10 Best exercises for a flat stomach

A bulging stomach is a problem area for most mortals. Even those who are naturally thin tend to develop a paunch as they step into their 30s.

Our stomachs store fat for a number of reasons; these reasons range from the genetic to plain abuse of food and drink, with little to no exercise. Often, those who invest heavily in exercise and diet to banish the bulging stomach, do so with a vague and incorrect idea of what is needed for a flat stomach. Today, we give you a few exercises that will strengthen and create lean abdominal muscles, help you eliminate a flabby belly and give you a flat stomach that helps you fight disease and ill-health.

The key to a flat stomach is combination

To kick that tummy fat, simply belting away crunches or pushups is not enough. A solo act can't lead to a flat tummy or fat loss. Fitness expert, Sophi says, "In my opinion spot reduction is not possible, there is no way to target a particular part of the body for fat loss."

Your goal should be to build muscle, and focus on fat loss. Whether you are able to drop weight before attempting muscle toning, or tone muscle and then cut fat, depends entirely on how overweight you are, and how many inches you need to lose.

Follow patterned full body exercises like skipping and running to burn energy at an elevated heartrate. The kind of food you eat also helps to cut down that visible and visceral fat. A balanced healthy diet is essential for stomach fat loss.

Drink plenty of water and stay off from stress and anxiety and limit your salt intake. Besides get enough sleep to kick your belly fat.

Mentioned ahead are exercises that will help get a flat stomach.

Note: These exercises will only help you get rid of stomach fat if you practise them in combination with a healthy lifestyle and balanced diet.

Funky standing abs

This is one of the best and easiest exercises to begin with. Stand with your feet below your shoulders, and then tighten your abs slowly bending your knees.

Tilt your pelvis forward, so that your back is curved. Come back to the centre and tilt pelvis backward. Perform this exercise 15 times on either side, or as your workout permits.

Chair leg lifts

Perform this exercise using any kind of chair.

All you have to do is, sit straight with your back flat against the chair, place your hands on the seat of your chair, then slowly lift your knees towards your chest and slowly restore them back.

Carry out slow breathing while doing this. Perform this 2 set exercise at least 10-15 times.

Crunches

This is a good exercise for upper, lower and oblique abdominal muscles. Begin by lying flat on the ground, with your feet placed firmly on the ground, clasp your hands behind your head.

Raise your upper body by squeezing your abdominal muscles and when you are halfway through, hold on for 3 seconds.

Then bring back your body back to floor, slowly. Do at least 30 crunches per set.

Perpendicular exercise

Lie flat on your back, with your hands behind your back. Breathe out, as you lift your legs over your hips so they are perpendicular to the floor; slightly extend the distance between your legs.

Breathe in as you lower down your legs. Start up with 4 to 5 sets, and then increase it to 10.

Dumbbell bends

This exercise is useful for your oblique muscles. Start with grabbing a dumbbell, holding it in your right hand; see to it that your palm is facing your body.

Your feet should be at a shoulder-width distance. Slowly place your left hand on your hip and bend your upper body towards the right, while keeping your head and body facing forward.

Bring back your body to normal position and then repeat the same movement on the left side. Practice 20 repetitions.

Bicycle exercise

Bicycle is the best exercise for toning your stomach. It helps by keeping your stomach stable, along with movements, which burns fat.

Perform this exercise by lying on the floor, place your hands behind your head and bring your knees off the floor.

Bring your right elbow towards your left knee while performing cycling motion, and then switch your elbow position.

Side exercise

This exercise targets your oblique, core muscles and shoulders. Stand straight, with your feet at approximately the width of your hips. Slowly bend your knees and hold dumbbells in each hand.

Lift your hands up, so that the dumbbells are above your head and relax. Then lean your arms, head and torso to the right till 2 counts, then come back to the original position and then repeat it to the left side.

Carry out at least 10 repetitions.

Planks

Lie on the floor, with your face down, upper body supported on your forearms. Raise your entire body off the floor, with the support of your forearms and toes form a straight line.

Carry out 3 repetitions, with 15 to 20 seconds hold.

Clock exercise

To carry out this exercise, you may need an exercise ball. Rest your back on the ball with your feet aligned with your hips.

Stretch your arms over your head, contracting your abdominal muscles, and then rotate your body like a clock. Carry out 10 rotations in each side.

For questions specific to your health conditions, please write down in the comments section and we will answer it as soon as possible. Thanks

6 Habits that give you a paunch

We  list out the things that contribute to your burgeoning waistline.

