Document 6486010

How To Get Rid Of Your Muffin Top
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If you’re like many people, one of the top goals that you might
be putting your focus on is getting rid of your ‘muffin top’.
A muffin top, as it’s called, refers to the excess fat that’s
accumulated around the waistline, often being most
pronounced when you’re wearing tighter fitting jeans.
It refers to the fat that kind of hangs on top of the pant line,
hence the term, ‘muffin top’.
Both men and women do tend to store fat in this area of the
body, with women being especially susceptible.
This is slightly bad news because it means that this muffin top
will be harder to get rid of than other fat in the body (as it will
tend to ‘cling’ to your hips despite your best efforts).
With enough hard work and the right approach, losing it
definitely is possible.
You just need to know how to attack this goal.
The first place you gain fat is very often the last place you lose
it, so you can’t expect overnight fat loss success with losing
your muffin top.
Take your time and you will see significant changes after a few
weeks of being on your program plan.
In this discussion we’re going to provide you with everything
that you need to know regarding how to lose your muffin top.
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We’ll be discussing:
 Why fat storage takes place
 Why diet is so critical to losing the muffin top
 The biggest mistake that many people make when
attempting to lose a muffin top
 How lifestyle factors relate to muffin top development
 Structuring your workout program to help lose the
muffin top
 Dietary methods that improve success
Let’s begin with an initial discussion on why fat storage takes
place in the body.
Why You Gain Fat Around Your Waistline
In order to effectively learn how to lose fat from your muffin
top, you need to understand why you gain fat there in the first
place.
The primary reason why you put on fat above the waistline is
due to a miss-match in energy consumed versus energy
expended.
Any time you eat more calories than you burn over the course
of the day, the body is going to have to find something to do
with these calories.
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Since calories represent energy, it’s going to place this energy
in the highly dense energy storage house in your body – your
fat cells.
Your body fat represents long-term energy storage and what
your body would start utilizing as fuel should a famine (or a
lower calorie diet occur).
It takes approximately 3500 calories for one pound of body fat
to be formed, so you’d have to consume 3500 calories over
and above what your body burned off during the day.
As you imagine, most people don’t consume this many calories
over their daily calorie burn in a day, so rather fat storage is an
ongoing process that results from too many days of
overeating.
If you have one day where you consume a much higher calorie
intake than you normally do, this is unlikely to have much of an
impact on your total body weight.
But, if you have two or three of these days weekly, it’s going to
start to add up.
The body is designed to have a higher tendency to store body
fat in the abdominal and lower back region as this is where all
the vital organs are housed and where protection is needed, so
you’ll have a greater risk of adding fat in this area as well.
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All of these factors working together are what will then cause
you to develop the dreaded muffin top.
Since the higher calorie intake compared to what you’re
expending is what causes the muffin top to occur, losing the
muffin top requires you to do the opposite.
Rather than using a higher calorie intake, you’ll need to lower
your calorie intake so that you’re taking in fewer calories than
you burn.
When this is the scenario at play, your body will be forced to
dip into its body fat stores as a fuel source and eventually that
muffin top will disappear.
Unfortunately you are unable to pinpoint exactly where your
body starts removing body fat, so you can’t selectively choose
to just lose your muffin top.
Instead, the body will begin burning fat from all regions of the
body and eventually your muffin top will go down also.
If you don’t have much fat to lose from other areas of your
body, then chances are good that you’ll attack the muffin top
immediately.
Now that you know the process of muffin top formation and
what it’s going to take to get rid of it, let’s move on and look at
the most important factor that will drive your success: diet.
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Why Diet Is Imperative To Losing Your Muffin Top
If there’s one thing that will make the biggest difference when
it comes to losing your muffin top, diet is it.
Why is diet so important?
Diet is critical because it’s far easier to create the calorie deficit
required for fat loss through dietary strategies.
Consider:
 30 minutes of moderate physical activity burns about
250 calories
 One bagel contains 300 calories –without any spread
 One donut contains about 250 calories
 One gourmet coffee can contain 300 calories or more
 One slice of New York Cheesecake can contain 600+
calories
 One restaurant meal likely contains 700-1000 calories
Are you going to exercise for two hours if you eat a restaurant
meal?
Most people simply aren’t exercising enough – or won’t
exercise enough, to burn off the calories in their bad food
choices.
It takes you all of 5 minutes to consume 500 calories with poor
food selection and to burn those calories off would take up to
an hour.
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The more dietary control you have, the less overall exercise
you will have to perform.
Now, don’t take this to mean you shouldn’t exercise.
