Many women ask me what are the best ‘exercises’ to get rid of tummy / thigh/ arm fat. We do A LOT of exercises at the bootcamps, which cover all these area’s and I have designed the work-outs to provide the maximum fat burning effect for women. Despite this, we still get request’s to do MORE CORE work!! The first point I would like to make is that we work the tummy at every single session. Full body. functional movements ARE core excercises, and whilst you may not necessarily feel ‘the burn’ you ARE working your core. For those wondering what the ‘core’ is –> All the muscles from your chest to your pubic bone, and from your bum to your upper back.
Squats, Lunges, press-ups, sprints, burpee’s, mountain climbers, renegade rows, plank’s, lateral lunges, (I could go on, but you get the point) ALL these exercises work the core mucles effectively, as well as the BUM which is the largest muscle in the body. The more muscle you have the higher your metabolism burns FAT.. Therefore, it makes sense to get the BUM fired up at each and every session.
I am going to make a point here that may cause controversy for some of you, BUT getting rid of the TUM (or any fat sites that you are unhappy with) is 75% NUTRITION. You have all heard the saying “You cannot out train a bad diet”, you also cannot out train a bad endocrine system, which means, no matter how much exercise you are doing, if your diet is shite, your hormones will be out of whack and you WILL have fat stores on all the places you do not want them. Particularly tummy and thighs.
To put it very simply if you clean up your diet, especiallly Alcohol and grains, you will see and feel huge health benefits which in turn will help you lose weight. HEALTH should be your goal, and if you are healthy, you will be the weight you are genetically determined to be.
Aside from cleaning up your diet you should be doing the following things too:—>
1. Getting adequate SLEEP. You should aim to be getting to bed for 10pm, as this is when your bodies delicate system repairs, rest’s and detoxifies you. This won’t happen if you eat late, sleep late, or drink into the early hours and promotes fat stores. If you get a good night’s sleep this can actually aid weight loss and manage cortisol levels (High cortisol = tummy fat)
2. Cut out all alcohol and grains – (Cereal’s and sandwiches!!). Your system cannot deal with the amount of grains we eat in our society, nor can it healthily metabolise all the alcohol we drink. In fact, the body will use the alcohol above any other food or fat source to fuel your system. We really are what we eat!! The more alcohol we drink; fags we smoke; OTC drugs we take, the more our liver has to work, and the more our liver is detoxing our systems of this crap, the more it makes fat stores to keep the ‘acid’ from harming us. This also impacts on our hormones and in turn leads to tummy fat, and also worse PMT.
3. Start drinking herbal tea’s to work WITH your endocrine system. Ideally, liquorice tea in the morning until 2pm, and Tulsi tea from 2pm until bed time. If you drink the stimulating tea’s in the morning whilst your cortisol levels are at it’s peak you start to work WITH your body rather than against it. Tulsi tea relaxes and calms you as your cortisol levels go down and you prepare for rest. Of course hydration is important – Water with added Himalayan salt is hugely beneficial.
4. Avoid long duration moderate intensity cardio sessions. Stick to short and intense interval training type exercise.
5. Do NOT starve yourself. EAT plenty of good fats ie. Coconut oils/butters = Increases DHEA in us which has a profound fat burning effect. Coconut butter can be a lovely snack and research has shown over and over again that we lose fat when we eat GOOD fats. (*See article here)
6. Supplement with a good quality fish or krill oil. This again increases our DHEA and turns ON fat burning enzymes.
7. Hydrate!! Add himalayan salt to your water, and good quality sea salt to your foods.
8. Supplement with good quality Zinc and Magnesium (avoiding Oxide forms of both) SUPER minerals which most of us are deficient in, and HUGELY beneficial to our systems. Both 5,6,7 + 8 can be bought from Revital in town where we have a discount.
I hope this little article helps you to understand the importance of a clean diet, and awareness that if we have highly stressful lives, eat badly, and drink alcohol, we do become sluggish, tired and unhappy with our bodies. It does not take a long time to clean this up, and a little thought goes a long way to making us smile and possibly see those abs ;0)
See you soon,
Charlie x
Cambridge Personal Fitness Coach
http://www.purplefitness.co.uk
http://www.cambridgebootcamps.co.uk
