Start simple.
I mean, the goal of losing 10 pounds can be daunting. So before I share these 40 Simple Ways of trimming up the tummy, hear out an opposing message:
Not a single one of these tips has the power, in itself, to shave inches off your belly. Even when you do a dozen of them every day – by the way, they are simple enough to be able to do that – you will still not see the inches just disappear. [Fair Warning]
When your saw the word "Easy" in the title of this report, your mind probably told you, "Ha! Who are they joking." Your body – yes, your body talks – your body has unknowingly told your mind that it's HARD to lose belly fat.
Your (weak) mind just agreed with it. Thus, your initial thought is something like, "Yep, it's NOT EASY to lose belly fat." Yet, you are here because you want to believe it can be done. That is your true (strong) mind. And that is precisely what this list of tips is really about.
That's why every single one of these 40 Tips is ACTUALLY and fantastically easy to do – on purpose. Let me tell you why.
Each one contributes not just a weight loss benefit but a mindset benefit. The doing of each one confirms in your mind, as one pebble in a pond, that winning the belly battle is doable. You will develop a healthy mindset with each little exercise. You sense progress in yourself, thus you build momentum and confidence to move your body faster toward the goal.
The word "move" is used with double-meaning. Physically move, of course, is self-evident. Yet more: to mentally move is the vital link here. The fact that you are reading this is proof your mental attitude is now engaged in action.
Each tip contributes not just a weight loss benefit but a mindset benefit. The mental and the physical support each other. Losing belly fat is as much mental as it is physical. Do these exercises. Follow these tips. They can readily fit into your everyday life. Thus, they are effective. By consciously watching your body weight and naturally keeping good health habits, you will improve your mental capacity. As your mental habits improve your physical habits do, too.
Together. The battle over belly fat is won as a joint effort, with the mind and the body cooperating.
So, remember: Start simple. Pick the tips you like. Begin with a few of them. Build your physical AND mental capacities as you go.
Now, let's go lose some belly fat!
40 Easy Exercise Tips to Help Lose Belly Fat:
1. Do short 10-minute workout sessions. Three times a day. Blocking out 30-minutes for aerobic workout seems impossible at first. So, do it in tablets of time. For example, instead of sipping another cup of coffee in the break room at work, take 10 minutes to walk around the block or up and down a few flights of stairs.
2. Join a fitness club with flexible hours. Not one with hours that seemed forced. When others there are slightly more fit than you, you feel challenged to extend yourself more. The key to membership is finding a club which has hours that mesh with yours.
3. Do chores that count for fitness. Burn your calories just by doing everyday chores with vigor. Raking leaves, sweeping the garage, mowing the lawn, washing the car, dusting the house, or running a vacuum, folding laundry. All count as moderate exercise, particularly, if you do them with gusto.
4. Park far away and take the stairs. Skip the elevator. Walk across big parking lots. Just make it a little harder to get where you're going. Make it a fun thing, too. Enjoy the "getting to your destination point." Walk between stores, if possible, when doing errands. Research shows that taking 10,000 steps a day improves physical fitness.
5. Plan a fun weekend activity. Bicycling. Softball. Bowling. Canoeing. Group aerobics class. Hiking with family. Could by by yourself. Could be on a team sport. The key: something you totally enjoy. Mix it up. Carve out time on your weekends to pursue it.
6. Make love to your spouse thrice weekly. An hour of sex can burn 500 calories. Sex is great exercise. It's free and fun, too. It takes energy from both a physical and psychological perspective to do it well. Sex improves cardiovascular health, boosts self-esteem, and helps you sleep better, all needed to maintain a healthy weight.
7. Go outdoors with family. Play catch with your son, weed the garden with your wife. Plan a hike together. Walk the dog. Visit with a neighbor. A way to relax the mind, to warm up relationships, and to do the work of burning off calories.
8. Use social gatherings to initiate activities. Group walks provide peer motivation. Board games stimulate fun and laughter (see #38). Going to coffee shops or shopping together may induce more walking.
9. Make a daily morning routine. Get up 15 minutes earlier. Hydrate yourself right away. Go outside to walk around the block. The cool morning air stimulates your body, and you will find your energy level does not slow down again. You are officially awake and ready for the day.
