Shift your muffin top

Carrying a bit more than you’d like around your middle? Starting to spill out of those skinny jeans? Shifting those pesky love handles is easy when you know how. Follow our top tips to shift your muffin top.

1. Blitz the fat
Unfortunately it’s not easy to target your fat loss, so shifting that fat about your middle is about burning fat all over. Switch up your steady paced runs for twice weekly tabata sessions. These speedy workouts are just four minutes long (though you can make them longer if you wish) and are made up of repeats of 20 seconds work and 10 seconds rest. If you want to burn fat, pick a few total-body or lower body exercises (Burpees, squat jumps and jumping lunges are perfect), then pick one exercise and do it as hard and fast as you can for 20 seconds. Then enjoy a 10 second rest. Repeat this sequence with the other moves until you’ve been working for four minutes. Take a 1 minute rest and repeat again if you wish.

2. Cut the crap
Still munching on that afternoon cupcake? Still saying yes to vol au vents? And ploughing through a few glasses of wine a night? If that muffin top seems to have crept up on you out of nowhere, you can your bottom dollar these cheeky treats are to blame. Cake and wine have they’re place in a healthy diet, but if they’re creeping into your every day eating, that muffin top won’t budge. Don’t ban yourself off treats completely, but limit them to weekends or Saturday evenings.

3. Flush the fluid
A puffy tum and extra bulk around your middle could be a result of fluid retention. But don’t worry there are some easy ways to get rid of this. First up book in for a massage, its’s a great way to get the lymph system going and flush out any toxins and retained water. Secondly take a look at how much salt you’re eating. If you’re overdoing it (adding too much to cooking or eating too much processed food) this can cause your body to cling onto excess water.