Vintage

Nutrition tip: Metabolism

Drink plenty of water. While there are plenty of good reasons for drinking lots of water (flushing out your system, healthy skin, good digestion, etc.), a brilliant one is that is speeds up your metabolism. With your body constantly having to work to break down and absorb the water particles, your metabolism goes into hyperdrive, and burns energy at a much faster rate than usual – essentially turning your body into a furnace. Aim to drink 6-8 glasses of water a day, and you’ll start to notice the benefits.

As an added tip, drink water that’s been chilled well below room-temperature. As your body needs to warm it up to an acceptable temperature before it can absorb it, it uses just that extra bit of energy to do so – burning extra kilojoules in the process…

Exercise tip: Abs

Sit-ups alone won’t give you great abs. Unfortunately, it’s a common misconception that doing tons of sit-ups will automatically give you a great set of abs. The truth is that you already have good-looking abdominal muscles – you have to, they’re what keep you upright and stable – they’re just covered up. The real trick to having rippling abs is to peel away the fat tissue that surrounds them, and to make them more visible. While doing ab exercises will help grow the targeted muscles, it’s more important to work on weight-loss (to get rid of that spare tyre) and toning (by doing plenty of cardio and toning work). It’s the combination of these three things that will really get you on the road to having a washboard stomach…