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Lose stomach fat: How to get a flat belly

[email protected] (Health Me Up )
February 23, 2013

Burn-Tummy-FatWhy lose stomach fat? Because it makes everyone uncomfortable, to say the least.

In everyday life we don't fret about some loose stomach fat hanging over our waistbands, but festivities, weddings, and seaside vacations leave you staring at the mirror. The frustrating reality is that the midsection is one of the trickiest areas to lose fat from. Many believe that one can lose stomach fat by simply doing a few ab crunches every day. But that's not the truth. In reality, achieving a flat stomach is a combination of a range of factors like diet, exercise, rest, hydration, and so on. Read on for some great tips on how to lose stomach fat...

Understand the science behind six pack abs for a flat belly.The simple science behind six pack abs is that they exist in everybody. It's just when you start putting on more body fat that these abs disappear. A combination of two major muscles transversus abdominis and rectus abdominis muscles make up what we consider to be our 'abs' zone.

These muscles are buried under the front and side of torso mucles and exist around your midsection like a girdle. Now, if you ate a healthy diet comprising of lean proteins, balanced carbs and less, yet good, fats, you would enter a zone with minimal superficial body fat, and your muscles would become visible, resulting in six pack abs.

Tip #1

Importance of eating lean proteins for a flat belly. First and most important is to understand that lean proteins are proteins from sources that supply little or almost negligible amount of fat. The Harvard School of Public Health notes that lean sources of protein aid in keeping the saturated fat intake at a healthy level. When you are on sources of proteins such as chicken, beans you find yourself losing body fat and at the same time giving shape to your body. You get most of the vitamins from these sources which improve your health as well.

Importance of fiber in your diet for a flat belly. Fiber is one of the most important constituents of our diet. The main function of fiber is to clean our system deep within, help propel our bowel movements and thus form the basis of detoxification of our body. Most astonishing is the fact that when we consume fiber, our body burns ample calories in the digestion process of fiber. Also fiber itself has very few calories. In short, eating lots of fiber in the form of fruits, salads and bran helps our belly to run slim with ease.

Tip #2

Importance of staying away from fruit juices, alcohol and fruit punches for a flat belly. In general juices, alcohol and fruit punches are calorie dense and often disturb the blood sugar levels in our body. Where moderate and controlled alcohol consumption has certain beneficial effects too, fruits are best taken in their natural fiber form rather than taking them in the form of juices. Juices give your body less essential fiber, and the concentrated sugar is not the best thing for you if you are aiming for a flat belly. Eating fresh should be the mantra of healthy living.

Tip #3

Importance of nutrient dense and good fat foods for a flat belly. Nutrient dense and good fat foods are those that have essential fatty acids and other vital nutrients in rich quantity with less calories and saturated fats. First would be something like a grilled fish. With certain essential fatty acids, proteins and less saturated oil, this is a perfect example of a nutrient dense good fat food.

Now consider a pastry. It is more than 200 calories, with a lot of saturated fat and a few essential nutrients to offer. This is something you must take very sparingly. Thus, picking items such as grilled fish or soyabean chaat will help one supply the body with essential fats, improve cardiac health and at the same time keep your body fat low to give you a perfect belly. A nutrient-dense diet won't leave you feeling hungry so aiming at a flatter belly is much easier with nutrient dense food.

Tip #4

Importance of cardio exercises and strength training for a flat belly. All types of cardio exercise routines elevate your heart rate and keep it in the same way for extended periods of time. This results in increased consumption of oxygen, which leads to fat loss. Fat loss and stamina building are equally important. If you eat healthy and workout, your chances of achieving a flatter belly increases.

