Getting that flat belly that you’ve always wanted and coveted for those little ittie bittie summer time bikinis that every girl wants to fit into come spring time, doesn’t just require ridiculous amount of crunches, situps and side bends, but it also unfortunately requires that you really focus on your diet and the things that you are putting into your body. After all, the fat that goes into the belly area is made up of extra calories, sugar, fats and other no nos, and it takes the time and energy to actually stop putting those types of foods into your mouth in order to get the results you want.

One of the first rules of thumb for a flat tummy is to cut down dramatically on your refined carbs and only eat the most oaty, wheat filled and whole grain breads and other grain related products, instead of those made with white flour. This doesn’t mean you can go crazy on the grains either though, excess carbs, no matter what kind, will make your belly appear puffier and flabbier, and cuttin these types of products out of the diet and replacing them with more green veggies, fruits and lean proteins will make the belly appear thinner and more toned almost immediately.

Make sure you drink adequate amounts of water when starting to eat right, it flushes out toxins and excess salt, which can make the belly appear bloated. It will help to add to that sleek, toned and flat look that you’re going for. As far as exercises for the belly, make sure you are targeting the right areas. If you have a little pooch at the bottom, do the exercises that target that area instead of the ones (which most of them are) that target the upper abs. It’s trickier to target the lower abs, but once you learn to manipulate this crucial area, you’ll soon see that little pouch go down.

Well, my boyfriend and I just got done doing the first level (there are three levels total) of Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred DVD. Jillian Michaels is of “Biggest Loser” fame, where she kicks people’s butts who want to lose weight and whips them into shape in record time. She’s actually a really petite little thing, and she’s got guns that I’d love to have, not an inch of fat to spare, and a great set of abdominal muscles. The best thing though is that she knows how to motivate people.

She has a really easy way about her that makes you feel like you might have known her for years, and she also shares little tidbits of workout knowledge with you along the way which make you feel like what you’re doing is for a reason and will really work because it is so intense in a short amount of time – the segment runs about twenty minutes. She explains why circuit training, which is what she does on the 30 Day Shred, helps your body to simultaneously burn off fat and calories, while also getting lean muscle, which is a tricky part of dieting. Sometimes people try to bulk up with muscle work without really concentrating on the cardio part of everything, which makes them put on weight without getting the fat off first.

She also explains things like why she has your upper and lower body moving at the same time. She says that is because you get the maximum calorie burn when both your upper limbs and lower limbs are moving at the same time, as opposed to just one of the other at a time. She also focuses on the upper body probably more than she does the abs, which is good for most of us, especially women, because we usually don’t focus on this area enough and we do tend to have weaker upper body strength because of this.

What you do is alternate two minutes of cardio, which is butt kicks, jumping jacks and fake jump roping, with muscle workouts, which consist of a lot of squatting a lunging (I know, not my favorite either, but it’s highly effective, which is why most of us hate it – because it’s hard but it works), and a lot of upper body work such as pushups, combined with abdominal work like bicycles with the legs and straight up crunches.

The program of the 30 Day Shred is designed for you to start off on the level 1 workout for ten days, then go to level two for ten days, then finally onto the hardest level for the last ten days, to really get your metabolism revved and get maximum fat off the body as well as maximum calorie burning, so that you can really kick start your weight loss goals. My boyfriend and I decided we are going to follow through with the whole thirty days and see if it helps us to really kick our weight loss goals into overdrive. It’s tough stuff, but I felt really good and energized after I did level 1.

No matter how many times I tell myself that consistency is one of the most important aspects of working out is actually doing it on a consistent basis, I still get into those ruts for a week or so at a time, where I rarely visit the gym or pop in one of my workout dvd’s, simply because I feel like I’m too busy to even bother with it. This is of course almost never true, there is always time to squeeze in some sort of workout, even if it’s only a half hour or so, but once you get into a rut of inactivity, it sometimes becomes it’s own animal and grows it’s own legs.

The problem with that of course is that inactivity is not good for you for several reasons. First, it makes your metabolism basically stall, so you burn less fat all day than you would if you got in about 30 to 40 minutes of aerobic activity. It also stagnates your circulation, and can even make your appetite get larger in proportion to the lack of calories you are burning when you do not move around much.

Inactivity also breeds more of the same, and it gives many of us the sense that it’s almost too late to get back on the horse and start working out again. We lose ourselves in lounging around, and sometimes we let ourselves think that it’s ok to stop exercising because we don’t see any immediate disadvantages, but over a period of just a few weeks, it definitely drains your energy levels and affects your mood, your calorie burning, and your overall well being if you continue to not work out and are used to doing so.

