Belly fat loss can seem like an arduous task, especially when you have no time to step out of your home and exercise. However difficult it may seem to work on this stubborn fat from the confines of your home, a firm resolve can definitely help melt this 'hardened fat' that can put you at risk of several diseases like heart attack, stroke, and high cholesterol.
The good news is that some kind of movement even inside the home can help you tackle belly fat. Exercising or moving your body can help reduce belly fat as it can aid in reducing circulating levels of insulin which would lead to storage of visceral fat. Staying glued to your seats or being a couch potato can speed up belly fat accumulation.
Courtesy our sedentary lifestyle, we have started depending on technology, machines, and gadgets to get our work done. Instead of stepping out to get groceries, we prefer to buy it from online stories. Similarly, washing machines have replaced bucket washing. Be it mopping and cleaning or cooking, we rely on short cuts, instead of putting in the required effort, that can also help one manage weight.
Why is excess belly fat dangerous
Abdominal or visceral fat sits deep inside your belly and can be more dangerous than it may seem. It builds up around your heart, lungs, liver, and other organs. While some amount of visceral fat is important for cushioning your organs, excess of it can lead to a range of chronic diseases like high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and certain cancers.
Belly fat is not just dangerous for obese or overweight, but also in those who have a normal BMI. In healthy, nonsmoking women, every 2 inches of additional waist size can raise the risk for cardiovascular disease by 10%, says Harvard.
For your long-term wellness, it's important to keep moving and shed that belly fat. Here are daily household chores that will help you burn that belly fat.
1. Gardening
Want to know a happy and easy way to deal with belly fat? Become a plant parent and pursue your hobby of gardening by tending to your beloved plants. It is recommended to engage in 30 minutes of moderate to strenuous forms of exercise like walking and bicycle. Gardening involves digging, bending down, watering plants among other things and this can help work out your major muscle groups in legs, buttocks, arms, shoulders, back and abdomen. This can help muscle building apart from shedding tricky fat in abdomen.
2. Mopping
If you are a cleanliness freak and love to see your house spanking clean, mopping can be the perfect belly fat workout for you. When you are doing this household chore, you are engaging your core muscles and can provide a good stretch and workout to your shoulders, triceps, and biceps. It is advisable to keep changing your hand position to get maximum benefit out of this activity.
3. Cleaning bathroom
Cleaning your bathroom involves a series of tasks from scrubbing the walls, mopping the floor, cleaning the basin, cleaning commodes, and giving you an opportunity to engage your core muscles. Handling all that stubborn dirt and grime on a range of surfaces from shower to toilet can help you engage different muscle groups.
4. Cleaning doors and windows
Lancet Public Health research has shown how short bouts of activities can reduce risk of heart attack, stroke and premature death. If you already have the mopping and bathroom cleaning sorted, you can clean your doors and windows which though a light exercise will go a long way in keeping you active which can target belly fat.
5. Washing clothes
This is something which everybody tries to avoid but can be really beneficial for your weight loss journey. A combination of effort, lifting, and bending, the process of bucket washing especially enable you to burn loads of calories. Doing your laundry involves many steps from washing to drying and this process counts as a belly fat workout too as you bend, lift, and move around.
If you are determined to get rid of belly fat, you can conveniently turn your home into a gym and move towards a healthy living.
Tiny movements during the day can sometimes play a bigger role in your fitness and weight loss than working out once or twice a day. It is important to take out some time for daily chores as they will not only help manage your life but also aid in burning those extra pounds.
Cycling vs skipping, which is better for melting belly fat?