Health Tips

Losing Tummy Fat – It’ll Never Happen Without a Plan

December 9, 2009
By Peter Phillips

We all know that any excess weight can cause some serious health problems, including a heart attack and other fat induced diseases. You should therefore start setting some achievable plan to get your weight down and perhaps avoid serious illness and perhaps a premature death.

Your long term goal should be the normal weight for a person of your height, so before you do anything else, find that out. Your next job will be to define a specific short term plan to get down to that ideal weight. Your chances of getting to your ideal weight will be much enhanced by making a sensible plan that you can stick to. The biggest component of that plan is your self belief that it is achievable.

What are the aspects of your plan?

1. You must be realistic and believe that you can do it

Most people tend to be overly ambitious in the goal they set themselves. For example, suppose you weigh 200 pounds and you want to get down to the 150 you were as a teenager, that plan is almost certain to fail. When you were 18 you were most likely a lot more active than you are today, certainly a lot fitter. Accept that you will never be as fit again. At 45, you can not be fit; you can only be fit for a 45 year old.

As a starting point you should find out your own body mass index, as this will tell you if you are just overweight or seriously overweight. Here are the BMI ranges you should look at:

Underweight = < 18.5

Normal weight = 18.5-24.9

Overweight = 25-29.9

Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

From this you can see that the proper BMI is somewhere between 18.5 and 24.9. I calculated the BMI for a male 6 feet in height with a weight of 200 pounds and that came up with a BMI figure of 27.1, just in the overweight category.

For a man of this height therefore, his weight should be around 175 pounds, which gives a BMI of 23.7. This man’s aim in losing tummy fat therefore should be to lose 25 pounds, which is realistic. All he has to do to achieve this is to do some exercise and watch what he eats. Unfortunately, everybody knows this, just like smokers know they are killing themselves, it’s just that it take some discipline to do it.

2. Tell yourself why you need to lose weight

Try not to concentrate on your own vanity as the reason for your desire to lose weigh, although that is not a bad thing. If you have a wedding to go to in three months and you don’t fit into your suit, that can be a good motivator for you. Your main reason for losing weight should be to improve your health.

3. Focus on the plan, not the goal.

Rather than having a short term goal to lose a pound this coming week, say you are going to do at least half an hour’s exercise every day, and you would lose that pound as a by product.

4. Don’t go overboard

If you hardly ever exercised at all, don’t plan on running the Boston Marathon next month. Build up gradually by going for brisk walks, say for a mile every night. If you can get a dog, who will certainly give you all the encouragement you need to go for a walk!

5. Take action

Even the best plan in the world for losing tummy fat is of no use if you don’t follow it. Don’t wait for the right time; there will always be something good on TV, it will always be too hot or too cold, you will always have had a hard day. Procrastination is the art of letting things happen to you instead of making them happen.

Peter Phillips is an internet entrepreneur living in Canberra, Australia

Find more articles on losing tummy fat plus other health related articles

For Money making opportunities

Share and Enjoy: