Belly Bloat Elimination Cheatsheet
Belly Bloat Elimination Cheatsheet
Belly Bloat Elimination Cheatsheet
Where you feel like your belly is swollen way beyond its normal size?
We think back and blame it on the salt intake from last night’s dinner… or how much
water we have been drinking lately. I bet when you think about belly bloat, you don’t
think about stress, or lack of sleep being the cause.
However, these little things are what cause your belly to hang over your favorite pair of
jeans every day when you wake up.
#2: We will also cover the fruits and vegetables you must avoid if you want to burn
belly fat
#3: Nine evidenced based bonus tips taken from the world’s longest living cultures to
help you live to be 100 years old.
Stress increases the hormone cortisol, which affects water retention and water weight.
A study published in the Scandinavian J Clinical Lab Investigation1, showed that levels
of cortisol and anti-diuretic hormones were influenced by parachuters ready to dive out
of a plane. The study showed that there was a definite correlation between
psychological stress and the endocrine/immune system.
This happens because cortisol releases another hormone that controls water balance
(ADH or Anti-Diuretic Hormone). This hormone sends a signal to the kidneys letting
them know how much water to hold on to.
The natural cycle of your cortisol levels should be high in the morning until it
tapers off throughout the day when it’s time for bed.
Maintaining this cycle will lead to higher energy levels, healthier hormone balance,
more efficient fat loss, and better sleep patterns.
Action step to take! reduce cortisol by eating a breakfast and lunch low in carbs and
then adding more carbs to your dinner. This will balance out your cortisol levels so they
are secreted in the proper amounts throughout the day.
In a 2014 clinical trial, subjects with cortisol disruption were able to “reset” their natural
cortisol cycle simply by eating a low carb diet in the morning and afternoon, while
eating higher amounts of healthy carbs in the evening.
I know this goes completely against conventional wisdom, but the reason it
works so well is because the extra carbs force the pancreas to make more
insulin… and when insulin levels rise—cortisol levels fall…
This helps correct any cortisol imbalance you may have before you hit the hay so you
will wake up with 1 to 2 inches LESS belly bloat in the morning.
Sodium is an important electrolyte. If levels are not balance (too high or too low) then
your body will go through a fluid imbalance making you look and feel bloated—
especially in the belly region. Studies have shown that salt does not necessarily cause
water retention.2
The key is to avoid extremes: don’t consume excessive salt or try to eliminate it all
together. While salt-induced hypertension is typically blamed as a cause of heart
Action step to take! Avoid your regular processed table salt completely. (It’s all
chemicals like aluminum hydroxide). Replace it with Celtic salt, Sea salt or Himalayan
salt (which has the most minerals).
Study after study has shown that proper amount of sleep is just as important as diet
and exercise. Sleep also affects the renal nerves (kidneys), which regulate water
balance.3
If you are getting less than 7 hours of sleep per night, over a long period of time, you
are causing yourself extreme fluid retention. Sleep builds up your immune, nervous
and muscular systems.
Going from eight hours of sleep to six hours of sleep has also been shown to cause a
huge disruption in your cortisol cycle in less than two weeks.
Cortisol works in tandem with melatonin, your sleep hormone. If your cortisol drops in
the evening, like it’s supposed to (refer back to tip #1), melatonin can take over helping
you fall into a deep sleep.
If cortisol levels are elevated while you sleep, your body can’t recover or rebuild and
you’ll wake up feeling fatigued and your belly will feel bloated.
Action to take! Make sure you get at least 7 hours of sleep every night.
Here are several things you can do to regulate your sleep cycle:
If you exercise, or live in a humid climate you’ll lose more electrolytes. But large
amounts of electrolytes from supplements or salty foods, combined with a low water
intake, can have the opposite effect and increase water weight.
Action step to take! Add healthy foods to your diet that have the most electrolytes:
IMPORTANT: Don’t confuse this with coconut milk or flavored coconut water that
has added sugar.
Carbs: 9 grams.
Fiber: 3 grams.
Protein: 2 grams.
Vitamin C: 10% of the RDI.
Magnesium: 15% of the RDI.
Manganese: 17% of the RDI.
Potassium: 17% of the RDI.
Sodium: 11% of the RDI.
