The average person spends 4 hours each day watching TV. Here is how watching TV can make it harder for you to lose weight, especially lose belly fat or love handles.
We all know that spending too much time watching TV is dangerous to our waistlines. It's time spent sitting, not exactly a calorie burning, metabolism boosting activity. But did you know there are 4 insidious ways watching TV can sabotage your weight loss efforts?
1. MINDLESS SNACKING - What else do you often do when watching TV? If you keep your hands busy knitting, great, but most of us snack, too. When it's dark and you are automatically moving your hand from a chip bag into your mouth, it is very easy to lose track of how much you've eaten. When snacking in front of the TV, transfer a small portion into a separate bowl. Leave the bag of snacks in the kitchen.
Try trading your soda, diet or regular, for some iced tea or sparkling water with or just a splash or natural fruit juice.
2. INEFFECTIVE EXERCISE - You might decide to exercise while watching TV. While you can try exercising when you are watching TV, this usually means being on a treadmill or exercise bike. We've all heard this type of boring cardio recommended. But it turns out that this type of "steady pace" cardio work may not be all it's cracked up to be.
Recent research shows that physical variability is one of the most important aspects to consider in your training. This means short bursts of exertion followed by short periods of rest called "interval training". Some of the potential benefits of this short burst type of exercises compared to steady state exercise include improved cardiovascular health and reduced joint wear and tear.
You should also be doing strength training, especially if you want to lose your belly fat. I've heard it said that if you can pay attention to the TV while strength training you probably aren't working hard enough to actually do you any good or see any results.
3. CONSTANT TEMPTATION - Besides mindless eating and reducing the effectiveness of your exercise program, there is the continual bombardment of ads on TV for foods that can help make you fat. The sponsors of your favorite programs spend multi-millions of dollars on advertising and market research to be sure those ads work.
You may think you are immune to being influenced by them, but you probably aren't. The average person watches thousands of commercials for junk food each year. And watches thousands more commercials for "health" or diet foods that aren't really healthy at all. Unhealthy "health foods" are often labeled low fat, sugar free, no added sugar, or diet. Low fat is code for high sugar. No sugar is code for artificial sweetener. You get the picture.
4. BAD NEWS - One last way TV can make you fat depends on what kind of shows you watch. If you love old sitcom reruns that have you rolling on the floor with laughter, go for it! However, if you mainly watch the news or talk shows and find they add to your feelings of hopelessness, unease about the economy, or make you angry, you are creating additional stress for yourself. Stress releases a hormone called cortisol that will make you accumulate fat, particularly around your middle. This is the kind of fat that makes people apple-shaped instead of pear-shaped. It's hard to lose belly fat. It's unattractive and dangerous to your health.
So why not try cutting down on TV and see what happens. You may find you start to lose weight and get rid of belly fat or love handles by just making this change to your daily routine.
Author Resource:
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