We tend to overlook on certain habits that affect our life. We list down seven such habits that give you a belly pudge and how you can get rid of the unwanted fat gathering around your increasing waistline...

Skipping meals
When you skip meals, you end up overeating later and the fat inevitably finds a way to your midsection. Make it a point to eat small to medium-sized meals every three to four hours daily. We have to trick our body into having smaller meals every two to three hours to keep our metabolic rate high, not making us feel hungry and binge later.

Binge drinking
When you binge-drink, you are inviting flab to settle down on your mid-section. Alcohol contains lots of calories and you often tend to feel hungry while you are drinking. If you want to go out drinking with friends, make sure you opt for red wine — it helps fight paunch. The consumption of alcohol in moderation is fine during weight maintenance. You can choose to have wine as it is a rich source of antioxidants.

Crazy about crunches
Sit-ups tone the muscles and does not affect the layer of fat covering them. Doing 50 or 100 crunches will not make your jeans fitting loose. Instead of doing 50 crunches a day, it is advisable to jog or brisk walk in the park or on the treadmill for half an hour daily to get rid of the belly pudge. Only doing too much of crunches will not help. A proper combination of a good workout along with diet will help you to lose the fat faster.

Consuming 'lite' products
Remember that opting for sugar-free sweets, yoghurt, low-fat snacks or diet sodas will not help in the long run. These artificial sweeteners trigger your metabolism to increase the storage of fat.

Staying away from bread
Whole-grain breads and cereals allow insulin to rise and gradually reduce the chances of adding fat to your belly. Make it a point of include wild rice, whole wheat bread  and oatmeal in your meal plan once a day. Bread made from whole wheat and other processed grains have usually more fibre and are usually no different from homemade chapattis. It is healthy to have some amount of carbohydrates to help in the digestion process.

Fatty foods: a big no-no
Not all kinds of fats are unhealthy. Monounsaturated fats are good for you. Nutritionists opine that if you consume one-quarter of an avocado either in your sandwich or salad, you will lose the fat around your belly soon. Good fats are essential for your body. For example, you can have nuts, healthy oils like sunflower and olive oil. Avoiding them completely will not benefit your body completely.

For questions specific to your health conditions, please write down in the comments section and we will answer it as soon as possible. Thanks

Things your guy doesn’t want you to know

You may be proud of the fact that you've finally got your man to open up and share his secrets with you but don't be so sure about it.

There could still be things he would never want you to know. We reveal a few of them...

He may be your childhood friend or someone you've been with since more than a decade. But this doesn't make it mandatory for your man to tell you every little thing about his life, especially his past. There is certain valuable information he would love to keep to himself and never tell you about it. Moreover, men even feel trapped if they are pushed to open up or communicate. Here are a few facts your man may try to cover up..

How does it feel listening to stories about how your guy bagged a lot of hot chicks during his college days and the kind of physical equation he shared with each of them? It certainly isn't a great feeling. Your guy knows this and so he may hide it from you. You need not force your guy to divulge numbers as it might upset him and put you at the risk of spending the night alone.

His strip club experiences
Most guys take pleasure in watching the ladies dance around erotically. For your guy, going to a strip club with his gang of guys might be an open option for an evening's entertainment but he would make sure you don't even get a hint about it. "Your guy will never even say that he was a regular earlier with the fear that you'd interrogate him on the same," says Dr Montel, consulting psychotherapist and relationship counsellor. "You would want to know why he likes it, and how much he spends when he goes to a strip club and a lot more," she adds.

He is emotional
Being caught crying by a woman is nothing less than a nightmare for some guys. That's one of the reasons guys never express themselves. They love to portray themselves as strong and attempt to create a macho-man like image of themselves. Some even believe that shedding tears or expressing one's feelings is something that just women do. Guys never want you to know that even they think a lot about certain things and that those little matters tend to affect them too.

His porn store location
His hard disk is full of porn and sleazy content but when you may ask him about it, he might react saying, "What?" Guys like porn but they might not be very open to accepting the same. Guys tend to mix up their fantasy world with the real one which is wrong but you need not compare yourself to Jenna Jameson every time you're in bed with him. If you know that your guy is trying to keep his porn collection under wraps, let him. Do not stress him into unveiling it by poking him all the time.

