This simple method of how to tone your stomach requires only three steps—and none of them absolutely requires you to do sit ups. Here is what you need to know to tone your stomach and give definition to your abs 1-2-3:1.
Women need diet as well as exercise to tone their stomachs.
Achieving well-defined abs requires not just toning the muscle but reducing the fat that lies over them. Women almost never achieve meaningful fat loss through exercise alone.
That is because smaller bodies burn fewer calories. If you only weigh 140 pounds to start with, every pound of fat lost requires approximately:
- 20 hours walking at a slow pace, or
- 10 hours on elliptical exercise machines, or
- 10 hours running.
Moreover, if you work out without replenishing both complete protein and carbohydrates by eating a mini-meal within about an hour of finishing your routine, you lose both fat and muscle. Too much exercise won’t give you a well-toned stomach with well-defined abs. Too much exercise without the proper nutrition will give you a smaller pot of flab!
There are two keys to effective dieting for toning your stomach:
- Eat less overall, but
- Eat a mini-meal of about 150 calories containing both complete protein and some kind of carbohydrate right after every workout.
It’s better to lose weight slowly, even half a pound a week. Slow reduction in fat mass is more sustainable. You don’t have to diet hard each and every day; in fact, a “cheat meal” about every three days helps keep your metabolic furnaces burning calories at a higher rate, as long as your week-by-week consumption of calories is reduced by about 15%. For instance, instead of eating 1600 calories a day, you might eat 1400 calories for two days and then add a 400-calorie splurge on the third. This method keeps you losing weight as long as you don’t get off your diet more often than about 1 in 10 meals.
2. Aerobic exercise doesn’t do a lot for toning your stomach, although it’s great for feeling better.
Feeling good is part of looking good. If power walking, jogging, elliptical workouts, bicycling, and swimming make your feel good, by all means do them. Just don’t rely on them as a way to flatten your tummy.
Aerobic exercise at a steady pace tends to result in either no weight loss or a slight weight gain. Aerobic exercise performed at various intervals (warm up—high intensity exercise alternating with lower intensity exercise—cool down) may result in a modest fat loss over entire body. For most women, doing half an hour of interval training every day for four months will result in fat loss of about four pounds. This may help, but it is a very slow process.
3. Specific abs exercises firm and define your abs. They make a noticeable difference only when you diet and get other forms of regular exercise you don’t do just to lose weight.
Sit ups are great for your upper abdominal muscles. If you do enough sit ups, you could go from having a big bulging belly with your belly button in the center to just a protruding pouch of flab below your navel!
To get a truly flat stomach, you need to exercise all the muscles in and around your abs and your lower back, as well as your core.