You can make your fat belly into a flat belly quite naturally. No need of starving, no need of extreme diet control, no need of rigorous exercises and no need of slimming pills. These 7 tips will show you how.

How do you know you have a fat belly?

There are a few simple tests. Look at your belly – the area to the left or right of your belly button. Try to hold that area between your thumb and index finger. Can you hold it? You can not, if you have belly fat. The measure of a flat stomach is thickness of the two layers of flesh between your fingers should not be more than an inch.

Stand straight and hang a masons’ plumb rule, holding its line touching the middle of your chest and its bob reaching just above your feet. If the bob hangs freely without its line touching your belly, it is the indication of a flat stomach.

There is a much simpler test. When you take bath, look at yourself in the mirror. Are you happy with what you see? If you have a bulging stomach, you will definitely feel awkward and promise yourself to do something about it. But the problem is, once you get nicely dressed, you will forget about it and go back to your usual ways of bad living habits. Your dress hides most of your body defects.

How do you develop stomach bulge?

Some people believe that sleeping immediately after lunch causes bulging tummy. It is not true.

Reasons for stomach bulge:

  • Drinking water before and during food. People drink plenty of water before food to reduce the quantity of food intake. Some people drink water while eating food. In both cases, the water remains in the stomach along with food for a long time and causes stomach stretch.
  • Food rich in carbohydrates. Polished white rice, refined wheat products etc. are filled with carbohydrates and practically nothing else. Your body stores the extra carbohydrates in the form of fat.
  • Late night dinner. If you eat heavy late night dinner (10 P.M. or later) and sleep, there is no chance of burning all the calories as there is no physical activity. Most of the calories turn into fat.
  • Insufficient or no exercise. Present day automated world requires very little physical exercise in our daily work. We may just move our hands and feet. No movement for abdominal muscles. These muscles become loose and start stretching.

Fat gets stored in different places in men and women due the difference in sex hormones.  For women, fat gets stored in thighs, buttocks and hips. It is stored in the belly of men.

How do you turn your fat belly into flat belly?

  1. Drink water only when the stomach is empty. It prevents stretching of abdominal muscles. After drinking water, give a gap of half an hour before taking food. Similarly, drink water two hours after food. This has a number of other health benefits too.
  2. Remove high calorie food (refined rice, refined wheat etc., which are filled with carbohydrates) and empty calorie food (junk food) from your diet.
  3. Include plenty of vegetables and leafy greens in your diet. 75% of your food should consist of vegetables or leafy greens.
  4. No cooked food for breakfast. Eat only sprouted seeds. Include 3 or 4 varieties of seeds.
  5. No cooked food for dinner. Have two or three varieties of fruits with less calorie content. Examples: guava, pomegranate, papaya, orange, water melon.
  6. Finish your dinner between 6 P.M. and 7 P.M. No more food in solid or liquid form. If you feel hungry later, mix three spoonfuls of honey in a glass of water, squeeze half a lemon into it and drink. Honey gives instant energy.
  7. Practice Utthana padasana and Naukasana. These asanas (postures) help in reducing belly fat better than other conventional exercises.

With regular practice, these 7 tips will turn your fat belly into flat belly.

Reference:  Gowripathi


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