When it comes to fitness questions, I often get asked how to get a flat stomach, so we are going to concentrate on just that. You don’t have to aim for that muscle ripped, six pack stomach, aim to tone up the muscles and obtain a desirable, flatter stomach, to give you a confidence boost, and it is also much healthier. It is said, that those who tend to put weight on and store it around the stomach area rather than the hip area, are more prone to heart-related disorders and diabetes.

Exercising and toning the stomach muscles are of course a major part to getting a flatter stomach, but your eating habits will play an important part, beyond any bloating. There are many factors that contribute to bloating, so getting that in order first will make your work and effort in training those abdominal muscles all worthwhile. In reality, you don’t have to train the abdominal area like crazy, even one good abdominal training session once a week, with a good eating regime throughout the week, is all that is required. Eating sensibly and healthy should be lifetime habit, not a diet magic wonder loss for a week or month.

Let’s deal with the bloating first. A poor or bad diet can result in bloating, often caused by fluid retention or trapped gas. Fluid retention can be a result of the body’s water balance being out of sync. This can be triggered by a diet that is too high in salt and/or certain medication including the contraceptive pill. Bloating is especially common just before menstruating, as part of premenstrual syndrome. Women are known to put on 3.175 kilograms / half a stone, and need to wear loose comfortable clothing just to alleviate the discomfort. This bloating is due to the female hormones, oestrogen and progesterone, which are involved in the menstrual cycle and its change in levels. It is because of this they cause water and sodium to be retained by the tissues. The contraceptive pill also does this.

Trapped gas occurs when the colon isn’t doing its job properly. The body produces an average of 1.5 litres of gas a day, that’s enough to fill a small balloon, so it is hardly surprising that the absorption of this gas, through the intestinal lining membrane or release, becomes disrupted and sometimes causes bloating and low abdominal pain.

Trapped gas can occur when eating foods that the body does not find it easy to digest. For some people this could be as simple as eating raw onions or foods they have an intolerance to like wheat or gluten. Eating certain types of food together can also do this and cause bloating. For example, this is why fruit should be eaten separately and a little later after a meal, rather than straight after.

Going on fad diets that include mainly one type of food and not much else, can also do this, like a cabbage diet for example.

Let’s not forget overeating. Eating too much will also cause bloating and discomfort, so it is better to eat slowly when you are hungry and stop as you start to feel full. Remember you can always just pop a cover over your plate of food, pop it in the fridge and go back to it later as you start to feel hungry again.

Now we have sorted the main culprits of extra bloating, let’s hit those underlying abdominals with a superfast track workout:

Exercise 1: Laying down flat on your back, with your hands holding on to a sturdy furniture leg, raise your legs off the ground, keeping your feet together and toes pointed. Get a swinging momentum going – raise the legs as high as you can and bring back down with control; do not allow to just drop down or for feet to touch the floor. Count as you go along and continue until you cannot do any more. Have a little rest for 60 seconds and then repeat this exercise. Improve the amount you did by five or ten at least from the previous amount. Repeat this exercise once more and increase the amount once again. This should have been done three times in total.

Exercise 2: Beginner – Laying down flat on your back, hook your feet under a chair or sturdy furniture like a bed. Keep knees slightly bent. Have hands on thighs to begin with and raise upper body off the ground slightly as you slide hands up thighs. Keep head and neck rigid and facing forward, do not allow head to be floppy. Slide hands back down the thighs as you come back down with your back to the floor. Repeat this movement and work to the point you can no longer do any more. Count as you go along. Have a 60 second break and repeat this twice, improving on the amount achieved each time by at least five or ten more.

Intermediate – Instead of holding hands on thighs. Place hands folded across the chest to opposite sides.

Advanced – Hold hands by ears, fingers to temple area. Right hand to right ear and left hand to left ear.

You’ll have super abs in no time!

Love and Sparkles

Samsara x