Tip #5

Importance of water in your diet for a flat belly. Water constitutes 70% of our body. Most of our metabolic process takes place in the presence of water in our body. Thus, when we are well hydrated the basal metabolic rate of our body goes up. This would mean that our body is able to digest the food we eat in a proper manner, the food is used to burn sufficient calories required by the body and thus you end up with a nice flat belly to improve your figure

Tip #6

Push ups. Place yourself face down with the palms on the floor. Place the palms wider than the shoulder-width, arms extended, legs straight and feet together or slightly apart. Keep the neck, back & hips aligned and abdominals contracted. Do not arch the back downwards or upwards. Keep it flat like a table top. Bend the elbows outwards and bring the chest close to the floor. This is the initial position. Push back upwards till the arms extend completely and feel the contraction in the chest muscles.

Tip #7

Ball balance. Lie on the ball and exhale, pulling your abs in a stabilize position. Now, raise your right arm in a frontward direction and left leg on the back side. Breathe and hold yourself in this position for 10 seconds. In the meantime, using your ab and back muscles, keep the ball steady and body in a straight line. Repeat this same exercise in with the opposite arm and left. Perform a set of 5 on each side. In order to make this exercise harder, hold yourself in the raised position as if you are writing something in the air with your extended arm. Switch sides and repeat.

Tip #8

Side lying shoulder & double leg raise (Obliques). Lie on the side with the legs extended & the body in a straight line. Extend the lower arm so that it is perpendicular to the body. The palm of your hand should face the floor. Keep the upper arm by the side, aligned with the body. Balance & slowly raise the lower shoulder (the one touching the floor) & both the legs off the floor simultaneously. This works the side (waist) facing upwards. Come down slowly. After completing a set of certain repetitions, repeat the procedure on the other side. In order to make this exercise tough, you can do bicycle crunches too (as shown in the pic above).

Tip #9

Elevated plank. Place your forearms on the ball and keep your fingers interlaced. Now extend your legs straight behind and take the help of your toes for support. Now exhale, pulling your belly button towards your spine and hold yourself in this position for 30 to 60 seconds. Make sure your back is straight and in a flat line. Give yourself a break of 30 seconds and repeat. In order to make this exercise easier, you can perform it by placing your forearms on the floor. And, for a harder version of this exercise, move from a plank to a swiss ball. Here, try and bring your knees towards your chest and do 10 repetitions per leg.

Tip #10

Reverse Crunch. Lie on your back with the arms extended downwards towards the feet and palms on the floor. Place the hands under the lower back & hip. Legs should be bent at 90 degrees up in the air. Using the abdominal muscles, i.e. contracting them, roll the spine & the hips upwards so that the knees come towards the face. Slowly go down without changing the angle of the legs. Note - Do not extend the legs while lifting the hips off the floor. Keep the knees together & the legs strictly bent at 90 degrees.

Tip #11

The first thing that you should be doing soon after you wake up is to start your day with a glass of lukewarm lemon water followed by a vegetable juice like mint and coriander or ghia juice. This will help kickstart your metabolism at a healthy pace. You should then do some physical activity like brisk walk or jogging for a minimum of 30 minutes with some exercises concentrating on the stomach.

Tip #12

Breakfast is super important. Never skip your breakfast, if you want to lose weight. When you wake up in the morning your metabolism is at its peak and if you don't eat food in the morning then your metabolism will slow down during the day.

With slow metabolism whatever you will eat for the rest of the day, your chances of gaining weight are higher.

Tip #13

Office desk healthy habits play a major role. Once you are in office, try to be conscious of your eating habits. Drink water at regular interval by keeping a bottle of water at your desk. If you love munching, then keep all healthy snacks like whole wheat biscuits handy. Even better - rely on fruits. Limit your intake of tea or coffee at work. On the very outside, you should have only one cup before lunch with one or two digestive biscuits.

Tip #14

Office lunch room healthy practices. Try to watch your lunch at work, because when we have company we tend to overeat. So, the golden rule is to carry your own lunch. It should ideally comprise of a chapatti (or some other cereal), vegetables, lean meat (or a healthy vegetarian protein source), curd and salad. If you cannot carry your lunch, then stick to non-fried food. Try to walk around and stay active immediately after lunch. This will help you digest your food.

