BELLY BUSTER - Top belly busters for blokes

Have those after-work beers caught up to you? Beat the belly with these top tips.

 

The human body is programmed to protect its current weight, even if this is an extra-large belly. Here's how to outsmart your primitive biology.

Exercise every day

Exercise is essential for losing your belly. It helps you burn more fat while keeping your muscles intact.

The human body was designed to move, yet we have done our level best to engineer movement out of our lives. Cars, sedentary jobs, technology and the quest for convenience have all made it easier to do very little.

If you want to be active, you usually have to plan to make it happen. Aim for a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise (such as brisk walking, cycling or swimming) on five days each week.

You can save time by going harder and doing two 30-minute sessions of vigorous exercise (such as jogging, tennis or a gym circuit class) a week instead. Remember, the more exercise you do, the more benefits you'll get.

Know your calories

Generally speaking, consuming 2081 calories (8700 kilojoules) a day is a good target for belly-busting men (it may be higher or lower depending on your height, age or weight, so check with your doctor if you are unsure).

If you eat three meals and two snacks a day, a meal should contain between 478 and 717 calories (2000 and 3000 kilojoules), with snacks and drinks making up the rest of the calories.

The recommended daily intake for adults on which food manufacturers base their labelling system is also 2081 calories. So when you see a label on a packet of food saying that one serve is "10 per cent DI", it means it contains 208 calories, or 10 per cent of your recommended daily calorie intake. Look for main meals that are 25 per cent DI and snacks that are less than 10 per cent DI.

Have breakfast

It doesn't need to be large, fancy, eaten at dawn or even eaten at a table – just eat it. If you don't, your hunger will catch up with you and strike with a vengeance, and you'll be grabbing the biscuits and chocolate when you hit the afternoon slump.

It has been shown that men who don't eat breakfast have, on average, bigger bellies. Quick, healthy breakfasts include:

• Smoothies with low-fat yoghurt, low-fat milk and fruit.
• Muesli or bran cereal with low-fat milk and strawberries.
• Instant porridge with sliced banana.
• Baked beans or boiled eggs on wholegrain toast.

If you've got more time, you could even try making your own muesli by mixing oats, wheatgerm and any type of bran with almonds, sunflower seeds, dried apricots, sultanas and chopped prunes.

Eat your vegetables

Vegetables are your belly-busting best friends – they offer so much for so little cost (in terms of calories). The vitamins, minerals, fibre and phytochemicals they contain stop you falling apart from the inside and make you feel great.

Aim to fill half your plate at dinner with vegetables, raw or cooked. But that doesn't mean eating half a plate of mashed potato is okay; potatoes count as carbohydrates, along with pasta, noodles, bread and rice, and should take up a quarter of your plate, with meat or other proteins making up the last quarter.

Include a variety of vegetables in each meal. Go for carrots, tomatoes, onions, broccoli, mushroom, lettuce, capsicum, celery, pumpkin, parsnips, zucchini, peas, corn, broccoli, cabbage, beans and beetroot. If you're still hungry after your meal, eat more vegetables.

Add protein

It's a good idea to include some protein in all your meals as well as some of your snacks. Protein-rich foods keep your stomach busy and quiet for longer. They also help to build muscle and maintain your strength.

But there's no need to go berserk and drink protein powders and eat only chicken breasts and eggwhites. Keep in mind that balance and variety are always important principles to follow.

Here are a few easy ideas to add protein to each meal

• For breakfast, include low-fat milk or yoghurt, eggs, legumes or unsalted nuts.
• For lunch and dinner, include lean meat, fish, eggs, chicken or legumes.
• For snacks, include low-fat milk or yoghurt, unsalted nuts or hummus.

Snack smarter

Before you eat anything, the first question to ask is, are you really hungry? If the answer is no, don't eat anything and have some water or a diet drink instead.

Eating when you are not even hungry will add to the size of your belly rather than bust it. It is a seriously unhelpful habit. If you are really hungry, keep to the key foods your body needs.

Think of snacks as just top-ups of the healthy foods you eat throughout the day, not an excuse to eat party food in the middle of the afternoon. Good snack choices include:

• Fruit (fresh, dried or canned fruit is fine, but fruit juice is not as it is high in calories).
• A glass of low-fat milk or tub of low-fat yoghurt.
• A piece of wholegrain toast with hummus or a spread such as peanut butter.
• A cup of plain popcorn.
• A handful of unsalted nuts.

Cut back on booze

Alcohol is a rich fuel source and you need to work hard to burn it off. A 375ml bottle or can of beer, for instance, contains 136 calories (570 kilojoules) – the equivalent of two slices of bread.

Drinking also leads to bad food choices and you won't exercise the next day. Cut your alcohol intake by half: drink on half as many days and consume half as many drinks per session as you normally do.