Exercise has a number of positive effects such as:
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Maintaining your lean muscle mass
Boosting your resting metabolic rate
Increasing muscle tone and definition
Improving your heart health
Lowering stress levels
Controlling your hunger
Increasing your bone density
Improving self-confidence
….and so on.
Exercise is absolutely imperative to best results as well, but
what you must remember is that exercise should never be
used to make up for a bad diet.
If you think that you can eat what you like as long as you
exercise, you’re strongly mistaken.
Exercise should be performed for its own benefits, not for fat
loss.
Fat loss is a function of the food you eat.
Exercise is what makes sure that as you lose the fat, you look
your best.
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Those who just diet and don’t exercise often end up a smaller
version of their current selves – soft and rather flabby looking.
So diet will help you get rid of the fat on your muffin top, but
exercise is what will firm the muscles underneath so that
you’re left with the midsection that you desire.
The number one thing that you must get right with your diet
plan to see results will be your total calorie intake.
Your total calorie intake is what will dictate whether you will
gain or lose body fat, as we mentioned earlier.
What the calories you eat are made up of will dictate how you
feel as you lose this body fat as well as how you begin to look.
If you don’t get in enough protein rich foods for example,
you’re going to begin to lose lean muscle mass and may not
look as firm as you’d like.
If you don’t eat enough healthy fats, your hunger level may
skyrocket and you may have trouble controlling your food
intake.
If you don’t eat enough complex carbs, your energy levels will
plummet and you will be unlikely to sustain intense exercise
activity.
Finally, if you don’t eat enough fresh vegetables with
moderate amounts of fruit, you won’t take in enough dietary
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fiber and won’t get the antioxidants that your body needs to
stay healthy.
Each type of food has its place in a healthy diet plan and your
job is to make sure that you’re taking in the right mix of
nutrients while sustaining your ideal calorie intake.
Do this and you will be on track to losing that muffin top.
Let’s move forward and talk about the biggest mistake that
most people make when trying to lose their muffin top.
The #1 Mistake Made When Trying To Lose The Muffin Top
The biggest mistake that is made is attempting to achieve spot
reduction.
Spot reduction refers to the belief that by working a certain
group of muscles, you can see fat loss occurring.
These people are under the belief that if they perform enough
abdominal crunches, that muffin top will be gone.
What’s the problem with this?
The problem with this is that fat loss is a whole body
occurrence.
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As we mentioned earlier, you can’t pick and choose where
your body loses fat. Your body is going to lose fat from all
areas, not just one single place.
What’s more is that exercises may firm the muscles of that
area and cause some muscle development to take place, but
they are not going to cause you to burn fat.
Performing exercises results in fat loss due to the fact that it
causes you to increase your energy expenditure and this is
what puts you in the total calorie deficit at the end of the day
for fat loss to take place.
So you can perform sit-ups until the cows come home but it’s
not going to guarantee that you lose your muffin top.
It may strengthen the muscles that form the muffin top, but
beyond that, the calorie deficit needs to be in place.
So get out of the spot toning mindset.
To lose your muffin top, you need a full body approach.
Let’s turn out focus now to some of the lifestyle factors that
influence muffin top development so you understand how to
control these for optimal success.
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Lifestyle Factors That Influence Muffin Top Development
Each and every day, millions of different processes are taking
place in your body.
All the different things that you do over the course of the day
including the foods you eat, the activities you do, and the
environment that you place yourself in will impact these
processes that are going on.
Put yourself into an ‘ideal environment’ and fat loss is going to
take place at a much faster rate.
Place yourself into a ‘non-ideal environment’ and you’ll just be
working against yourself.
So which lifestyle factors contribute to muffin top
development?
The big lifestyle factors include stress, alcohol intake, and
sleep.
Those who are under high amounts of stress will release more
cortisol in their body.
Cortisol is a ‘stress’ hormone that can encourage you to
deposit body fat in the abdominal region.
Therefore, the more stress you have, the greater your chances
are of suffering from a muffin top.
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Alcohol is very detrimental to your progress because as soon
as it enters your system, all fat burning comes to a halt.
You’ll immediately stop burning fat as fuel as the body sees the
toxin of alcohol far more important to deal with.
Only after it’s removed all the alcohol from your system will
you begin to start burning up body fat once again.
Alcohol also provides nutrient devoid calories that will increase
your calorie intake and chances of developing a muffin top.
Finally, lack of sleep is the next big problem for those who are
suffering from a muffin top.
When you don’t get enough sleep at night you will suffer from
a higher cortisol release and in addition to that, you’ll also
have a slowed metabolic rate.