10. No Dumbbells? Use plastic jugs. Fill them with sand or water for an easy workout. Strength training is an important part of anyone's fitness routine. Ideally, you should work all your major muscle groups at least two days per week. Experiment with the size and fullness of the bottles until you find a weight that's right for you.
11. No Stair-Stepping Machine? Climb stairs. Climb the stairs at home, in apartments, when visiting big buildings. Go up at a quick pace. Try double steps for leg lifting. While walking down, hold the abdomen in.
12. Get a workout partner. Someone to share accountability. A friend raises the excuse bucket. You help motivate each other to keep a regular workout schedule, because you won't want to let down your buddy. You can encourage each other and share tips on what works and what doesn't to make your workouts more effective.
13. Get a resistance band for arm curls, squats. These are long, wide rubber bands. Yo can find them at sporting-goods stores. They are inexpensive, portable, and a great way to add strengthening practice to your home workout. They come in different tensions and are used for many different moves.
14. Do Step-Ups. Step Up aerobics are a great way to burn calories at home. A 200-pound person can burn 333 calories in 15 minutes. Use a household step stool or even a balcony stair. Make sure it is 4-6 inches high and doesn't slip when you step on it.
15. Watch workout videos. Available free online, on Netflix, or from public libraries. Great for motivating yourself in the privacy of your home. You can schedule them on your own time. You get a professionally led, regimented workout, often with high energy music. Very motivational to say the least.
16. When watching TV, do marching or leg lifts during commercial breaks. The good feelings that you get from these small bouts of exercise may encourage you to make room in your day for a longer home-workout routine.
17. Skipping rope. Have high ceilings or driveways. Skipping enhances flexibility while improving your reflexes, balance, and posture. It tones your muscles in arms, legs, and abs. It speeds your heart rate like that of a runner, so it requires a lot of energy to maintain a good fitness point.
18. Join a dance group. Square dancing. Ballroom dancing. Salsa. Dancing conditions the body, builds stamina, strengthens and tones legs, relieves stress, helps you release toxins via sweating. Provides cardiovascular conditioning. Physical benefits aside, dancing has a way of brightening up a person's day.
19. Go to a fitness center. Employers know that a fitness center in the workplace can lower health-care costs and stress at work, while at the same time increase productivity and morale. Many excellent centers exist across the country. They give needed structure in a friendly, supportive environment. If you've never been to one, decide to breakthrough, by finding a friend who does for encouragement.
20. Wear headphones while doing exercises. Motivational tapes. Moving music. Energy songs. Though no scientific study outlines the weight loss benefits directly, indirectly it benefits you by keeping your mind up. Words of inspiration and song can uplift your spirit to keep you motivated to keep moving your body.
21. Increase in small increments. Start with a low doable number of sit-ups, say. Do them religiously each day for a week. After a week, add two. Do that amount for a week. Repeat, by adding just a few each new level. 25 weeks later, where will you be? Wow! Think of it. Start at doable. Increase weekly. Thus you grow.
22. Work with a personal trainer. Even a few sessions can be worthwhile. They benefit you by creating a specific exercise routine, giving you proper technique and form, and helping you stay on track to achieve your goals. You get different points of view and new exercises. Though it is a serious commitment of money and time, no less.
23. Take a break from the gym. Go to a tennis court. Pick up your golf clubs. Go swimming at the local pool. Vary your regimen to juice up your motivational muscles. Don't settle for a routine. It will wake up your senses and give you new thoughts.
24. Consume caffeine 45 minutes before your workout. It can make your workouts vigorous, thus burn more calories. Caffeine may reduce your desire to eat. It stimulates thermo-genesis, one way your body generates heat from digesting food. Remember though, specialty coffees are high in calories and fat.
25. Take up yoga. Without the calorie-burning power of aerobics, yoga is a phenomenal way to put you in touch with your body. The buzzword is mindfulness. To change your lifestyle, to change the way you think about food, to get over destructive eating patterns, yoga gives spiritual connection to your body to help make those changes.
