7 Simple Hacks to Help Shrink Your Waist Quickly

If you were to poll Americans from coast to coast regarding something they would like to change about their body, I’m willing to bet their response would be to eliminate the excess baggage around their midsection. The bad news is that the bulge didn’t appear overnight, and it certainly won’t disappear overnight. The good news is that all hope isn’t lost, and if you want to shrink your waist, you can make some simple changes today to get headed in the right direction.

1. Stay consistent with your meal schedule

If you’ve ever tried intermittent fasting, at first, you think there’s no way you could ever fast for 16 hours, let alone do it every day. Then you do it, it sucks for the first couple of days, and then before you know it, your body isn’t hungry during the fasted window anymore. The same thing goes with your everyday nutrition plan.

If you are consistent with when you eat your meals, your body will get used to eating at a certain time and fasting during other times (you don’t need to follow intermittent fasting, I was simply using it as an example to prove my point).

Have breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the same time every day. Fit in your snacks in between, and you’re good to go with helping to shrink your waist in no time.

2. Move more throughout the day

It sounds so simple, yet if you track your steps, I’m willing to bet they are very low. Why is that? Because we’re lazy! That’s not a dig at you, it’s a dig at our entire society. How many times have you driven around a parking lot looking for the closest spot possible? How many times have you taken the elevator instead of the stairs? It’s a cultural problem now. We are getting lazier by the day, thanks to technology. And if you want to shrink your waist and not look like those around you, start moving more.

What does this mean? It means it’s ok to park in the back of the lot and walk up to the entrance doors. It means you can use the stairs rather than the elevator or escalator. Rather than picking up the phone to call your co-worker down the hall, you walk down and talk to them. Go for a walk over your lunch break, or go for a walk with the family after dinner. Simply put… MOVE MORE.

3. Make protein a higher priority in meals

I think it’s safe to say that you’d agree, as Americans, we have no issue fitting in enough carbohydrates and fats in our diet. That being said, many people are falling short when it comes to their daily protein intake. We should strive for around one gram of protein per pound of body weight. So, a 160-pound individual should get around 160 grams of protein. The problem is most people aren’t even getting over the 100-gram hump each day.

Related Article: Does The Protein Source You Use Really Matter?

Put more of a focus on protein. Look for quality protein sources that you enjoy eating and fit them into more of your meals. Chicken, fish, steak, beef, turkey, and eggs are an amazingly healthy group of protein choices to help you shrink your waist. How does it do this? It’s quite simple.

When we consume protein, the body has to work harder to break it down, causing what is known as a thermic effect of food. The more protein you consume during the day, the more calories your body needs to burn just to break down and process the protein into a usable form (amino acids). Protein is also the building block of muscle tissue and muscle tissue repair. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you will naturally burn during the day — even while at rest!

4. Change the macro breakdown on your plate

When you look at the portions of each source of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fats) on your plate, you will probably find a heavier amount of carbs and fats compared to protein. This needs to be changed if you want to shrink your waist.

At mealtime, I want you to split your plate in half. On one side, I want you to fill it with a lean protein source (like what was mentioned in #3). With the other half, I want you to either fill it with some sort of vegetable (preferably a green leafy vegetable), or you can split that side in half (ultimately, you’ll have two quarters on your plate) and fill the first half of that side with vegetables and the other half with a healthy fat source.

5. Utilize the benefits of drinking more water

Our body is made up primarily of water, along with some bones, muscles, and organs. For that reason, water is extremely important, but something not many people focus on, and they become slightly dehydrated during the day. Even being the tiniest bit dehydrated can affect your mental and physical performance — something you would prefer to keep elevated.

On top of helping your body function properly, water is a great way to reduce your appetite and prevent yourself from overeating so that you can shrink your waist. Before each meal, drink a glass of water. This will send a signal to your brain that the stomach is filling up. It will cause you to feel more satiated and help prevent you from going back for seconds (or even thirds) of a meal.

It’s also a great idea to always have a water bottle with you. When you drink it all, simply refill it or grab a new water bottle if you drank from a recyclable plastic bottle. Hydration is extremely important and something you need to be focusing on.

6. Change things up with HIIT workouts

As I watch people at the gym, I’m a little disappointed by their lack of effort. I don’t want you to just show up and think that just because you walked through the gym doors that the fat fairy is on her way to come to suck the fat out of your body (wouldn’t that be nice, though?). Putting in minimal effort will give you minimal results. If you want to shrink your waist, you better be ready to go crush some workouts — both cardio and weight training.

A great way to put in maximal effort in the least amount of time is through HIIT workouts. HIIT stands for high-intensity interval training. Essentially, you’re going to engage in a max effort phase which will then be immediately followed by a recovery, low effort phase. For example, you can do a 30-second max sprint and follow that up with 60 seconds of a walk. Do that for 15 minutes, and you have yourself one heck of a fat-burning HIIT workout. Give it a try and change things up!

7. Focus more on getting better quality sleep

How much sleep are you getting each night? If you’re like most people, not enough. In order to help maintain your health and recover properly, you should be getting a minimum of seven hours of quality sleep. Most people don’t associate sleep with the ability to shrink your waist, but the fact is, when you aren’t getting quality REM sleep, it can cause hormonal imbalances, which can cause you to hold onto or even gain body fat. One such hormone is cortisol — a stress hormone.

If you want to wake up feeling refreshed, recharged, and energized to take on the day, put more effort into ensuring you can get to bed at a reasonable time to get at least the seven hours (minimum) needed.

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