Calcium: 6% of the RDI.
Magnesium (as mentioned above) is an important electrolyte but it’s also responsible
for over 600 enzymatic reactions in your body.
If you do not have enough Mg+2 you will not function at peak capacity. Magnesium also
balances out with other electrolytes. Altogether they help you maintain water balance in
the body, which has been shown to reduce water weight gain and belly bloat.6 It also
helps to fight fatigue.
In addition to eating all the foods mentioned above, many studies have shown the
benefits of taking transdermal magnesium. Or magnesium you apply directly to the
skin. It is quickly absorbed and does not have to go through digestion.
It may sound counter intuitive but the more water you drink the less water retention in
your body. When your body perceives that you are going through dehydration, it holds
on to the water that you have. By drinking more water, you release and eliminate water
retention because the body figures out there is no scarcity of water.
The main problem is that we are told to drink when we are thirsty. But as we get older
our thirst mechanism does not register thirst levels as well as when we are younger. If
you get to the point of being thirsty, you are already dehydrated7.
Action to take!See our 8 Ways Drinking Clean Water Can Make You Look
Younger and Burn More Belly Fat guide for a thorough explanation on the benefits of
drinking lots of water.
Make sure you consume AT LEAST 50% of your bodyweight in water ounces
daily. So if you weigh 150 pounds you would need at least 75 ounces per day.
For every gram of carbohydrate that you consume your body holds ~3 grams of water.
Since carbs (glucose) in the form of glycogen are stored in muscles and liver, glycogen
tends to pull water into the muscles.
Consuming a low-carb diet or just eliminating all processed carbs will help you drop
water weight and eliminate belly bloat.
Carbs also raise insulin, which causes an increase in sodium retention and then the
kidneys re-absorb water.8 Now you can see can see why insulin resistance and
hypertension go hand in hand.
NOTE: See your TOP 19 Diet Tips bonus for more details on how to eat carbs correctly
for faster fat loss and less belly bloat.
These two drinks are natural diuretics because of caffeine. Caffeine9 has been shown
to decrease water weight through short-term urine output. You’ll have to use wisdom
with this one because coffee is also known as a dehydrator. So make sure to drink
more water than normally if you have 2-3 cups of java daily.
Best tea to drink. All teas come from the same plant: Camellia sinensis. It’s all about
the oxidation process. Green teas are not oxidized so the tea remains green where
black tea goes through a more thorough oxidation process to become black. Green tea
has less caffeine. Both are loaded with anti-oxidants.
Choose organic coffee blends and avoid processed creams, sugar, and limit artificial
sweeteners.
Dandelion root is known as a diuretic, or in other words, it helps release water out of
your system. This root is also anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anti-cancer.10
Dandelion is high in fiber helping with constipation and they also help increase your
gut’s healthy bacteria—BOTH of which will help you eliminate belly bloat every day.
Emerging evidence also shows that dandelion and its constituents have antioxidant and
anti-inflammatory activities.
Action step to take! Probably the easiest way to take this is either in tea or tincture.
Health food stores (or online health food sites) sell the tinctures. You only need a
dropper full in water if you are going this route.
Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a
habit.”
Know the difference between goals and milestones. Goals are the big picture of what
you wish to have some day in the near future. Where milestones are what you reach on
your way to your goal. They require the minimum amount of work (on a daily basis) to
get to make your goals a reality.
These simple habits practiced daily will dramatically decrease water retention and belly
bloat helping you wake up with a firmer, flatter belly.
You will have to come up with your own list as well. Set your big picture goal then come
up with daily routines you will need to do to reach the goal.
Any potassium rich foods will help eliminate water retention because you balance out
the sodium levels by increasing urine production.
Dietary potassium restriction increases sodium and chloride retention, whereas adding
potassium to your diet promotes diuresis (or releasing of water).11
Action step to take! Add the following high potassium foods to your diet:
Sweating is your body’s fastest way to eliminate water. So if you are not
exercising, you are not removing water loaded with toxins out of your system.
The average fluid loss in 1 hour of exercise is between 16 and 64 ounces per hour. And
also note that during exercise your body moves water into muscles. So if you are
dehydrated, your muscles aren’t getting the proper hydration either.
