How to Flatten Your Stomach in 30 Days with Local Foods

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You don’t have to have the a-ha moments for fat to drain from your belly. No gym membership, no personal trainer and no imported super foods are required. All you need to make your tummy flat in 30 days is in your local market, in your kitchen and in the streets around your home in Sri Lanka. It is a truly localised, practical and realistic 30-day diet and activity plan, entirely based around the foods and lifestyle habits of Sri Lankan women. You may begin to see a difference in your stomach in just one month if you stick with it every day.

Why 30 Days Works

This is an ideal time frame to observe real results, but do not exhaust yourself. It is long enough for you to get used to the new habits, for the fat to start releasing from fat deposits and for the new habits to become a part of your daily life. Numerous studies have demonstrated that it takes 21 – 30 days to make a new behaviour automatic. The plan is intended to have the habit feel like it’s natural to them by the end of week 4, so anything you accomplish during the 30 days will last long after it ends since it’s a lifestyle change!

This week, the focus is on Clean Up Your Plate.

Week 1: Clean Out Your Plate

The first week is all about eliminating the foods which are responsible for causing belly fat and replacing them with foods that are available locally and actually help in fat loss. Use red rice instead of white rice at all meals. Fibre slows down digestion and helps you feel full for longer,r and prevents your blood sugar from spiking to send signals to your body to store fat, and red rice has fibre. Take sugar out of tea altogether or cut down to 1 teaspoon per cup. Eliminate packaged snacks, biscuits and shop-bought short eats. When hunger pangs get the better of you, swap them for boiled eggs, fresh local fruit, roasted chickpeas or a small handful of peanuts. Take two big glasses of hot water in the morning before breakfast, adding fresh lemon juice. This is free and simple, it boosts metabolism, helps to get rid of unwelcome water storage in the stomach area, and lowers your desire for the first few hours of the day.

Week 2: Add more cardio exercise

Instead of just subtracting the foods that cause belly fat in week 2, it’s time to start consuming the foods that help with belly fat. Serve Sambol or fresh juice of gotukola in at least one meal each day and supplement with lime. The Gotukola lowers cortisol, the most important stress hormone, which causes women to gain weight on their belly. At least 3 times this week, use moringa leaves in dhal, curries or soups while cooking. In the long term, Moringa enhances thyroid function and accelerates your metabolism. Eat karavila, bitter gourd, twice a week. Bitter gourd is among one of the most powerful blood sugar regulators in the Sri Lankan diet and stable blood sugar is the most important dietary factor to reduce stubborn belly fat. Each day this week after dinner, have 1 cup of cinnamon tea. Ceylon cinnamon stops the rise in the blood sugar that leads to weight gain later in the day, usually after dinner, when most Sri Lankan women eat their biggest meal.

Week 3 focuses on moving every day! In week 3, we will be focusing on moving EVERY day!

You don’t have to do a lot of intense exercise to shed belly fat. It’s consistency over time, rather than intensity. For the third week, pledge yourself to doing 30 minutes of physical activity each day, no exceptions. Walking is the most effective method for most women as it’s accessible, free, gentle on joints and is proven to burn the belly fat that is a constant issue for women over 30, driven by cortisol. Try walking in the morning, before breakfast, if at all possible, as fasted walking in the morning is particularly effective for burning fat. In addition, perform 10 minutes of core exercises at home every other day. Performing Planks for 30 seconds, Bicycle crunches for one minute and lying leg raises for 1 minute, 3 times a day, will directly work the stomach muscles, which will help to tighten the stomach below the belly fat in a gradual manner. The combination of these allows for the results to be seen much sooner than diet alone.

Week 4 focuses on developing and maintaining the skill

At the end of the week, you should feel more energetic, have a slimmer waistline, and have a much more natural and automatic set of habits. Now is the time to tune up and not to add. Serve ½ cup of rice at dinner, in place of the ¼ cup, by adding additional servings of vegetables or a little salad. By doing just one thing, you will save about 150 calories per evening, which can make a difference over a month. Don’t do moringa or ginger tea just a few times a week; make it a regular healthy habit. Measure the waist circumference at the beginning and end of week four. Throughout the 30 days of a sincere commitment, most women following this plan report a loss of 3 to 8 centimetres around their waist.

The correct mindset to make it work

These are all great steps, but the No. 1 factor in this whole scheme of things is the psychological… it is the food, the tea and the walking. It’s your attitude and everyday intention to show up and do it, even when it is not convenient or easy. Don’t worry too much about getting it right. Instead, strive for consistency – rightness – every day. If you don’t complete one morning, do it another, with no self-criticism or feeling bad. Each meal when you opted for red rice over white, each time when you swapped a biscuit out for a cup of cinnamon tea and each morning when you made the decision to walk instead of stay seated has been a very real and impactful investment in your healthier, flatter self! One month later, you’ll be thankful that you began at this point.