A belly hangover, spillage, or muffin top whatever you call it, is always an embarrassment in general. It shows how unhealthy or ill-maintained your body is. If you are affected by muffin top and are wondering how to lose the muffin top, then fret not you are not alone, you got many other companions riding the same boat and figuring out ways to lose that spillage around their waist.
Before we get straight on how to get rid of muffin top or the best way to get rid of muffin top, let’s know what causes the muffin top.
What causes muffin top
Well, you might have many reasons cropping up on your mind that cause muffin top but there are few major reasons that need to be highlighted and must be considered. The most underlying cause of the muffin top is fat retention.
When generally considered, the fat cells accumulate around your hips, waist, back, and breasts are when the body takes too many calories and don’t burn calories as many as you are consuming. And with time, these fat cells become noticeable and accumulate around the areas like waist and hips.
With this, it can be understood that the fat can be accumulated anywhere in the body, but there are certain reasons and factors that retain fat in the hip, abdominal areas, and lower back.
Some of the factors that contribute to forming spillage include:
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Hormones (Too much of cortisol)
The hormonal changes play a very big role in fat storage, especially the estrogen. The estrogen makes the fat gets stored by the body in different areas, specifically the areas like chest, hips, and thighs.
When the levels of estrogen increase, women tend to store the fat in buttocks, hips, and chest and when the levels decrease there is a shift in the fat storage, now the fat is stored more in the abdominal area.
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Aging
Belly fat accumulation is common as you get older. Throughout the woman’s fertile years, the female body has the delicate balance of estrogen and progesterone. The higher level of estrogen increases the fat tissue formation but this is the effect is an offset for younger women.
From the age of 35, levels of both hormones decrease, which leads to the menopause and fat accumulation around the waistline and hips.
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Lack of Physical activity
Lack of physical activity can be the most absolute reason for that spillage. Physical activity helps the individuals to burn the calories, especially the extra calories if consumed any. When these calories do not burn, they accumulate as fat cells around certain areas of your body.
30 minutes of cardio always stands necessary for a human body to remain healthy and in top form.
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Improper Diet
When women see her belly overhang, the first thing that strikes her mind is that she needs a diet plan. But we always forget to realize that we do not need a diet unless we have a healthy eating habit.
The diet high in fats, sugars, and calories are the major causes of the muffin top. Eating quickly, or eating processed and fast foods, on the other hand, contribute the same effect in forming a muffin top.
When you consume more than what is required, the body needs to store the excess energy and that is stored quite often in the area around the abdomen causing the belly overhang.
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Stress and Sleep Deprivation
Stress and sleep deprivation are again the key factors of muffin top. When an individual’s body is stressed the brain elevates the release of adrenaline and cortisol hormones and this is basically in the form of sugar that is often stored by the body in the mid-section and this adds up to the abdominal obesity.
The same is the case when an individual is a sleep deprived. The stress hormones elevate and interfere with a healthy weight.
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Untreated or undiagnosed conditions
Sometimes the undiagnosed and untreated conditions that slow down the metabolism can also contribute to forming the muffin top. The conditions like hypothyroidism or underactive thyroid make it difficult in burning off the calories and hence the fat accumulation is promoted which leads to muffin top or spillage.
With all these causing muffin tops for women, we have around 60% of women suffering from muffin tops, which means most of the women these days are leading an unhealthy life and their negligence towards their bodies have them the unsightly rolls of fat bulging over their waistbands.
Now, this sounds to be a common flaw, so how do we get rid of muffin top? Well, this again is among the most cropping up questions women with muffin top have. If you have that fat forming a muffin top around your belly then here are few ways on “how to lose muffin top?”.
Ways to Get Rid of Muffin Top
Losing muffin top is a weight loss challenge, where many are conventionally advised to focus on spot reduction exercises in order to eliminate the excess fat, while on the other hand most of the research and studies advice of a general weight loss regimen with the smart diet choices and cardiovascular exercises.
Keep reading further to know different ways about “How to lose muffin top?”.
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Workout
Most of the trainers no longer suggest spot reduction as it does not successfully eliminate the fat in the targeted area. The fastest way to lose the muffin top is to perform the muffin top exercises.
Here you can find your muffin top workout that comprises of the exercises to get rid of muffin top.
Exercises that focus on the abdomen can help you reduce the appearance of your muffin top.
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Cardiovascular Exercises
Doing more cardio forces our body to work more and burn off those extra fluffed calories deflating your muffin top. You can include high-energy dance, like Zumba, or swimming, cycling, hiking that count under the high-intensity cardio workouts. Also, walk more, set a goal of 10,000 steps per day and track your steps with a pedometer.
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Perform abs-focused exercises
Exercises like crunches, sit-ups are the most prominent ones among the exercises that focus on toning of abs. Well, just the focus on abs won’t do great to reduce your muffin top, an abs-focused workout alongside the cardio can work wonders.
The abdominal crisscross is considered to be the best exercise for muffin top. It is advised to work more on the side muscles that can help greatly in toning the waistline.
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Diet
What you eat is what you grow as. Healthy eating will immune your body, whereas unhealthy food can develop that fluff around your body making your body prone to many diseases. Before we move on to what to include in the diet and what not, you should know that you don’t have any specific diet to lose the muffin top, you need to have a diet that is for complete body weight loss.
So, here’s a list of do’s and don’ts in your diet to maintain a healthy and proper diet and to reduce that spillage.
- Do’s
- Limit your intake sizes, eat in small sizes and frequently. The small meals help your body to burn off calories easily.
- Eat balanced and nutritious food, include vegetables, fruits, lean protein, and grains.
- Monitor your fat intake and workout as per them. Get more fiber in your diet, eat whole foods and stock up protein. Protein stimulates the metabolism and helps in easy burning of calories.
- Don’ts
- Avoid distracted eating, prohibit yourself from eating in front of the television or at the work desk.
- Avoid Trans fat as it may increase waist size up to 30 percent more than the monounsaturated fats. Avoid fast food and processed meals as they contain hidden trans fat.
- Eliminate high-calorie drinks from your eating habits, say no to alcohol and also avoid sodium as it causes the body to retain water and gas making your abdomen bloated.
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Minimize stress
Stress can have a negative impact on both your mental and physical health. Like discussed above, stress triggers the production of the hormone cortisol which causes unwanted effects like digestive issues, weight gain, and headaches. So, to reduce stress, one can practice yoga, or meditate.
Yoga and meditation work wonders in reducing the cortisol levels and ultimately reducing stress as well.
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Wearing Shapewear
Shapewear is a compression garment that pushes the fat in and compresses your stomach area. This can be considered as the best way to lose muffin top temporarily, as it shaves off a few inches from your stomach and waist.
However, it won’t work miracles, it’s just that it makes your waist look smaller. So, if you want to look slimmer quickly then you should wear best shapewear for muffin top.
Conclusion
Losing muffin top can be tedious, but you can lose it if you are determined. The ways mentioned above may give you slow results but will ensure the results stay longer when practiced properly.
Although changing one aspect of your life and sticking to a healthy lifestyle may result in some weight loss but by combining the ways prescribed above and practicing it with determination might give you a better chance to lose your muffin top.
