Motherhood: 5 Habits That Foster Your Belly Fat

Ogbugoh Terundu Joy

Excess belly fat is bad for your clothes and dangerous to your health. It poses risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cancer and even heart disease.

Nobody likes belly fat. People spend their lives dreading it, and those who have it desperately search for a way to lose it. But what if there was something you were doing that was actually enabling this unwanted fat to gather in your mid region?

READ ALSO: 10 Healthy Ways To Eat During Pregnancy

Find below five common behaviors that foster the all so inconvenient belly fat:

1. Inactivity: Physical activity is vital to a trim stomach as inactivity is a breeding ground for belly fat. The body needs you to move in other to burn off energy. Surplus energy will be stored as fat. Hours sitting in front of a television, insisting on driving, using the elevators, and refusing to “stress” yourself by doing indulging in physical activity could in a bulging stomach and accumulated fats in unwanted areas.

Advice: Take long walks as much as you can. Ditch the elevator for stairs. Run around your neighborhood at least once in a week, and do your planks right in the comfort of your bedroom. Get active.

2. Consuming Less Protein: Typically, African foods such as  yam, fufu, spaghetti, and indomie are high in carbohydrates. These foods have a high amount of carbs that could wreck your waistline.

Advice: Eat more protein. Prioritize on eating foods that are high in protein for example: beans, fish, eggs, goat meat and Quaker oats amongst others.

READ ALSO: 7 Foods To Help Boost Your Energy Level During Pregnancy

3. Not Eating Enough Vegetables: If you are not eating enough vegetables then you are likely to gain weight, especially in your stomach area. Vegetables are low in calories and actually a great killer of stomach fat. Here are some vegetables that have been known to help shed belly fat: green pepper, cucumber, onions, tomatoes, carrots, spinach, all leafy greens.

Advice: Incorporate vegetables into your daily meal. Eat a lot of it to help keep your midrib in shape.

4. Overeating. You were served a full plate of food which you ate. You were full halfway into your meal but didn’t stop eating because the food was just too good. You leveled your plate and helped yourself to another serving and maybe deserts. The results? Overfeeding. 

Now here is what would happen inside your body: Your body takes just the amount of calories it needs (whether it is protein or carbohydrates) to replenish lost energy and the rest is converted and stored as body fats.

The results? Fat in your belly, arms, and thigh area.

Advice: Practice portion control. Eat just what you need to kill the hunger. A great way to be sure you have not overeaten is that, you still feel energized to continue with your day other than a feeling to ‘lie down to rest’.

READ ALSO: 7 Reasons Children Are Becoming Increasingly Overweight

5. Poor Snacking: What are you snacking on? – Biscuits, minerals, meat pies, ice cream, egg rolls or ice cream? All of these contain added sugars and heavy carbs that go straight to your waistline. And these type of sugars are converted to fat .

Advice: Avoid fizzy drinks and junk food at all costs. Instead, snack on fruits, smoothies, nuts, and cucumber.