26. Volunteer. Science backs up the idea that volunteering is good for your own physical and mental health. It's a benefit of helping your community, the environment, or other worthy causes. Couple of ideas: Teach intramural sports for youngsters. They'll get you motivated. Or walk dogs for the animal shelter.
27. Skate weekly. Ice skating or roller-blading is a fabulous full-body movement for legs, buttocks, abdomen, and back. To achieve the best results, skate 3 times per week.
28. Mop the floor. You'll be moving your shoulders and twisting to your waist and abdomen. Work the exercise especially with your side and waist. Some similar movements apply when vacuuming.
29. Knead your belly. Using massage lotion after bathing, make circles on the area of your belly in a clockwise direction going out from the belly button with two fingers, then back inwards counter-clockwise. Knead your belly, while imagining heat inside the belly area. This "chi" actually burns or metabolizes your fat away. Don't laugh.
30. Stand and sit up straight. Perfect posture is important for your health. It can instantly make you look 10 pounds lighter and feel confident. Slouching puts undue strain on your muscles. Keep reminder notes around: "Practice Perfect Posture."
31. Do belly dancing. Okay, alone at first. Your belly button is both sexy and a healthy spot. Do it a favor. Face the mirror for technique. Belly dancing gives you improved posture and muscle toning, maintains flexibility, helps prevent lower back problems, tones and firms arms and shoulders, helps with weight loss, reduces stress.
32. Drink up water. Water increases your metabolism to burn calories 3% faster. Thirst and hunger sensations are triggered together. A slight dehydration initiates thirst, which may be mistaken for hunger, causing you to eat when the body is actually craving fluid. Drinking water prevents overeating at meals.
33. Listen to your body. Women, especially, train yourself to go to the bathroom. Don't be so rushed as to ignore your body's signals. If you dismiss them, you prep yourself for bloat-inducing constipation. Adhering to the quiet messages from this profound machine called your body will train you to listen when it tells you enough has been eaten, too.
34. Chew thoroughly. Feel bloated and gassy after eating? When you do not chew your food well, you do not complete digestion, because digestion starts in the mouth not the stomach. When your food is not chewed properly, you do not receive all the nutrients from your food, leaving body cells starved, making you want to eat more.
35. Eat slowly. While you are slowing down, you might find that you learn to stop eating sooner. You might notice that you are full and don't need that extra bite. Besides, you will taste your food, the textures, the flavors, the smells in richer abundance. Eating fast makes you prone to swallow air, which helps develop a potbelly.
36. Give up the gum. Chewing on gum causes your mouth to produce a steady stream of saliva. This is a waste of energy otherwise used for essential metabolic activities. Most chewing gum is sweetened with aspartame. Long term use of aspartame has been linked with diabetes. Chewing also forces you to swallow more air.
37. Take supplements of calcium D-glucarate and B-complex. Both vitamins help you excrete estrogen, the hormone which can lead to a smaller middle. Excess estrogen causes the body to retain fat around the waist.
38. Relax already. Your body under stress produces extra steroids and cortisol, hormones that send fat directly to the midsection. This affects your digestion and causes constipation. Tell yourself that 20 minutes of the day belongs to you alone, and then do something that gets your mind off things and is soothing on the body.
39. Take a walk after lunch. Not immediately. Let the digestive system work first for about thirty minutes. Walking instantly directs your blood to your limbs and not to your stomach. This is not good for digestion. After a short rest, then go for a leisurely stroll. Not only is it good for your health but also keeps you sharp.
40. Laugh. No joke. Laughing increases the heart rate 10 percent to 20 percent. Ten to 15 minutes of laughter could increase energy expenditure by 10 to 40 calories per day, which could translate into about four pounds a year. Watch a comedy sitcom at night. Laughing also tones the transverse abdominus that helps flatten your midriff.
As you know, none of these 40 Tips by themselves will fundamentally change your game to lose belly fat. What they do, however, is help you change your lifestyle one step at a time.
It is a mindset shift that takes place. You still have to learn more, do more, exercise more, and eat better foods. The little things practiced here begin to add up to a momentum of powerful change.
You have already decided that you will feel better, look better, and do more by reading through these tips. Now. Pick one. And do it. It's time to gain a mindset momentum and lose some belly fat.
