GET FLAT ABS ONCE AND FOR ALL | LOSE BELLY FAT NATURALLY | WHY YOU CAN'T JUST EXERCISE YOUR BELLY FAT AWAY

THE BALANCED BUSINESS PODCAST | Holistic Health + Entrepreneurship

First and foremost, I think the smartest way to approach losing excess belly fat is to come at it from a health-minded standpoint versus a vanity standpoint. It's totally okay to be vain, I certainly am too, but try to reframe your goals to focus on improving your health versus looking like a supermodel.

And there's a few reasons why. First and foremost, it means you won't run yourself ragged in the gym or restrict your diet so heavily that you develop orthorexia or other unhealthy mindsets around food.

The other reason is if you actually prioritize healing your ENERGY and how you FEEL and your overall health, you'll likely end up getting better results than you ever could if you simply focused on your measurements or your weight.

The main cause of excess belly fat or bloating really comes down to inflammation. There's multiple causes of inflammation, including:

• Food intolerances
• Drug interactions
• Hormonal imbalances
• Poor Diet
• Poor Stress Management
• Vitamin Deficiencies
• Dehydration
• Environmental Toxins
• Infections
• Lack of Sleep
• Lack of Exercise
• Too much alcohol

You get the picture! A LOT of things can contribute to you holding on to excess belly fat. And exercise and diet are only a TINY piece of the puzzle. So what should you start with?

Probably the easiest and also the most impactful thing you can do is to try to get more restful sleep and enough sleep. Sleep reduces the overall load of stress on your body, it allows your body to go through healing processes, it gives you energy for exercise, and gives you mental clarity so you can make better decisions with respect to your health.

(THIS episode tells you how to improve your sleep by improving your sleep routine!)

The next thing to focus on is your diet. If you eat poor quality food, you are practically guaranteed to have inflammation in your body. Think of a car. If you had a Lamborghini sports car, would you put low quality gasoline in it? Or would you put the top of the line, premium gas in it?

Same thing is true of your diet! Quality matters. Treat yourself like a Lamborghini instead of a beat-up 2001 Toyota Corolla. Food's main purpose is NOT pleasure. It IS pleasurable, but food's MAIN purpose is FUEL. And if you don't fuel your body with quality food, you will have inflammation.

A great resource for you if you have NO CLUE about nutrition is dietdoctor.com.

Next thing to focus on is stress management. It doesn't matter how much sleep you get, how good you eat, how much you exercise--if you're still stressed, you will still have trouble losing excess fat.

Some ideas for stress management:

• Meditation or moving meditation - like doing a yoga workout without music or noise
• Reading a book
• Cuddling with a pet
• Journaling or drawing
• Going for a walk outside without your phone (or on airplane mode)

Another thing to pay attention to is overdoing your exercise routine. Too much exercise causes diminishing returns to the exercise, and also if you are overdoing exercise your body is under a lot of stress and you can actually GAIN more body fat due to the overload of oxidative stress.

Some things to consider:

• Duration
• Intensity
• Frequency

Are you spending over an hour everyday exercising? About an hour per day is great, but if you get too close to 2 hours that might be too much for daily workouts.

Also pay attention to intensity and include lower intensity movement in your exercise routine. You're not supposed to do 2 hours of cardio daily, 6 days a week. That's too much!

Finally, consider the frequency of your workouts. If you're doing high intensity exercise for a long duration, make sure you're spacing it out with lower intensity movement and not doing tons of back to back intense workouts!

We were not meant to exercise a million miles an hour for 3 hours every single day. There IS such a thing as too much exercise, and too much can cause more stress on your body (and potential for elevated cortisol) which could ultimately lead to you having trouble losing body fat.

Now, if you've checked ALL the boxes I've discussed up until this point, and you still don't have the flat abs you want, now it might be time to consider what TYPES of core exercises you're doing.

Most people do a great job working their obliques and their rectus abdominis, but do not do a very good job at working their transverse abdominis. This article explains the transverse abdominis in detail, but essentially this muscle works to support the back, internal organs, and also has a corset-like effect on the core, meaning flat abs are easier to attain when you are effectively working the transverse abdominis.

Here's a video that shows you an exercise you can do in order to improve your transverse abs muscle tone and strength. Ultimately, if you're dealing with something like low back pain or diastisis recti, you should consider working with a physical therapist to help you access these deeper muscles.

Thanks for tuning in. I would love to know your feedback! You know what would be super cool is if you took a screenshot of this podcast and then posted in your IG stories with your favorite quote or a question you have! Make sure you tag me @kristenkacinski so I get notified when you post :D

The website for this podcast is www.talkhealthytomepodcast.com.

Until next week -- cheers!