Do you want to know how to tone your stomach and tone it right now? It really is possible to get results in 48 hours. At first you’ll feel them, but if you follow these —- tips, you will soon see results too. And some of the best answers to your questions about how to tone your stomach are incredibly easy to do.
1. Sit up straight, all the time.
Simple sitting with your back flat against a straight-backed chair and holding your chin parallel to your desk or table will help tone your stomach. Your abs will stretch upward and there will be less tension holding belly fat out. Make a habit of checking your posture every time you sit down. Just changing your posture can effectively remove an inch (25 mm) from the circumference of your waist.
2. Take a deep breath. Then push it out.
If you don’t have time to go to the gym and you get tired doing lots of sit ups (100 a week is the most that will do you any good), try this very basic abs exercise. Take a deep breath, filling your lungs as full and as deep as you can. Then push all that air out, making sure you exhale for a longer time than you inhale.
Deep breathing will strengthen your abs from the inside out. It will also lower your blood pressure and your pulse rate, strengthening your general health.
3. Sleep on your back, with your legs extended as far forward as you can stretch them. (You don’t need to stretch your feet forward.)
The gentle stretch on your abs all night will help flatten your belly.
4. Finish a warm shower with splash of cold water.
You have probably heard of the expression “throwing cold water” on an idea or an activity. A splash of cold water slows down mental processes, but it also reduces the production of stress hormones that encourage deposits of belly fat. The contact of cold water with your face triggers a dive reflex, the same as if you had fallen into a pool of deep water. Your body slows down your pulse and the production of stress hormones to conserve oxygen as if you had dived off into the deep.
5. Get at least six, and preferably eight hours of sleep every night.
Your body needs six to eight hours of sound sleep every night so it can break down the hormone ghrelin. This is the hormone that ensures that you get adequate intake of nutrients and calories. Ghrelin levels go up before meals and they go down after meals-but only if the hormone can be removed from your bloodstream every night during deep sleep.
The reason controlling ghrelin levels is important to the question of how to tone your stomach is that the hormone makes hunger very literally painful. It activates a compound called neuropeptide Y that makes the nervous system more sensitive to pain signals. The only way you can stop the pain is to eat-not a good way to get rid of belly fat!
6. Wear socks when you go to bed.
Your feet are very sensitive to fluctuations in temperature. Wearing socks prevents fluctuation in temperature, and helps you sleep more soundly throughout the night.
7. Do sit ups, but don’t do just sit ups.
Sit ups, done with your knees off the floor to take pressure off your back, can help tone your stomach. But you don’t benefit from doing more than about 30 to 35 sit ups at a time and you need to let your muscles recover for at least 48 hours between sets.
Many other exercises help condition your abs. Every exercise you do to tone your stomach requires that let your muscles rest so they can rebuild and reshape themselves. And if you are dieting, remember this: Muscles don’t get stronger unless you feed them. During the hour after a workout be sure to eat at least a small snack containing both lean protein and non-sugar carbs so your muscles will receive the amino acids they need to rebuild and the glucose they need to make the glycogen that really makes them “bulk up.”
Selena Tanner is a fitness enthusiast who enjoys helping and teaching others how to lose weight and and how to burn belly fat on her site ab exercises for women.com. For more great advice and more women weight loss tips, be sure to visit her on her how to tone your stomach page.