Health authorities recommend men limit alcohol to an average of two standard drinks a day and have two alcohol-free days a week. Two standard drinks is one-and-a-half cans of beer, one medium glass of wine or two nips of spirits.

Avoid calorie bombs

It's good to focus on the positive – all the great foods you can and should eat every day when you are belly busting. But it's handy to be reminded of keep-it-for-a-treat foods. These foods are extremely high in sugar or fat, so steer clear of them on a regular basis:

• Cakes, biscuits, slices, muffins and doughnuts.
• Chocolate.
• Cream, sour cream and butter.
• Fast food, chips and pies (anything deep-fried).
• Potato and corn chips (anything salty in a packet).
• Regular soft drinks and flavoured mineral water (diet or lite is okay), sports drinks, fruit juice and iced tea.

Build muscle

When you've got muscle on board, you can eat more without gaining weight, because muscle burns fuel at a higher rate even when you're sitting still.

The key to building muscle is strength training, also known as resistance exercise. This includes using free weights or weight machines, doing push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, lunges and squats, or exercising with resistance bands or fitness balls.

Learn the technique correctly first, then gradually build up the length and number of sessions until you're doing two or three a week. Leave at least a day between sessions to help your muscles recover.

Don't eat distracted

We eat with our eyes as well as our mouths. So serve your meals at the table and sit down and enjoy them properly. Eat slowly and you're bound to feel more satisfied than inhaling them while standing over the bench.

Eating while watching TV is a bad idea too – you will eat mindlessly (and probably fatty food), plus your metabolic rate slows right down to a level not much higher than sleeping. When you're travelling, resist the urge to buy chips or biscuits while waiting at airports or service stations.

Belly-busting meal ideas

Breakfast

• 3/4 cup porridge with 1 cup low-fat milk and 2 tbs sultanas.
• 2/3 cup raw muesli with 1 cup low-fat milk and 1 sliced banana.
• 2 slices wholegrain toast with Vegemite or peanut butter.
• 4 wheat cereal biscuits with 1 cup low-fat milk, 2 tbs chopped nuts and 1/2 cup canned fruit.
• Breakfast melt: 2 slices wholegrain toast with 1/2 cup kidney beans, 2 tbs ricotta, handful basil, sliced tomatoes and 2 tbs grated parmesan, grilled.
• 2 poached or boiled eggs on 2 slices wholegrain toast with margarine and tomatoes and mushrooms in olive oil.

Lunch

• 2 slices wholegrain bread with ham, baby spinach and tomato.
• 1 boiled egg and 1 pear.
• 1 small can of salmon or tuna (in water) and large salad. 1 apple.
• 1 wholegrain roll with 80g lean roast beef, 2 tsp each of margarine, wholegrain mustard and horseradish cream, sliced red capsicum, cucumber and salad leaves.
• Lunch melt: 1 wholegrain muffin with 1 cup baby spinach, 1/2 cup salt-reduced baked beans, 2 slices light cheese, grilled. 1 banana.
• Tuna stir-fry: 65g vermicelli noodles, 1 can tuna, 1 capsicum, 4 shallots, 3 tsp soy sauce, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp sesame oil.

Dinner

• Asian stir-fry: 200g lean chicken or beef strips, 2 cups mixed vegetables, 40g egg noodles and 1/4 cup reduced-salt stir-fry sauce.
• 300g white fish fillets or 150g salmon steak (grilled or pan-fried) with 1 large corn cob and 1 cup steamed vegetables.
• 200g lean pork steak, 1 mashed potato (with 1 tbs light milk and 1 tsp margarine), 2 cups steamed green beans and broccoli.
• Homemade pizza: 1 wholemeal Lebanese bread, 1 tbs no-added-salt tomato paste, 200g sliced tomatoes, 100g sardines, 40g chopped salt-reduced fetta, 1 cup rocket leaves.

Belly-busting snacks

Snacks from group A and C are about 143 cal (600kJ) each, while snacks from group B are about 71 cal (300kJ) each. As a rough guide, men who wear size M clothes can have two snacks a day from group A and B, while men who are size L or larger can have one from each group.

Belly-busting meal ideas

Group A

• 300ml low-fat milk
• 250ml breakfast drink
• Large skim latte
• 200g low-fat yoghurt
• 250ml skim fruit smoothie

Group B

• 1 large apple or pear
• 1 banana
• 1 handful grapes
• 1/2 large can of fruit
• 6 apricot halves
• 2 tbs sultanas

Group C

• 30g unsalted nuts
• 2 boiled eggs
• 220g baked beans
• 1 plain oat-based muesli bar
• 1 slice wholegrain toast with
• 1 tbs peanut butter

This is an edited extract from Belly Busting For Blokes (New Holland, $24.95) by Nicole Senior and Veronica Cuskelly, available in bookstores now.

Source: http://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/