Are you noticing more belly flab with each passing year?
An estimated 50-60% of the amount of fat in your midsection is said to be dictated by the genes you inherit. But how you live and the changes that your body goes through as you age also play a major role. Hormonal fluctuations that can start in a woman’s mid-to late-30s are often accompanied by an increase in waist size. Too much stress, too little sleep, and eating too many calories can contribute to belly bulge. Your level of activity also affects your shape: more active people are more likely to be leaner all over, including in their bellies.
Before you drop to the floor to perform abdominal crunches and other core’ exercises, realize that a bigger belly is often caused from excess fat in the area, not from weak muscles. So pummeling away at abdominal muscles won’t have the flattening effect you might think it will. What core exercises can do is strengthen your abs and surrounding muscles. To chisel away at your ab muscles, you must do cardio exercise. By using up extra energy with aerobic workouts, your body pulls from fat cells all over the body, which will reveal the ab muscles you’ve been working so hard to develop!
The good news is that abdominal fat has a higher lipolytic activity than lower body fat. That means that more fat-burning enzymes are circulated in ab fat cells. This may explain why many studies show that increasing the amount of cardio you do each week has a direct effect in helping to reduce your waist size. So, if you want to tighten your tummy for the summer, remember to make cardio workouts a part of your regular exercise routine.
