6 easy habits to flatten your mid-section

We are all misled one way or another in our quest to figure out what the magic formula is to achieve/maintain a flat midsection.

Contrary to all popular belief (and based on my efforts in the past few months), a flat midsection is a way of life and not a "do this and achieve that" action-consequence relationship.

Keeping that in mind, here are 6 useful habits that will need to be adopted to find the six pack in you:

1. Drink 500ml of cold water when you wake up 

German scientists recently found that doing this boosts metabolism by 24 percent for 90 minutes afterward. (A smaller amount of water had no effect.) 

2. Eat a bigger meal for Breakfast

A University of Massachusetts study showed that men who skip their morning meal are 4 1/2 times more likely to have bulging bellies than those who don't. So within an hour of waking, have a meal with at least 250 calories.

3.     Sleep better

Make sure that you are getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep. University of Chicago scientists recently found that just 3 nights of poor sleep may cause your muscle cells to become resistant to the hormone insulin. Over time, this leads to fat storage around your belly.

4.     Cook, cook, cook!

Make sure you become more aware of what you are eating.  The only way to do so is to actually cook your food yourself and follow some easy guidelines.  This is also true for all of you that are currently employed, you will have to spend more time cooking your breakfast and lunch and taking it work so invest in some Tupperware.

·       You will have to consume much more lean protein (chicken breast, lean beef, turkey breast, tuna and other fish, etc).

·       You will have to eat more frequently during the day and lesser portions (move from 3 meals to 6)

·       You will have to cut down on the amount of carbohydrates and you will also need to eat complex carbs.  (Think beans, oats, multigrain).

(A more detailed posting on diet will be provided soon, but above listed is the gist of things)

5.     Keep reviewing your goals

University of Iowa scientists found that people who monitored their diet and exercise goals most frequently were more likely to achieve them than were goal setters who rarely reviewed their objectives.

6.     Exercise the right way

Make sure you have a balanced work out of weight training and cardio.  This applies to both men and women.  Weight training burns more calories than flat out cardio and also sustains your higher metabolism for a longer period of time than cardio does.

In this blog post, I have referenced the following article (combined with my very own experience).

http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/ab_strategies/