He is still a mama's boy
Many men are pampered and spoilt for choice by their moms. So when they get
married or get into a relationship, they end up constantly comparing their partners to their moms which in turn leads to the extremely popular saas-bahu rivalry. They may know it but definitely wouldn't like you to know that they are overgrown mama's boys and still depend on their mommy for their every little need.

His bizarre fantasies
Certain fantasies can be shared and enjoyed together. But he may be into real freaky stuff that may involve weird tools, and you may not quite appreciate them. So, it's absolutely normal for him to not divulge some daydreams and thoughts as you may just head to the door once you get to know of them.

Skin Ageing: Factors that cause it

Here are a few factors that will cause your skin to age premature and make you look older:

-Apart from your increasing your weight, sugar is also responsible for boosting ageing. When your blood sugar is high, it causes a process called glycation which harms elastin and collagen in our skin. This leads to the wrinkling of the skin.

-Did you know, excessive exercising, especially running is known to cause the skin to sag? Known as runner's face, it is caused by the breakdown of collagen. So keep your morning runs short.

-Excessive alcohol leads to dehydration and also lowers the salt content in the body, which is known to be bad for the skin.

-If you have an erratic lifestyle and are not getting enough sleep, this is another reason that will make you look older than your years. Lack of sleep causes dark circles and the skin on your face to look sallow. It makes the skin weak and susceptible, thus making it age faster.

-In winter, the cold dry air saps all the moisture from the skin, making it prone to fine lines and wrinkles. To combat this, apply a moisturiser as soon as you are out of the hot shower.

Love Things you didn’t know: Science

Valentine's Day fever is in the air, and love is all around. But there are certain things about love that even the most seasoned couples are unaware of

Latest research offers new lenses through which to see love.

1. Love is not a private emotion
Change the notion that love is confined to a single person's mind. Research shows that when you connect with someone else, there is a moment of synchrony between the two of you. Gestures, biochemistries, even neural firings of the two people mirror each other. So, love is a biologically mutual wave that can flow through two or more bodies and brains at the same time.

2. Love secures the connection between the brain and heart
It is often said that people who are social and have a strong sense of community live longer. But why this is the case was considered a mystery until now. New research shows that when a random group of people are asked to learn ways to create small moments of love in their daily lives, it improves the function of the vagus nerve in the longer run. The vagus nerve is a key channel that connects the brain to the heart.

3. Love doesn't require suppressing negativity
Think about love as little moments of shared positivity, and you realise that you can experience love even if you — or the person with whom you are connected — is suffering. Love doesn't mean ignorance of negativity. In fact, it is similar to compassion in essence; some level of empathy and kindness are part of the melting pot called love.

4. Love is not exclusive
Love is not restricted to your inner circle of friends and family members. If they are the only entities that come to mind when you think of love, you are constraining opportunities for growth and well-being. Science says that you can experience real moments of connectedness with anyone, a soulmate or even a stranger, as long as you feel safe and secure while establishing it.

5. Changing your views on love changes your capacity for it
You can use minute moments of connection to make incredible turnarounds in your personal and professional life. When you take just a minute or two every day to think about whether you felt attuned to another person (or people), you start the process for a slew of benefits and the release of happy hormones. Now that you know more about how love works, why not start this practice today?

Wonders of honey

Honey has been used for its numerous benefits since four thousand years. It's believed to have been used in pre-ancient Egyptian times, to treat wounds. Here are some other benefits of this wonder food...

-Experts say that honey is helpful in preventing acid reflux.

-It has anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties that act as a great moisturiser, making the skin elastic and supple. It keeps wrinkles, blemishes and dryness at bay.

-Apply it on your face overnight or use a moisturiser that has honey extracts.

-Give your immune system a boost by regularly having honey mixed in warm water. -Honey is packed with vitamins, minerals and enzymes that are known to protect your body from bacteria.

-Want to lose weight? Drinking warm water with a dash of lemon and honey when you wake up, is an ideal way to detox. Doing this daily will help cleanse your liver, and remove toxins and fat from the body. You can also have this every night before going to bed.

-Honey also contains antiseptic properties that help treat indigestion by relieving the acidity in the stomach. It also neutralises gas.

-Honey has natural sugars that provide you with a healthy source of calories and energy. So, the next time you're feeling tired or low on energy, have a tablespoon of organic honey instead of caffeine.

-Certain studies also say that honey, when mixed with cinnamon, revitalises the arteries and veins of the heart and reduces cholesterol in the blood by up to 10%.