I was thinking about this whole consistency thing with working out because my boyfriend and I just got done visiting with his brother and his wife, who just had a new baby – their first child, and it was admirable that they both still made time to work out even with a brand new baby in the house. They both also happen to eat healthy and have a very health y lifestyle, and both also happen to be pin thin and have little health problems, this really drove home for me what consistency can do for you when it comes to exercising.

I bet when you think of fitness, you think of running on a treadmill, or perhaps outside running, or lifting heavy weights. You may even conjure a picture in your mind of some buff bodybuilder types, or maybe the latest swimsuit model on Sports Illustrated if you’re a woman. However, what most people tend to forget in their pursuit for youth-restoring fitness is the fact that keeping and cultivating our sense of balance is also vital to maintaining a healthy posture, as well as stability and the ability to stay mobile well into your later golden years. We forget because we don’t think it’s important.

Take for example my boyfriend and I who are in our thirties, when we got our Wii Fit unit. We couldn’t figure out why balance seemed to be so important in it’s weekly fitness assessments. We had to stand on a board and make our bodies do things that required balance, and then we were “graded” on it by the Wii Fit computer, showing what our “age” was according to how we did on our balance and fitness test, combined with out BMI.

That sort of got me aware that balance and balancing exercises are just as important as cardiovascular and scultpint/toning fitness in your routine, and yet this part of the routine is so commonly disregarded by people because they simply don’t know of it’s importance.

One of the best things you can do for balance is to take a yoga class or start doing beginner yoga dvd’s at home. Yoga helps to cultivate balance in the body with it’s challenging postures, and it also increases the strength in the lower and upper body, making you have a better chance at staying fit well into your later years. It also has anxiety relieving benefits that don’t compare to other forms of exercise. If you don’t like yoga, try a balance ball. They are immensely popular today and can provide great exercises that force you to balance your lower and upper body, while also helping to tone the muscle.

I have done the Crunch Pick Your Spot Pilates DVD 3 times now, and I must say I really like it. Not only does it offer a very challenging pilates workout, but I also like the leader of the video. She’s easy to understand, doesn’t pace the video too fast or too slow, and she has put together three different segments of pilates in 10 minute workout phases, one for each of the biggest problem spots on women (and men, but pilates is primarily a woman driven exercise so far). The first ten minute segment is for the belly (abs), the second segment is for the butt, and the third part is for the thighs.

The abs one is great, with some really innovative techniques for working the obliques and the lower abs, which are incredibly hard to target and tone. Not only are they effective, and you will feel them the next day, but they are actually kind of fun to do, and the way she breaks them up so that you aren’t doing one of them for too long, you don’t get bored and you feel like it’s moving right along through the ten minute piece, so it seems to fly by in contrast to a grueling twenty minute, multiple repeat workout where you are exhausted and ready to move on by the end of it.

The second segment is for the butt. We all want to get a firmer, more shapely butt, and although some of these exercises I would say were more targeted for the thighs than the actual buttocks (at least that’s where I felt them, maybe I wasn’t entirely doing them correctly), my butt was on fire during certain parts. This also included some different ways to tone that I had never tried before, and I’ve tried quite a few exercise regimens and programs in my life since I’ve been working out since I was sixteen years old and am now 34 years old.

The next day, I have always felt a little sore from doing these, but after the third time I did it I felt less sore. The thighs part is also excellent, fast paced and highly effective in target toning the thighs. You have to be careful to position the parts of the body exactly as she instructs so you get the most bang for your buck though, for instance, if she wants you to point your feet, point them instead of flattening them, this accentuates that awesome part of pilates that helps you to streamline the body and make it appear longer and leaner. Also, as in yoga dvds, your breath is important, so make sure you are exhaling when she says to exhale and inhaling when she says to inhale. This also accentuates your results.

Well, it may just be true that short, and I mean very short, bursts of physical activity throughout your day may help to ward off diabetes, and that’s a great benefit, showing that exercise can be truly beneficial even in ways that we never thought possible because we always tend to think in terms of killer workouts being beneficial. It reminds me of when I was talking to a good friend and she said that she just can’t get into yoga or other exercises that are nonaerobic in nature because she feels like if she’s not working up a big sweat and jumping around the floor, physcially stretching herself, it’s not “real exercise”.

