How to reduce your belly fat? - 03
In the last episode we saw how stress is related to belly fat. But how can we get rid of / reduce stress?
The best available option is Meditation. I am sure you would have heard about this many times!
The second best option is yoga.
Meditation
Meditation is a wonderful way to quite your mind and relax your body.
Meditation not just helps you to reduce stress, it also helps you to enjoy your life. It produces a deep state of relaxation and a peaceful mind.
During meditation, the individual focuses on training his/her mind and thus tries to get rid of unnecessary thoughts going around the mind (that leads to stress).
Thus Meditation helps to improve both physical and emotional wellbeing.
Yoga
Yoga is another good option for reducing stress.
Yoga is considered as a way to unite mind, breath and body.
Thus it helps in relaxing both your body and mind.
Eating habits:
Eating habit plays a very vital role in developing belly fat.
Do you eat only when you are hungry?
Do you eat only the amount of food that your body really needs?
If you answered ‘no’ or ‘sometimes’ to the above question then you might have to think about changing your eating habits. But ofcourse it’s just not your mistake.
So why do people have bad or wrong eating habits?
Lifestyle and Tradition
From our childhood we are asked to ‘empty’ our plate and ofcourse the plate is usually filled with food to the maximum!
Not wasting food is a very very good habit, but it is also important to care about our body.
We also consider it as a tradition to pamper people with more and more food…
Whether it’s a tradition or culture it is ok to be pampered once in a while.
It’s also a good idea to re-look the size of the plates you have at home. If you think it’s over sized go ahead and replace it with a smaller ones.
Eating just for eating purpose
In this competitive world most of us can’t spare much time for dining. We can’t afford to miss the bus / train, we can’t go late for the class etc etc. So, we just eat in a hurried manner to finish our meal milestone (breakfast / lunch / dinner) just for name purpose.
When we eat food in a hurry, we are in-taking food in a very active state and hence our body cannot absorb or digest the food at the optimum level. It’s always good to have food in a relaxed manner.
Eating and Working or Watching TV
This is the latest trend! Eating as part of multi-tasking!
Why waste time while eating, we can enjoy watching TV series or a reality show or finish some work as we eat…
Eating food absent mindedly while our brain is working on something else leads to over eating. When we eat food, our body gives us signal when it has got the required food. If we are not concentrating and enjoying our food, we easily tend to take more food.
Other reasons include,
Eating for entertainment like eating pop-corn during a movie even though the tummy is full
Eating just like that! Mom just now prepared one of her delicious food and you can’t resist eating the hot and tasty snack even though your body doesn’t require any food.
Eating because it’s available! I am sure you would have seen people who just look for food in kitchen, refrigerator etc. and eat it just because it’s available.
So what is considered as good eating habit and how can you avoid over eating?
Enjoy your food!
As much as possible cook your food at home and enjoy the food.
I know it’s very tempting to eat food from fast food outlets and other restaurants. Restaurant business is one of the hot and fast growing business in cities like Chennai.
While taking food from outside once in a while is acceptable, regularly eating outside is not going to help your body.
When you eat your food enjoy it. And you can start this enjoyment right from cooking if you prepare your own meal.
Appreciate its aroma… its wonderful texture… the taste… Enjoy your food!
It’s ok to say no to a healthy food if you don’t like it.
We all know that ladies finger or okra is a low calorie healthy green vegetable. But if you don’t like that sticky okra dish it’s perfectly ok to stay away from it… You have many other green vegetables and you can opt for one of them.
Time your meals!
Try to eat your meals at the same time every day. Maintaining time for your meals will help you to stop munching unnecessary snacks in-between.
Also it’s a very good habit to eat your dinner atleast three hours before you go to sleep.
If you eat and go to sleep immediately, your body will continue to work on digesting and absorbing your food and you will end up getting a disturbed sleep.
Your tummy is not a trash can
Wasting food is a crime. There are no questions or doubts about that. But that doesn't mean that you should eat all the left-over food from your children.
Many moms do this and in-voluntarily help to speed up the accumulating belly fat.
Always remember your tummy needs food for re-fueling and energizing your body. It's not a trash can to throw food!
We will continue to talk more about eating in our next episode. Stay tuned!