Tip #15

Evening snack time is a small meal but it can take a toll on your dietary regime. Why? Because it is this time of the day when most people go out and binge on street food or unhealthy food. To avoid this, stick to healthy options like bhuna channa or dry bhel puri, or one fruit in your evening snack. If you are a tea drinker, then you can have a nice cup of tea with 2 -3 whole wheat biscuits or cream crackers.

Tip #16

Flat belly routine right before you go to bed. Now it is time to sleep! Wait, we should not go to sleep just after dinner. First we must digest our last meal of the day. So go out and take a light walk for 30 mins, or remain active at home. Eating just before sleeping can make you uncomfortable. However, this is not true for everyone. Know your body well and if late dinners give you an upset stomach, then eat a couple of hours before sleeping.

Tip #17

Avoid alcohol and aereated drinks. Eat less junk, refined and sugary foods. These are the worst enemies of a flat stomach, and they are often the cause of many other chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, etc.

Tip #18

Meditate, and use other stress reduction strategies that will keep your cortisol levels under control and keep you from gaining abdominal fat and not make you age faster.

Tip #19

Get more active. Even if you spend 1 hour a day in the gym on all days of the week, it is still just 7 hours of a total of 168 hours in the week. Try to make the best of the remaining hours by getting more active. Plan playtime with friends/kids, and move a lot more during the day.

Tip #20

Perform 2-3 HIIT or high intensity interval training workouts a week. These need not and should be long in duration, 10-20 minutes is enough if done correctly.

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Dr G K Sudhakar Reddy
August 4,2020

Being overweight or obese is now recognised as a serious cause of ill health and disability. There is a significant positive association between orthopaedic disorders and the level of obesity causing pain, deformity and difficulty in walking.

Excess body weight accumulation increases pressure on joints, particularly the hips, knees and ankles.

Here are a few type of  arthritis:

Osteoarthritis

It is a condition of damage/ wear and tear of the joint lining or cartilage. Obesity triggers this by loading excessive weight on the weight bearing joints like the knee and the hip. 

Knee Osteoarthritis

This is the most common arthritis especially in the Indian subcontinent.

While walking, an individual exerts 3 to 6 times pressure that of the body weight on the weight-bearing knee joint, which means in an obese with excess body weight, larger forces are exerted, which lead to higher risk of deterioration of cartilage.

In addition, there are excessive fat tissues that produce hormones and other factors that affect the joint cartilage metabolism and cause inflammation of the joints giving rise to joint pathology.  Leptin is one of the hormones causing knee osteoarthritis. 

Hip osteoarthritis

The force exerted across the hip is 3 times that of body weight. Hip osteoarthritis is caused by factors such as joint injury, increasing age and being overweight.    

Hand osteoarthritis

The observation that obese individual has a higher risk in having hand osteoarthritis has led to a hypothesis that the metabolic effect produced by fat tissue is the underlying factor. 

Osteoporosis

It is a progressive bone condition of decrease in bone mass and density (Bone Mineral Density or BMD) which can lead to an increased risk of fracture. Recent research suggests that obesity may accelerate bone loss. It is the amount of muscle mass which is seen in an active person, which accounts for bone strengthening effects and not due to the fat seen in a heavy person.

Low back pain

Low back pain from degenerative disc disease of the lumbar spine is one of the most disabling conditions in the community and overweight and obesity have the strongest association with seeking care for low back pain.

Managing Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis

Life style changes

If one is overweight, try to lose weight by doing more physical activity and eating a healthier diet. Regular exercise keeps you active and mobile and builds up muscle, thereby strengthening the joints and can improve symptoms. 

Pain Killers

Painkillers help with pain and stiffness for short term. They don’t affect the arthritis itself and won’t repair the damage to your joint. Creams and gels can be applied directly onto painful joints.

