How to Burn Fat and Get a Flat Stomach Without Going to the Gym
Well, here's the great news: You can get a lot closer to ripped, cut and shredded without actually going through the agony of spending hours in the gym. In fact, the best place to build abs and flatten your belly isn't the gym at all; it's your own home. Before you invest long hours and big bucks in a health club, try these at-home, no-hassle tricks for melting away belly fat and flattening your belly fast, compliments of the new Sweat This, Not That! 30-Day Fit Moves Challenge presented by Degree® deodorant app—for iPhone or iWatch.
Flat-Belly Trick #1: Make an Oil Swap
Take a look at your vegetable oil; it probably contains a safflower oil, blended with other oils like soy or corn. Same goes for your salad dressing. But check this out: Penn State University researchers compared those who consumed avocado oil with those who consumed a safflower oil blend. Those on the avocado oil diet—just three tablespoons daily did the trick—lost nearly 2 percent of their belly fat in just one month.
Flat-Belly Trick #2: Chew Peppermint Gum
The essential oil found in mint leaves has analgesic properties that studies show serve as a muscle-relaxant and fat melter. One study published in the Journal of Neurological and Orthopaedic Medicine found that people who sniffed peppermint every two hours lost an average of 5 pounds a month! Pop some peppermint gum the next time you feel a hunger craving, and you may start stripping away the pounds instead of adding to them.
Flat-Belly Trick #3: Take a Fitness Challenge
Here's a secret that health club owners don't want you to know: Going to the same gym and doing the same routine with the same equipment won't get you anywhere. "The key to losing weight is to exercise intelligently and to truly challenge your body every time," says Dan Roberts, celebrity trainer and creator of Methodology X. "If you do the same workout all the time, you won't make progress." To mix it up every single day, in five minutes or less, and with no gym or equipment necessary, try the free 30-Day Fit Moves Challenge app, available for phone or Apple Watch.
Flat-Belly Trick #4: Get Chai and Mighty
When it comes to weight control, drinking regular tea is like watching Iron Man. Drinking Chai is like watching The Avengers: All your favorite superheroes, gathered up into one heaping serving. Chai is black tea that arrives with a posse of herbs and spices, all of which have their own superpowers. The combination of black tea, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, fennel, clove and black pepper means that chai has the power to block inflammation, reduce belly bloat, stabilize blood sugar and even reduce cholesterol. Plus, chai can block the action of fat-storage hormones: Research found has found that the beverage can increase the rate at which your body is able to calm down when faced with a stressful situation, and bring its levels of cortisol–the stress-related hormone that causes your body to store abdominal fat—back to normal quickly.
Flat-Belly Trick #5: Score More D's and C's
How would you like to take all the great weight-loss results you've just read about—and double them? That's what happens when you supplement your diet with a combination of vitamin D and calcium, according to a Nutrition Journal study. Just four weeks into the 12-week experiment, subjects who had taken these two nutrients—found in abundance in some yogurts—lost two times more fat than the other group!
