since you have exercised or you suffer from any kind of heart condition or any other condition then do check with your doctor before starting any kind of exercise.

Intensity, yep I used that earlier, this is going to be what hits the nail on the head and starts to melt away that body fat leading to those muffin tops shrinking. What you need to be aiming for is pushing yourself that little bit harder, if you can walk at a brisk pace and find yourself out of breath then this is good it shows you are working yourself harder than normal, if on the other hand you find a brisk walk just doesn’t get you breathing any harder than if you were out for a normal stroll then you need to increase your intensity, maybe a slow jog to begin with to see how that feels.

Increasing your intensity at intervals is what we are aiming for, so maybe a normal walk for 2 minutes then a brisk walk for 1 minute and back down to a normal walk for 2 min. The times of these can be adjusted to suit you, if you are just starting off then maybe walk for 5 mins and brisk walk for 1minute. The same for those who are fitter, ie, jog for 2 mins, sprint for 1 min again these times can be changed to suit you but the aim is to work your way up so you can do higher intensity for longer, so reduce the amount of time you are going at an easier pace and increase the time you go at a higher intensity.

You can do this with any form of exercise, i.e. cycling you can increase your intensity with the use of your ears or finding hills.

Now those muffin tops are not going to disappear overnight this is going to need you to do a form of physical activity at least 5 days a week for 20 mins or more. This is the start and there are many more benefits to starting to exercise than just losing your muffin tops, you may well find yourself starting to have more energy.

 

Before you lose your muffin top…

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If you have clicked on the link that has led you here to my how to lose muffin top blog then it is because you already know what one is and feel like you want to do something about yours. Yes I hear you, you want to get rid of it.

No one wants a muffin top hanging over their waistbands. How many of you have seen them in the street and then hoped that yours isn’t showing like that. There are many blogs/posts/articles on the internet that tell you that the cause is from wearing a size too small and to fix it just buy a pair of jeans etc. in the next size up (or another frequently written fix is to stop wearing low rise jeans). This is not the answer, yes it may help if you are wearing a size too small (time to be truthful and have a good look at whether this is you), not everyone fits the generic sizing you find in shops. If you went down a size in jeans for instance you may find that they are not fitting well in the legs or bum and no one wants a saggy bum in jeans (the reverse is usually that you want your bum to look perky and peachy). The best fix is by getting rid of the fat that is being stored not by trying to hide it, I find hiding things doesn’t work anyway as you know it’s still there and now it is effecting what you can and can’t wear.

People come in all shapes and sizes and their fat is stored in different places. If you have a muffin top then yes, one reason could be that you are wearing the wrong size but more than likely you may have extra fat stored in that area. No one likes to be told they have fat stored anywhere but come on lets all be honest we all have fat on our bodies stored somewhere.

So what my how to lose muffin top blog is going to do is just that help you lose the muffin top not hide it.

First things first, we cannot spot reduce fat we can exercise certain areas of the body to increase tone but when you start losing weight and reducing your body fat this will happen all over your body. As I said earlier people store fat in different places, some store it in their hips, their boobs, their mid region, legs etc but when they lose it they lose it from all over their bodies.

You will need to put in the effort but the rewards will be worth it. Stay tuned for the next post where we really get started.