Going into the sauna after a workout is also a good way to remove more water
retention.
Action step to take! There is no way around it. Exercise has to be a part of your
routine to see belly bloat disappear. Your body was made to sweat. Sweating releases
water filled with toxins. See your OVER 40 Ab-Solution Training Manual containing
your 12 minute flat belly protocols.
Corn is not botanically a vegetable but we include it here because it’s everywhere. This
is a highly government subsidized plant -- meaning farmers are encouraged to grow it.
Just think of all the foods that contain corn.
Corn oil, dextrin, corn starch, malitol, maltodextrin, maltose, modified food starch, corn
syrup. dextrose, MSG, powdered sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This last one
is associated with high abdominal fat storage. Corn based cereals…and now unless it
says organic, more than likely it’s GMO (or genetically engineered)
Deep Fried Vegetables (Trans-fats)
That includes onion rings, fried green tomatoes, fried okra, or any other vegetable that
is deep fried. Theses fats are not good for your cardiovascular system (Heart disease).
Not to mention obesity, increase in insulin resistance and inflammation. So when
restaurants deep fry your veggies in heavy OMEGA 6 oils (corn, soybean) it makes the
problem even worse.
Frozen veggies and Sauces
The frozen veggies are not bad. They make a great alternative for when a certain
veggie is out of season. It’s the sauces we add to them that makes them really bad for
us. It’s the butter sauces, hollandaise sauce, cheese sauces, sugar free sauces
(artificial sweeteners), etc.
Commercial Vegetable juices:
A study published in Lipids13 showed that people who drank vegetable juices for 4
weeks actually ended up gaining considerable weight (more than 4 pounds). Not to
mention the fiber is removed from the juice. In other words, drinking these juices results
in a much more rapid increase in blood sugar compared eating the whole vegetable.
Fruit cups have added sugar. When the government tells us to add more fruits to our
diets (Food Pyramid) they do not mean fruits with added sugars. A 4-ounce serving of
peaches (i.e., fruit cup) contains 80 calories and 18 grams of sugar. Eat your fruits
whole not from a can.
Fruit snacks are those gummy snacks moms pack for their kids’ lunches. Again stick
with whole fresh fruit (or frozen if not in season)
Dried fruit is like fruit juice. While the fiber is still there the carbs go way up. One cup
of grapes has 60 calories/16 grams of carbs. Dry them in the sun and now we go to
430 calories for one cup of raisins with over 115 grams of carbs.
As this group of experts identified the longest living cultures, they drew concentric
circles (in blue marker) on a map, ultimately known as Blue Zones. It was a concerted
effort and a year later Buettner wrote a book titled Blue Zones where he describes the
everyday lives of the 5 longest living people groups in the world.
Surprisingly, many of these cultures consume a much higher carb diet than the
Western world, confirming once again that despite all the bad press carbs don’t
necessarily make you fat. Of course, there are many other lifestyle factors at play
besides carbohydrate intake if you want to live to be 100.
• Sardinia, Italy
• Loma Linda, CA
• Ikaria, Greece
• Okinawa, Japan
• Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica
The groups of people that live in these areas live to be 90 all the way up to over 100
years old. They have some of the lowest rates in the world for cancer, heart disease,
and need for medications.
Longevity is not just about how long you live; it’s how well can you live in that length of
time. It’s called quality of life. So what is it about these cultures which have high
populations of individuals who live to be 100 years or more? And why are these
centenarians a rare phenomenon in western, developed cultures? An average
American male lives to 77 years while American women live a bit longer (81 years-old).
Here in America, we have 1.73 centenarians for every 10,000 people but these Blue
Zones of longevity have (on average) about 28 out of 10,000.16 That’s almost a 15 fold
increase.
The following areas or Blue Zones will depict some of the attributes associated with
these centenarians. We have summarized the common denominators among these
Sardinia, Italy
Sardinia is directly west of Italy and the second largest island in the Mediterranean
Sea. The Sardinians' diet is particularly rich in proteins derived from milk and cheese,
while low on sugary food and meat. Many of them eat meat only once or twice a week.
The dishes are usually a small piece of grass-fed lamb, lean pork, oily fish or shellfish
accompanied by a lot of vegetables, goat’s milk and a little wine. Their basic diet
consists of Omega 3s.
