Clever tricks for a flatter TUMMY

Regain your waist through your 5Os, 60s, 7Os and beyond with this tailormade plan

It’s a common but frustrating sign of growing older – the gradual development of that spare tyre around our middles. And it seems shifting it becomes more and more difficult.

But it’s good if we can keep it down as much as possible because belly fat doesn’t just affect how we feel about ourselves, it has an impact on our health too. Excess abdominal fat is an indication of internal visceral fat. This is the fat that’s stored around our major organs, and it has been linked to a host of potential health problems, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke.

In your 50s

As perimenopause and menopause kick in during your late 40s and early 50s, oestrogen levels start to fall, and fat is redistributed from your hips and thighs to your tummy.

Metabolism also declines with every decade, meaning you need to eat less and exercise more to avoid putting on pounds.

Best flat-tum tactics 

Make your heart race

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is effective because it triggers the release of hormones that, in turn, encourage the body to burn up more calories, explains leading HIIT expert professor Jamie Timmons of Loughborough University. The added bonus is that it hardly takes any time to do. First, warm up, then workout as hard as you can for 60 seconds – this could be on a cycling machine or cross trainer, running, doing jumping jacks or skipping.