Lots of people feel this way, but that may also be the reason that lots of people just skip working out all together, because they equate it with long, grueling sessions in the gym or at home that they just don’t have the time, energy, or enthusiasm for. I’ve been there, done that, so I totally understand that mentality!

It appears that short bursts of physical activity, even to the tune of three measly minutes, may help boost your protection against a very common and growing problem here, especially in the US – diabetes. Diabetes is an affliction that causes the body to not be able to convert insulin into energy, and instead causing destabilized levels of insulin in the blood stream, leading to everything from high and low blood sugar, which effects our bodies and mental state immensely, to causing blindness and lack of circulation to our extremities, a more common effect and the reason that serious diabetics have to wear special shoes.

The participants in this study only rode an exercise bike for intervals of about 30 seconds, albeit very hard intervals, 4 times a day. They weren’t in shape but also not extremely heavy, and it as shown through this study that even this small amount of exercise was beneficial in warding off diabetes, suggesting that small bursts of exercise throughout the day may be just as beneficial in decreasing diabetic risk as several longer workouts per week.

I got this question after writing an article on exercises that can help that dreaded saddle bag area that hangs on the sides of the hips of so many women. It’s one of the toughest areas on a woman’s body to target and downsize, because this fat is purposefully stubborn to slim down. By the way, one of my favorite ways to help sculpt the thighs down without bulking up is the elliptical machine.

This excess fat actually enhances a woman’s brainpower per some recent studies, and this specific area of fat may also help protect a woman against diabetes, and therefore a slew of other health issues. It nonetheless isn’t much of a comfort when you have quite a bit in excess, I realize! So, without further ado, let’s talk about the question that a reader had on the saddle bag exercises.

First, I’ll reiterate which exercises I’m talking about, which we went over in this post on exercises for saddle bags if you want to read it in it’s entirety. It’s a plie (from ballet, pronounced plee-ay), style exercise, only the exerciser is laying flat on their back while they are doing it, with their feet sretched way up in the air to start off. With the soles of the feet together, you would make a sort of diamond shape up in the air, and with your soles still together, bring them down to the crotch area, for a compressed diamond shape.

You do this repeatedly, without the soles of the feet coming apart, and you’ll really feel the burn in the intended area after quite a few reps of this saddle bag busting exercise. It takes time for it to work, and you do have to be consistent, but it will give you a nicer, more streamlined shape over time. This doesn’t of course mean you can pig out and still expect results, as with any other exercise, but it is a nice targeted workout for those concerned with this all too common problem spot.

Here’s the question and answer a reader had on these saddle bag exercises :

Question :
Hi, I was reading your article on the dreaded saddle bags I was just wondering how often one would have to do the exercises everyday ?

PLease advise

Thanks

Answer :
Yes, ideally they are every day, starting with about thirty reps, working your way up to eighty (I know it seems hard, but you get better at it). The woman who shared this exercise with me told me she used to do them every day and then worked her way down to every other day. When you get it down to a science, you should be able to get them overwith fairly quickly though, so it shouldn’t take a huge chunk out of your day.

It’s almost like a concentrated form of pilates that targets that specific saddle bag problem area.

Hope this helps!

I’ve made a rather disturbing discovery lately. I recently have dieted, along with my boyfriend, to try to get rid of the effects of overeating around the holidays, where I put on weight to the tune of ten pounds – which I know is awful, but we got the most carried away we ever had with entertaining and going out to restaurants for about two months before the holidays, and then a few weeks after, so we both piled on more weight than we ever had during our almost seven month courtship.

We’re not happy about it, and although I have been working out here and there during that weight gain period, it wasn’t enough to offset the poor diet choices. Working out became for me simply a method to blow off steam and reduce stress during that time, as I knew that my food intake was too much for it to totally offset any potential holiday weight gain.

Now that we’ve been on a strict diet for the past almost three weeks, I’ve been noticing that where I’m losing weight, which apparently is my belly area so far, my muscle tone has slackened, and I almost look like I’ve had a child or something because the skin is just handing, whereas I’ve never had that problem before in my abdominal area. It feels like when I sit down, it’s rolling over my pants, which I can’t stand.

What I’ve done to try to counteract it is to make sure I’m eating a diet that’s high in fruits and veggies, which are tummy slimming foods, and I’ve also been stepping up my obdominal work during my exercise routines. I’ve also tried to include a lot of muscle toning yoga, which strengthens the core and the belly. So far it’s getting a little better, but I do notice that the more weight I drop, the more I notice this “looseness” there.