Tired of diet and fitness regimes and yet your tummy doesn’t yield to you? Here are a few things to note. Have you ever sought expert advice on this issue? Have they considered factors like your age, hormonal balance, and hereditary factors? Let’s examine some of these critical factors.

Beyond a certain age your energy needs for normal life decrease; metabolic activity drops. Still you might be used to the old food habits that ingest volumes of calories into your body. We’ll see what can be done about this.

Another factor that comes with aging is drop in the production of certain steroidal sex hormones—testosterone, oestrogen and progesterone. Testosterone slowdown in men will be minimal, but oestrogen and progesterone drop in women will be drastic. Along with it will be other traumatic changes associated with menopause.

One hour of medium intense workouts, or half an hour of intense workouts is what you want. There is more to it: give the right proportion to cardio exercises and muscle building exercises. People, even fitness trainers, are seen to overemphasize cardio and ignore strength exercises when the prime focus is on weight loss and belly fat control.

Take care of your eating habits. Take in more of natural food, i.e. vegetables, fruits and fiber rich food; reduce, and if possible avoid, processed food like biscuits, fried snacks and white bread.

So, what about meat, fish and milk? Fat of any kind adds to calorie and does add to your bulk. Then, are we advising 100 percent cut on all meat and milk. No no. Read through, find your clues, make your own choices.

There are fats that do more harm; there are fats that do some harm, but some good also. Saturated fats those found in meat, milk and palm oils are more harmful. There are mono-unsaturated fats and poly-unsaturated fats those found in soya bean, sunflower oil, olive oil etc and in fish like salmon, sardine and mackerel. These are not as harmful as the other kind. Plus, these have the advantage of supplying the much needed Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids to our body. But of course, don’t indulge in them. Take in moderate amounts.

Trans fats: If possible totally avoid, or at least drastically reduce their intake. An easy way to identify trans fats is this: oils that attain solid state in room temperature are trans fats, and they add to your obesity. This is a general rule, and need not be true in every single case. Be sure to check with an expert about the specific oils that you use.

Eat lot of salads. This helps in two ways. They fill your stomach and you feel full. They add fiber to your intake, thus helping your digestion, motion and overall health. Most salad vegetables are negative calorie foods. That means, the body takes more calories to digest these foods than they supply to the body. These extra calories are burnt from your fat, thus reducing your weight and belly fat. But, remember to avoid creamy toppings/ dressing.