Do you want a flat stomach? Good news:you don't necessarily need to exercise. These tips will also make it easier to close your pants.
Focus on your inhalation and exhalation, for example with the popular breathing technique:stomach vacuming. Yogis and Pilates gurus swear by it to get a flat tummy. The exercise is very simple and promises to tighten the inner abs, making your stomach flatter and above all less bloated. The breathing technique therefore does not provide a trained six pack. You get these precisely by training your outer abdominal muscles through the well-known crunches, sit-ups and so on.
For stomach vacuuming, get on your hands and knees on the floor. Make sure to keep your back high and arched, like a cat. Then, inhale through your nose and exhale all the air from your lungs through your mouth, until your belly feels completely empty. Now pull your abdomen in as far as you can and try to expand your lungs without inhaling again. So it should feel like your belly is empty and completely contracted in a vacuum. Hold this pose for ten seconds and repeat the exercise.
Abroad they even give special stomach vacuming classes at yoga and Pilates schools. Warning:if you manage to perform the technique correctly, you can get serious muscle pain.
Do you realize how much sugar you drink in a day? Not only smoothies, scooping sugar in your tea and soft drinks provide fat around your waist. That soy latte and sweetened almond drink with which you prepare your oatmeal also count. Unnoticed you ingest quite a bit of sugar in one day. So much so, that it makes you fatter around your waist, according to a study by the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. According to the research, you have about 27 percent more belly fat after six years of drinking sweet drinks.
There are people with a super tight stomach, while with you it seems like every pea you eat is visible in your abdominal area. And you can do less about that yourself than you think. The American biochemist Sylvia Tara wrote the book Why some people get fat and others don't † She explains that our genes largely determine whether we get a slim or full-bodied body. And that you only have about 30 to 40 percent influence on the development of your waist size. Exercising or eating chocolate with someone is fun and it creates a bond, but don't mirror yourself to the other person. Everyone has a different body and a different build.
Your intestinal flora is not a topic that everyone openly talks about, but intestinal flora therapist Nienke Tode-Gottenbos wants to change that. The Poop Doctor and author of her book of the same name, knows how important improving your gut health is to get rid of your bloated stomach. According to her, a healthier gut flora with satisfied gut bacteria is the key to a flatter stomach.
Tode-Gottenbos states that a person should defecate about 900 grams every day. Does this not work? Then a first step is to make your lifestyle healthier, with more healthy food, less stress and less medication that negatively affects your gut bacteria. According to Tode-Gottenbos, there is no panacea or cure for your intestines. The intention is that you take good care of your intestines in the long term. Drink plenty of water, eat lots of vegetables and fiber and don't forget healthy fats.
She also recommends taking a (sugar-free) probiotic or eating probiotic foods such as kimchi. Because according to the Poepdokter, many people have far too few intestinal flora bacteria. (Source:De Poepdokter; healthy from mouth to ass, Nienke Tode-Gottenbos, €23.95)
