Everyone likes a drink now and then, so ditching drinking in favour of your weight loss wellness can make you jack in your diet altogether. According to personal chef Diane Henderiks, RD, founder of Dish with Diane, your liver processes alcohol before other it does any other carbs and protein, meaning that the sheer presence of alcohol in your body slows down your fat-burning ability. Your wellbeing won’t be ruined if you have stick to one drink a day (that’s five ounces of wine, 12 ounces beer, or one ounce of a spirit) but if you want to drink AND lose weight, you might need to develop a few of the following healthy habits as well:
1. Chill Out: Cortisol is the hormone that encourages your body to store fat—particularly in your abdominal region – and anxiety causes cortisol to be produced in spades. It has been shown that deep-breathing exercises help to lower your stress levels, so pause for some deep-breathing time every hour. Set an hourly alarm on your phone and, when it goes off, take five to 10 deep-belly breaths, inhaling for five counts and exhaling for 10 counts.
2. Eat Enough: This is good advice for anyone wanting to lose weight, regardless of whether you ditch the drinks or not. When you don’t eat enough food to satisfy your body, it goes into starvations mode, Henderiks warns. This means that, out of fear of not being fed, your body will store extra fat for energy, rather than burning it off and keeping your belly taut.
3. Keep Up Your Strength: The more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism is and the more calories you burn all day long. This is because muscle is more metabolically active than fat, and exercise physiologist Tom Holland, author of Beat the Gym: Personal Trainer Secrets Without the Personal Trainer Price Tag, asserts that you need to do two to three total-body strength sessions a week in order to build that quality lean muscle.
4. Eat Wholegrains: In a study from PennsylvaniaStateUniversity, it was found that eating wholegrains instead of refined grains helps you lose more fat around your midsection. Moreover, researchers at Tufts University have reported that including three servings of whole grains and less than one serving of refined carbs in their diets every day helped participants lose 10% more visceral fat than those who didn’t follow this diet.
5. Work Your Abs from All Angles…: Celebrity trainer Gunnar Peterson, who works with Sofia Vergara, Kim Kardashian, and Vanessa Lachey, points out that there are three planes of motion you need to target when working on your abs. To challenge and define your ab muscles, you need to hit your sagitall plane (front to back and up and down) with crunches and reverse crunches; your frontal movement (side-to-side) with standing side bends; and transverse action (rotational) with chops or twists.
6….But Don’t Overdo the Ab Work: While you need to do ab-specific moves to tone your tummy, Holland asserts that these are the “finishing moves” once you’ve removed excess fat via diet and exercise. The majority of your workout should be focused on the rest of your body, and only 10% of your time should be dedicated to abs work. For the other 90% of your workout, focus on strength training and/or cardio.
7. Drink More…Green Tea: There is a whole heap of studies show to show that green tea deals with belly fat. This is due to an antioxidant called EGCG which helps boost metabolism and may specifically target abdominal fat.
