Waist appearance improvement.....

Today's post:  Thursday, 9-28-2017

As regular readers of this blog know, there are two effective ways to remove fat that you can keep off.

1.  Reduced calorie and carb high protein eating plus exercise including some strength training.

2.  Eating in a way that puts you in ketosis with almost zero carbs or close to it and making that your permanent or frequent eating style on a long term basis.

Last week we posted on how the first method tends to only work reliably when you measure the high protein, healthful foods you do eat precisely to ensure you use extra calories during fat loss and keep the fat off after that.

A.  Regardless of which of the two methods you use, Mike Matthews makes the point that the most effective way to make your waist look better is to remove the fat that covers it!

He posts pictures of people with different levels of bodyfat so you can easily see this directly for yourself.

Men who have 8 to 10 % of their bodyweight as fat have abdominal muscles that are easily  visible.  Men who have 20% of their bodyweight or more, as I currently do, do not.

(Healthy women tend to have 8 to 10 % higher fat so the range for them for seeing their abdominal muscles is closer to 16% or a bit less.  Their abdominals are more visible and they look much better if they also strength train Mike’s pictures show.)

B.  Mike also makes the point that doing hundreds of crunches and the like does little to make your waist look better.

Using one of the two fatloss methods successfully is far more important.

And, the kind of cardio that burns extra calories works far better with exercises like jump rope or trampoline work or running while towing a weighted sled that use much bigger muscles and burn a lot more calories.

Doing much less abdominal work that strengthens your abdominals is all that is needed beyond that.

C.  However, I’ve discovered that there is a third thing you can do to improve the appearance of your waist!

In my case it was when I added a more effective one of these kinds of exercises that my wife actually noticed my belly was flatter and stuck out less!

I already knew that spending a lot of time sitting tends to weaken your abdominals and leave them in a state of relaxation.  And, in both of my kinds of work I do a lot of sitting every day.

She does something herself that some of the health writers I read do and recommend.  When she is between tasks at her desk or has just stopped at a stop light she will simply tighten her abdominal muscles very strongly and hold it for a few seconds.  If she has time, she will do two or three.

Mike Geary says he takes a big breath in and then breathes out slowly and strongly and completely –and THEN tenses his abdominal muscles hard and holds it for several seconds.

I’ve tried those and I just don’t remember to do them after a few days.

BUT an article I read about how and why gymnasts tend to have such great looking abdominals sparked an idea of something similar I could do.

I don’t do leg raises for my abdominals because doing them as I lie down bothers a tendon where it crosses my pelvic bone.  And, I have no bar at home to do them as I hang on one.

I had been doing a brief reverse plank where I hold both legs up and straight and about six inches off the floor while lying down for a brief time -- perhaps 5 seconds or so.

After I read the article about gymnasts, I decided to simply extend that time to over 30 seconds.

To enable me to hold longer and avoid giving myself high blood pressure as I do this, I take periodic deep breaths.

I find it does burn some extra calories because it exercises the front of my thighs enough I can feel it when I’m done.

So I’ve simply adopted it as a continuing part of my short abdominal program.

Then, MUCH to my surprise, because I’d just gained 4 pounds in 2 weeks, my wife commented that my belly looked noticeably flatter!

THAT was a nice surprise!  And it was a completely unexpected one!

I do the set of a few abdominal exercises that now contain this one three times a week, Wednesday, Friday, & Sunday first thing in the morning.  The whole set – all 5 exercises, now including this one, takes only 7 minutes each time!

(One of those I’ve done for some time, the twisting crunches where I lift my knees off the floor as I lie down on my back and on each repetition I touch my elbow to the opposite knee for 98 reps as fast as I can, work my abdominals hard enough that when I went briefly to The Perfect Workout, I had no trouble doing well on their weight machine for crunches or holding planks for two minutes.  So that one exercise ensures my abdominal muscles are strong.

However, despite strengthening my abdominals they hadn’t gotten this flattening effect!)

Is this the only exercise that does this?

No.  I have found a couple others.  However they have not been as effective as this one!

Once a week, I do an exercise where I stand up and turn my palms forward while my arms are at my sides; for about 35 seconds I hold my head back as far as I can make it go and try to stand taller than usual; I hold my shoulders back; and I hold my upper chest up.

I focus on those things only but I find that doing so strongly contracts and flattens my abdominal muscles while I do this.

Similarly, when I take my 4 seven minute brief walks, I hold my chest up and shoulders back so that I breathe better.

And, I’ve found that both walking -- and doing it this way tends to tighten my abdominal muscles also.

So, if I did five times as much of each one, I might flatten my belly even more.

THAT won’t happen given my time constraints.  (You might have more time and be able to do that much more though.)

But the more intense exercise I’ve just added, seems to be doing the job!

Now I may get more effect on my abdominal muscles on these other exercises; my belly will be flatter; and when I finally add the strategies that remove the covering fat better, my waist measurement will go down; and I’ll look much better!

Less than one minute just three times a week to get a flatter belly! 

I decided it was worth posting about and sharing it with you.