Nutritional Supplements

Glucosamine and chondroitin are nutritional supplements. Animal studies have found that glucosamine can both delay the breakdown of and repair damaged cartilage. However, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of glucosamine in humans and one can expect only a mild-to-moderate reduction in pain

Joint injections

If pain from osteoarthritis is severe joint steroid injections are injected into the joints that can reduces swelling and pain. The injections can start working within a day or so and may improve pain for several weeks or months. 

Hyaluronic acid injections, which help to lubricate your knee joint also give short term relief. In early stages. Stem cell treatment or cartilage regeneration procedures are being tried in young people with small defects, however it is still experimental and lacks long term evidence.

Surgery

May be recommended if you have severe pain or mobility problems.

Arthroscopy

If one has frequent painful locking/stiffening episodes especially in the knee joint, an operation to wash out loose fragments of bone and other tissue as joint can be performed by a minimally invasive key hole procedure called Arthroscopy.

Arthrodesis

If hip or knee replacement is not suitable, especially in young people who do heavy manual work, one can consider an operation known as an arthrodesis, which fuses your joint in a permanent position. This means that your joint will be stronger and much less painful, although you will no longer be able to move it.

Osteotomy

In young, active people in whom a knee joint replacement would fail due to excessive use one can consider an operation called an osteotomy. This involves adding or removing a small section of bone either above or below your knee joint.  This helps realign your knee so your weight is no longer focused on the damaged part of your knee. An osteotomy can relieve your symptoms of osteoarthritis, although you may still need knee replacement surgery eventually as you grow old

Joint replacement surgery

Joint replacement therapy is most commonly carried out to replace hip and knee joints. It involves replacing a damaged, worn or diseased joint with an artificial joint made of special plastics and metal.

For most people, a replacement hip or knee will last for at least 20 years, especially if it is cared for properly and not put under too much strain.

Dr G K Sudhakar Reddy is a Sr Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Citizens Speciality Hospitals, Hyderabad

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Agencies
May 14,2020

COVID-19 mostly kills through an overreaction of the immune system, whose function is precisely to fight infections, say scientists who have decoded the mechanisms, symptoms, and diagnosis of the disease caused by the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus.

In a study published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, the researchers explained step-by-step how the virus infects the airways, multiplies inside cells, and in severe cases causes the immune defences to overshoot with a "cytokine storm".

This storm is an over-activation of white blood cells, which release too-great amounts of cytokines -- inflammation-stimulating molecules --into the blood, they said.

"Similar to what happens after infection with SARS and MERS, data show that patients with severe COVID-19 may have a cytokine storm syndrome," said study author Daishun Liu, Professor at Zunyi Medical University in China.

"The rapidly increased cytokines attract an excess of immune cells such as lymphocytes and neutrophils, resulting in an infiltration of these cells into lung tissue and thus cause lung injury," Liu said.

The researchers explained that the cytokine storm ultimately causes high fever, excessive leakiness of blood vessels, and blood clotting inside the body.

It also causes extremely low blood pressure, lack of oxygen and excess acidity of the blood, and build-up of fluids in the lungs, they said.

The researchers noted that white blood cells are misdirected to attack and inflame even healthy tissue, leading to failure of the lungs, heart, liver, intestines, kidneys, and genitals.

This multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) may worsen and shutdown the lungs, a condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome, (ARDS), they said.

This, the researchers explained, happens due to the formation of a so-called hyaline membrane -- composed of debris of proteins and dead cells -- lining the lungs, which makes absorption of oxygen difficult.

Most deaths due to COVID-19 are therefore due to respiratory failure, they said.

The researchers explained that in the absence of a specific antiviral cure for COVID-19, the goal of treatment must be to the fight the symptoms, and lowering the mortality rate through intensive maintenance of organ function.

For example, an artificial liver blood purification system or renal replacement therapy can be used to filter the blood through mechanical means, they said.

The team noted that especially important are methods to supplement or replace lung function, for example with non-invasive mechanical ventilation through a mask, ventilation through a tube into the windpipe, the administration of heated and humidified oxygen via a tube in the nose, or a heart-lung bypass.

