Little Rock professionals, like professionals all around the globe, have a hard time finding the time to incorporate a fitness routine into their busy schedules. Between family time, work (and plenty of it), and maybe even a social life, it’s often quite difficult to be consistent with exercising.
If the above description applies to you and your lifestyle, you are in luck! If you live in or near Little Rock, FastFit is thrilled to offer a workout program specifically tailored for the busy professional’s lifestyle. Quite simply, we offer a 21 Day Jumpstart program at just 21 days for $21! It’s Little Rock’s 30-minute fitness solution, and it’s amazing, ladies and gentlemen.
Whether you prefer to run, strength train through weight lift, swim, cycle, kickbox, or do one of a hundred other exercise options, we are confident you’ll find our Express Workouts to be both challenging and invigorating. Intended for busy men and women who are passionate (if not limited by their schedule) about getting into the best shape of their lives — in just three short 30-minute workouts per week at our Little Rock gym!
What’s more, we are Little Rock’s one and only 100-percent Money Back fitness club. We guarantee our results, so if you’d like to lose a full pant size in your first month as a FastFit member, you know who to call!
Nutritional Tips For Losing Belly Fat
Now that we’ve informed you about our amazingly affordable and effective fitness program at our Little Rock gym, it’s time we turn our attention to the blog topic at hand — discussing which foods you should avoid in order to help you lose belly fat.
Before we dive into the *ahem* meat and potatoes of today’s post, we should make note of two things. First, effective nutritional and dietary habits are just one piece of the health and wellness puzzle, albeit it’s an important one. This means that you could permanently exclude the following foods and drinks from your diet, but if you do not exercise appropriately, you won’t get the results you are no doubt seeking.
Secondly, FastFit offers a Rapid Fat Loss Nutrition guide for our gym members. For an appetizer (sorry we aren’t sorry!), here are the three principles of Rapid Fat Loss Nutrition:
- Eat Often – Starvation diets are a thing of the past, folks. We are all about training and eating smarter, not harder. We offer customized meal plans that allow you to eat every three to four hours for four to six meals per day!
- Eat The Right Meals At The Right Times – We’ll help you learn what you should eat and when you should eat it! There are two kinds of meals: core meals and activity meals. Core meals include proteins, fruits and veggies, and healthy fats. These meals can be eaten at any time. Activity meals also include the aforementioned types of foods while also including nutrient-rich carbohydrates, such as whole grains and legumes. These should be consumed either for breakfast or within three hours of intense physical activity. This nutrient timing strategy is remarkably effective!
- Eat Portions, Not Calories – How does never counting calories again for the rest of your life sound? Learn how to build your meals by using practical serving sizes for your gender/body type. In most cases, all you will need is a fist as a measuring tool!
Now, finally, let’s get to the foods you should avoid to tighten up that waistline!
Processed Meats
We will start with one that is a core piece of many folks’ dietary lifestyle here in the United States. It’s easy to think that consuming as much protein as possible is a good idea when you are trying to increase muscle mass. But the source of the protein matters. While it might be difficult to believe that something like regular old lunch meat can be harmful, the reality is that processed meats are full of nitrates, fat, and sodium. Each of those three things has been connected with bloating and excess water retention. Avoid when possible!
Fruit Juice
Let’s be clear here — not all fruit juices are evil. But most are pretty darn unhealthy, as they are overloaded with sugars to the point where they can detract from your fitness efforts. These are called empty beverage calories and are not really useful in a nutritional sense.
Diet Soda
Most of us already know that soda, pop, Coke, or soft drinks (or whatever you call it) are not exactly nutritious. But what many do not know is that most every diet soda out there have ingredients that actually stimulate your appetite. If you are looking to reduce your caloric intake by controlling your hunger, steer clear of diet sodas.
Granola Bars
Here’s one that might surprise you. While the labels on granola bars will probably highlight “high fiber” or say that it is a “good source of protein,” most major producers of granola bars are more interested in how marketable their product is rather than how nutritious and beneficial it might be. The unfortunate reality is that most granola bars have processed ingredients and are (you guessed it) so full of sugar that most of its nutritional benefits are negated.
Potatoes
News flash: potatoes are full of empty calories. Did you know that a single baked potatoe has the same nutritional impact as eating a tablespoon of sugar? In the same way, eating potatoes cause a “sugar high” of sorts — which includes the following crash we all know and hate. What’s more, after consuming potatoes, afterward you’ll be hungrier than you were in the first place!
Alcohol
This one isn’t any fun to read, not that the others were particularly enjoyable either. Nevertheless, studies show that alcoholic drinks like beer and wine are very high in caloric content. Combine that with the fact that alcohol offers essentially zero nutritional value, and it’s a recipe for putting on weight in a hurry.
To be fair, we are fully aware that most people out there are already aware of this unfortunate phenomenon, but the thing is that so many of us fail to amend our behavior in light of this knowledge. Why is that? Probably because drinking alcohol is usually fun. We won’t tell you that the only way to lose that belly fat is by cutting out libations completely, but we would recommend a bit of self-evaluation in terms of your weekly habits in order to accomplish your fitness goals.
Balance is key!
Contact FastFit
We’d love to hear from you and help you get into the best shape of your life. For nutritional support combined with an elite Little Rock gym that offers group fitness classes like you’ve never experienced, contact us today!