This means you’ll burn fewer calories at rest, increasing the
chances that you gain additional body fat.
In order to form a lifestyle that is going to best encourage
muffin top lost then,
 Get at least 8 hours of sleep each night
 Take steps to reduce your stress level either by
eliminating your stressors or practicing good stress
relieving strategies
 Consume alcohol as infrequently as possible
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If you do these, then you can feel confident that you’re doing
everything you can to lose your muffin top.
Now let’s talk a little more about what you should be doing for
your workout program.
Designing Your Workout To Lose Your Muffin Top
We previously identified the fact that spot toning is not going
to work to lose your muffin top.
So right now you need to get away from thinking that your ab
workouts should be the focus of your workout program.
While ab workouts are great for strengthening the muscles in
the abdominal core and around the muffin top area, they are
not going to be ideal for burning up body fat.
So what will be?
Full body workouts are the best way to burn fat fast and lose
your muffin top.
Full body workouts will provide a number of advantages such
as:
 Creating a very high calorie burn during the session
 Causing the body to burn off a high number of calories
after the session is completed
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 Working all the muscles in the body at once, thus
decreasing your total gym time requirement
 Stimulating the primary muscle building hormones in the
body so that you can see maximum firming and muscle
development benefits.
A full body workout program that utilizes compound exercises
is going to earn top marks for total fat loss results.
To further accelerate the fat burning taking place from this
workout, try and perform the exercises back to back with as
little rest as possible between them.
This will help to increase your calorie burn even further as
you’ll get cardiovascular benefits and also help to boost how
many calories you burn after the workout is completed.
Take just 30-45 seconds to rest between each exercise that
you perform as this will keep your body in high calorie burning
mode.
To your full body workouts, add 2-3 days of interval cardio
training.
This form of cardio is the superior method to boost fat loss
success because it will increase the rate of fatty acid oxidation
occurring and help you maintain a higher metabolic rate.
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Interval cardio sessions should only last 20-30 minutes at most
and should be completed in separate sessions from your full
body workouts or at another point during the day.
Avoid performing full body workouts and interval cardio
sessions in the same workout as it will quickly lead to
overtraining.
Finally, make sure that you have at least one day off each week
for rest and recovery.
This is vital to success because it’s what will ensure that you
are allowing your body to rebuild itself back up stronger than it
was before.
Now let’s finish up by talking about some dietary strategies
that will help to improve your overall success with losing your
muffin top.
Dietary Strategies To Boost Success
There are three things that you should be doing from a dietary
perspective that will help to increase your chances of success.
While the basics of using a reduced calorie intake and eating
all-natural foods still stand, these will help you kick your results
up a notch.
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Eat Low Fat Dairy Products
Many people are fast to eliminate dairy products from their
diet plan, however this is a big mistake.
Dairy products will actually help you lose fat from the trunk
region assuming they are the lower fat, lower calorie variety.
Dairy products contain calcium and protein, two nutrients that
are vital to weight loss success.
For best results, aim to eat two to three servings of low fat
dairy such as skim milk, fat-free Greek yogurt, or low-fat
cottage cheese daily.
Carb Cycle
The second thing that you should be considering doing if you
want to increase your chances of losing your muffin top is carb
cycling.
Carb cycling is where you will include some higher carb days
amongst lower carb days.
This will help you stay more energized as you move throughout
your diet and prevent the chances that you hit a diet plateau.
Going too long on a low carb diet will reduce your metabolic
rate, which can cause fat loss to come to a halt.
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Two to three higher carb days and four or five low carb days is
the best way to go.
Increased Protein Intake
Finally, the last thing that you should be doing to see optimal
results is increasing your protein intake.
Adding more protein to your diet is one of the top ways to
boost your metabolic rate and see a greater overall calorie
deficit occurring.
Protein rich foods will also decrease hunger better because
they are extremely satisfying so are good for those who are
using the lower calorie intake.
Choose lean protein foods such as chicken breasts, egg whites,
white fish and seafood, turkey breast, low fat dairy, as well as
whey protein powder.
Eat six or more servings per day and you’ll notice improved
results because of it. Make sure that you do work these extra
protein servings into your total calorie intake as well so that
you can sustain your target calorie deficit.
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So there you have your game plan to get rid of your muffin top
and see the most optimal results.
If you take the right approach and make sure that you continue
to persevere, you can get the results that you’re after.
Just always keep in mind the fact that many people will lose fat
from the muffin top area last, so you might not see results
right away.
As long as you notice the other areas of your body are getting
leaner though, that is a very good indication that you are
moving forward in the right direction and that it won’t be long
before you’re on the road to muffin top loss success.