Are you struggling to find trousers that fit? Do you suck in your belly every time you go topless on the beach? Are your love handles ergonomically designed for the perfect grip? Then you sir, need to get to the gym and start sorting out that stomach!

There are many reasons why you might have developed a bit of a waste-line. Perhaps you’ve taken up a more sedentary job? Perhaps you’ve been on the booze a bit too frequently? Maybe you’ve just hit middle age? Well let me tell you, none of these are actually reasons; what they are is ‘excuses’. There are plenty of people who have all these conditions and still maintain abs that would make Brad Pitt green with envy. So what’s the secret?

Well sorry to disappoint, there is no secret, no ‘silver bullet’ that’ll lose you that gut short of liposuction (just no). What there is however is common sense and a few mistakes you can avoid along the way.

One common misconception when trying to do away with the fat around the wait is that you can get abs simply by doing hundreds of sit-ups and crunches. Don’t buy that exercise ball just yet though; the problem with this type of thinking is that training a specific area does not lose fat in that area. Unlike building muscle, where and how you lose fat has nothing to do with how you train and to have visible abs all you need to do is lose the fat on top of it.

So forget the crunches and abs for now. Once you’ve lost the puppy fat you can use these to tone up and harden your belly but until then you’ll do much better with old fashioned CV like running, shadow boxing or skipping. The good news is that this is simple and doesn’t require much time (about 30 minutes to an hour five days a week will work to start with). If you don’t have access to a gym you can skip or shadow box in your room before bed or first thing in the morning. Even better if you have showers at work you can simply jog there; if they don’t you can do it on the way back.

That’s one piece of the puzzle, the other refers to that boozing we mentioned earlier, or more accurately your diet in general. If you’re going to lose the gut you need to eat less or at least fewer carbs. You can actually get away with booze if you’re good the rest of the time and there’s no need to go crazy – you can still have a pudding after your dinner just maybe not dinner and lunch. A few other little things you can do are to use vegetable oil as opposed to other fats in your cooking and to lose the butter on your bread. Change your milked from full fat to skimmed and maybe limit yourself to one cookie instead of two. Take the sugar out of your tea even. It’s no hardship really but if you can start making these little changes you’ll be surprised at how much of a difference it can make. If you’re vigilant you may even start to prefer the healthier options from time to time!

Mack LeMouse

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