5 Causes of Your Belly Pooch

So, you can't get rid of that frustrating belly pooch no matter how hard you try? Fine tune your exercise and nutrition program and start shrinking your pooch.


The 5 main causes of your belly pooch:

1. Excess belly fat. The primary ways to burn your belly fat and total body fat are with clean eating and regular strength/interval cardio training. There are no shortcuts.

2. Weak deep core stabilizing muscles. Don't focus on over-training the superficial abdominal muscles like the rectus abdominis (six pack abs). It would be like a thin crust of ice on top of liquid. You need a firm foundation under your superficial abdominals for support and definition. This will also help you burn dangerous visceral fat.

You need to do isometric core exercises to stabilize deep core muscles. This is a surprise to many people. Isometric core exercises build up the deep stabilizing muscles and give tone to your entire core area. Isometric exercises help you build strength and burn fat without moving much.



Isometric exercises are very underrated. They are great for building muscles, stabilizing muscles, building strength, improving power and burning fat.

3. Weak lower abdominal muscles. Trying "spot reduction" won't work. You should train your whole body. Your body knows where to lose the fat. Some good lower ab exercises are hanging leg raises, hanging or sitting knee-ups, ab ball rollouts, ab ball jackknifes and reverse incline crunches. A good flexibility exercise is the kneeling hip flexor stretch.

4. Forward-tilted pelvis. This is a postural problem that can be caused by weak hamstrings, weak abdominals, weak glutes, tight hip flexors, tight back muscles or a combination of all the problems. Correct your forward-tilted pelvis with exercises such as glute bridges, planks, kneeling hip flexor stretches and supine pelvic tilts. General strengthening of deep core stabilizing muscles will also help correct the forward tilt.

5. Stand up and sit with correct posture all the time. Don't slouch your shoulders. Engage your deep core muscles throughout the day. As you sit, stand and walk during the day, keep upright posture and brace your core (like getting ready to take a punch to the gut). This will make a huge difference as you strenghten your core day after day, all day.

Balance the strength and flexibility in the frontside and backside of your upper body. There is no replacement for correct posture. It that's simple.



About Mark

Hi, I'm Mark Dilworth, Nutritionist, Dietary Strategies Specialist, Nutrition for Metabolic Health Specialist and Lifestyle Weight Management Specialist. Since 2006, I have helped thousands of clients and readers make lifestyle habit changes which includes body transformation and ideal body weight.