The researchers stressed the importance of preventing secondary infections.

They noted that SARS-Cov-2 also invades the intestines, where it causes inflammation and leakiness of the gut lining, allowing the opportunistic entry of other disease-causing microorganisms.

The researchers advocate that this should be prevented with nutritional support, for example with probiotics -- beneficial bacteria that protect against the establishment of harmful ones -- and nutrients and amino acids to improve the immune defences and function of the intestine.

"Because treatment for now relies on aggressive treatment of symptoms, preventative protection against secondary infections, such as bacteria and fungi, is particularly important to support organ function, especially in the heart, kidneys, and liver, to try and avoid further deterioration of their condition," Liu added.

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Agencies
July 24,2020

Colorado, Jul 24: A new study has found that physical stress in one's job may be associated with faster brain ageing and poorer memory.

Aga Burzynska, an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, and her research team connected occupational survey responses with brain-imaging data from 99 cognitively normal older adults, age 60 to 79. They found that those who reported high levels of physical stress in their most recent job had smaller volumes in the hippocampus and performed poorer on memory tasks. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that is critical for memory and is affected in both normal ageing and in dementia.

Their findings were published this summer in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience under the research topic 'Work and Brain Health Across the Lifespan.'

"We know that stress can accelerate physical ageing and is the risk factor for many chronic illnesses," Burzynska said. "But this is the first evidence that occupational stress can accelerate brain and cognitive ageing."

She added that it is important to understand how occupational exposures affect the ageing of our brains.

"An average American worker spends more than eight hours at work per weekday, and most people remain in the workforce for over 40 years," Burzynska said. "By pure volume, occupational exposures outweigh the time we spend on leisure social, cognitive and physical activities, which protect our ageing minds and brains."

Physical demands at work

Burzynska explained that the association between "physical stress" and brain/memory were driven by physical demands at work. These included excessive reaching, or lifting boxes onto shelves, not necessarily aerobic activity. This is important because earlier work by Burzynska and her colleagues showed that leisure aerobic exercise is beneficial for brain health and cognition, from children to very old adults. Therefore, the researchers controlled for the effects of leisure physical activity and exercise.

As expected, leisure physical activity was associated with greater hippocampal volume, but the negative association with physical demands at work persisted.

"This finding suggests that physical demands at work may have parallel yet opposing associations with brain health," Burzynska explained. "Most interventions for postponing cognitive decline focus on leisure, not on your job. It's kind of unknown territory, but maybe future research can help us make some tweaks to our work environment for long-term cognitive health."

She added that the results could have important implications for society.

"Caring for people with cognitive impairment is so costly, on economic, emotional and societal levels," Burzynska said. "If we can support brain health earlier, in middle-aged workers, it could have an enormous impact."

The researchers considered and corrected for several other factors that could be related to work environment, memory and hippocampus, such as age, gender, brain size, educational level, job title, years in the occupation and general psychological stress.

One piece of the puzzle

"The research on this topic is so fragmented," Burzynska said. "One previous study linked mid-life managerial experience with greater hippocampus volume in older age. Another showed that taxi drivers had larger hippocampi than a city's bus drivers, presumably due to the need to navigate. In our study, job complexity and psychological stress at work were not related to hippocampal volume and cognition. Clearly, our study is just one piece of the puzzle, and further research is needed."

The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data used for the study was collected at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign between 2011 and 2014.

CSU researchers now can collect MRI data with the new 3T scanner at the University's Translational Medicine Institute.

With this new capability, Burzynska, along with Michael Thomas and Lorann Stallones of CSU's Department of Psychology, is launching a new project, "Impact of Occupational Exposures and Hazards on Brain and Cognitive Health Among Aging Agricultural Workers," which will involve collecting MRI brain scans and identifying risk and protective factors that could help the agricultural community age successfully. The project recently obtained funding as an Emerging Issues Short-Term Project from the High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety.

The Department of Human Development and Family Studies is part of CSU's College of Health and Human Sciences.

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