8 ways to lose your belly in two weeks

The secret to burning stubborn fat around your middle isn’t rocket science. Implementing a couple of tweaks to your diet and lifestyle can help improve your gut health, reduce inflammation, shut down your fat genes and rev up your fat burn — especially targeting belly fat — almost automatically. As compiled from the bestselling book Zero Belly Diet and eatthisnotthat.com, incorporate these variations and keep your waistline toned and tight.

1. Take a brisk walk before breakfast

This simple am routine works wonders, literally. First, a recent study found that exposure to sunlight in between the hours of 8am and noon reduces risk of weight gain regardless of activity level, caloric intake, or age. Researchers found that the morning light stimulates metabolism while undercutting your fat genes. Also, burning calories before you take breakfast means you’re exercising in a fasted state — the calories you burn will come directly from your fat stores, instead of the food you ate the night before.

2. Start with oatmeal

This slight tweak in breakfast ensured Zero Belly Diet’s test panelist, Isabel Fiolek’s dramatic 13-pound weight loss. Isabel also observed a boost in overall health — her total cholesterol dropped by 25 per cent and her blood glucose level by 10 per cent. Cook up oatmeal and garnish it with fruit. This super meal provides insoluble fibre that helps reduce blood cholesterol and feeds the healthy bacteria in your gut. By doing so, you trigger your gut to produce butyrate, a fatty acid that reduces fat-causing inflammation throughout your body.

3. Pick red fruit and veggies over green

Fruits and vegetables with a reddish tint are proven to be the best for weight loss. That indicates red apples over yellow ones, watermelon over your ivory garma (honeydew melon) and chukhandar (beetroot) over bhindi (okra). The higher levels of nutrients called flavonoids — chiefly anthocyanins, compounds that give red fruits their colour — reduce the action of fat-storage genes. In fact, red-bellied stone fruits such as plums comprise phenolic compounds that have been shown to moderate the expression of fat genes.

Read: Healthy foods that bloat your belly

4. Nourish yourself with eggs

Eggs consist of lean protein. The muscle-building nutrient is fundamental to any weight loss plan and eggs happen to be one of the easiest to find. They’re also the number-one dietary source of choline — a nutrient that triggers your body to store fat around your liver. Authors of the Zero Belly Diet suggest you prep power meals using sweet potatoes and eggs. Another test panelist for Zero Belly Diet, Morgan Minor saw dramatic results after just three weeks of consuming one, egg-based meal a day. The female firefighter lost 11 pounds and four inches from her waist.

5. Prep a magic potion

No, it’s not available at a posh vitamin store. You can mix up your own magic-detox water —that’s basically water filled with chopped up slices of lemons, oranges or grapefruits — and make it a habit of sipping your way through at least eight glasses before bedtime. Citrus fruits are jam-packed with delimonene — an antioxidant found in the zest that stimulates liver enzymes to help flush fat and toxins from the body, while giving lazy bowels a kick, according to the World Health Organization.

6. Incorporate mini circuits

The most common reason we can’t stick to our usual workout routines — lack of time. Researchers in New Zealand recently found that men and women who engaged in three 10-minute exercise ‘hors d’oeuvres’ before breakfast, lunch and dinner saw lowered blood glucose levels — a fat-busting benefit that’ll drop your waist size fast. Within a few weeks of incorporating mini circuits before meals, test panelist Krista Powell lost 25 pounds.

Read: Almonds may reduce belly fat

7. Ease up on supplements

If you’re popping various vitamins and probiotics each day, you may want to rethink your approach. Increased levels of B vitamins have been linked with a higher occurrence of obesity and diabetes because overdosing on these triggers our fat genes. A daily multivitamin is fine but don’t assume that more is better. A recent study by ConsumerLab.com found that most commercial probiotics have far less healthy bacteria than they claim.

8. Savour dark chocolate for dessert

Sounds too good to be true but a recent study found that antioxidants in cocoa prevented weight gain — all while lowering blood sugar levels considerably. Researchers at Louisiana State University found that gut microbes in our stomach ferment chocolate into heart-healthy, anti-inflammatory compounds that shut down genes linked to insulin resistance and inflammation and in turn aid your weight loss efforts. 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th,  2015.

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