The truth : How to burn abdominal fat!

You don't need to spend a dime to tighten and tone those abdominals. You only need to understand a few things about the human body!

"How do I get rid of this?" Men and women of every shape and size ask me this question all the time, pointing to their bellies with puzzled faces.

It's the million-dollar question, and many companies are making more money instead of offering answers. But you don't need to spend a dime to tighten and tone those abdominals, though. You only need to understand a few things about the human body.

THE LATEST GIMMICK

Many television ads are now pitching devices that supposedly stimulate muscles so that they contract over and over without exercise. I even saw an infomercial for an "ab belt" that claimed it does the work of 700 sit-ups in ten minutes! The ad shows people doing various abdominal exercises the wrong way, hating every second of it, versus smiling men and women going about their days with "Ab-whatevers" strapped around them. How enticing!

Several people in these ads claim to have lost inches around the waist as a result of using these products. Many inches. Men with six-pack abs give credit to the device. This is feeding the viewership's disillusionment about how to lose the belly. Strengthening the abs alone (and these machines couldn't possibly do much of that) just won't do it.

Why is this? Because of the fat! If a heavy woman does hundreds of crunches a day, she may develop strong abs, and they might tighten up a bit, but she'll still have lots of fat covering them up, and she won't look any thinner.

About fifty percent of her body fat is located directly beneath the skin. Do you know where most of the rest of it is? Inside the muscles. Doing crunches will not get rid of this fat, and neither will the vibrating belt in the television ads.
BURN THE FAt

The best way to slim down in the middle is to do plenty of cardiovascular exercise. Some good examples of this are:

walking
jogging
swimming
aerobics
bicycling

...and high-activity sports like racquetball, tennis and basketball. Anything that brings your heart rate to its training zone and keeps it there for at least twenty minutes conditions your heart and burns fat.

As you lose subcutaneous fat, your skin will become more taut. As the fat within your muscles decreases, you will appear more toned and less flabby. The number one thing you need to think about is the cardio. Five times a week!

MAKE YOUR BODY A MORE EFFECTIVE FAT BURNER!

Your muscles need extra calories to maintain themselves, so more of thefood you eat will be feeding your muscles instead of your trouble spots. Your conditioned heart (from the cardiovascular stuff) is more effective at burning calories as well, so you have the golden combination there.Toning along with cardiovascular work will speed up and improve the process, but don't think that you only need to work on your abs. This is another grave misconception. The truth is that when you work all the larger muscle groups, adding more mass to your muscles, you rev up yourmetabolism to heights it has never before reached.

As the fat comes off your body, it will come off your belly. Your body fat is like one organ, located throughout your body, and you can't take it off of just one spot unless you have liposuction done.

Always work your abs at the end of your workout. There's a good reason for this. You are indirectly using them for all the other exercises you do.

The abs are important stabilizer muscles that keep your form in check. If you do abs first, you will tire them out, and your whole workout will be less than optimal. Work down from the largest to the smallest muscles.

By Maia Appleby

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