Sardinians drink three to four small (3-ounce) glasses of wine a day on average,
spread out between breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a late afternoon social hour in the
village.
In Sardinia, the elderly are highly respected and included in family life. They are
encouraged by the village to be actively involved as important social contributors. The
children are trained to always respect their elders. In this Blue Zone, the older you are
the more honor you get from the community.
One of the more interesting points about this particular culture is that the proportion of
male to female centenarians is 1:1 (one to one) where in the rest of the world women
outlive men in a ratio of 4:1. One of the reasons is because in this culture of longevity
both men and women share the stresses of daily life; both work the gardens, tend to
the sheep, raise the children and manage the finances. This sharing of stressful daily
events keep the ratio 1:1.
Loma Linda is a town 60 miles east of Los Angeles and is famous for longevity and
healthy aging. Most inhabitants of this U.S. city live into their 90s.
People in this little community, don’t eat too many sweets, don’t smoke or drink, don’t
eat meat are optimistic and keep very socially active lives. One third of Loma Linda’s
population is 7th Day Adventist. Their diet mainly contains veggies, nuts and whole
grains. They drink little to no coffee, no stimulating spices or junk food.
Here are the stats: Loma Linda leads the country in longevity. While the average
American female will live to be 81, vegetarian Adventist women in Loma Linda will on
average live to be 86. While the average American male will live until 77, the average
vegetarian Adventist man will live until 83.
The one thing that makes this Blue Zone culture stand out is their faith in God and their
belief that God has a purpose for them. Having a purpose in life scores very high on the
list of determining factors for longevity.
Ikaria, is a Greek island in the far eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, about 30
miles from the Turkish coast.
Their diet contains lots of beans and not much meat. The locals also feast on locally
grown wild greens, some of which contain 10x more antioxidants than are found in red
wine. They also indulge in potatoes and goat's milk. The Ikarians drink a lot of herbal
tea and small amounts of coffee. Their daily calorie consumption is low. They take an
afternoon nap and they keep life-long friends, eat small meals and find purpose in life.
Ikaria is still an isolated island, without tourists. The highest longevity rates have been
recorded in this area. Their lives are largely unaffected by the westernized way of
living.
They have 1/5 the heart disease, 1/4 of the breast and prostate cancers and 1/3 less
dementia than Americans.
Okinawa, Japan
Okinawa is one of the islands about 400 miles off the coast of Japan. It has been a
strategic location for the US armed forces since the end of WW II.
These people from this Japanese island have a very high diet in sweet potatoes, leafy
green veggies and legumes, soybean-based foods like tofu and soy sauce. Before
1950, 69% of their calories came from sweet potatoes alone.
On this Japanese island of Okinawa. There is no word for "retirement." There is a word,
Ikigai, which means "purpose" or "that which makes one's life worth living." Men there
have a fifth as much cancer as Americans, and a quarter as much heart disease.
It has three times more centenarians than the mainland of Japan. Even though there is
a strong American presence here because of the 32 military bases, the Okinawans17
seem to prefer their diet to that of westernized fare.
The Okinawans18 also have a term for a group of friends who purposely look out for
one another. It’s “moai” and it refers to the attitude that one of your highest purposes in
life is to be your “brother’s keeper.”
Nicoyan centenarians tend to live with their families, and children or grandchildren
provide support and a sense of purpose and belonging. Again, another culture where
the elderly are respected. The inhabitants sleep 8 hours at night without insomnia.
They would think we were sick if they saw how much money goes to buy sleeping aids
in the U.S. Costa Rica spends only about one tenth of what the United States spends
on healthcare, yet more than twice as many men there can expect to reach a healthy
age of 90.
When all is said and done, health and longevity are not about just one factor like the
number of grams of fiber you eat. Your quality life is about the complex interaction of
the following factors.
" No smoking
It’s been shown that if you have purpose in life you live 7 years longer than those who
don’t. If you have faith in God you live 14 years20 longer than those who don’t.
Did you also know that if three of your best friends are obese your chances of
becoming obese go up to 150%?
Americans on average eat out 110 days out of the year. That’s about 30% of the time
eating food that is less than optimal.
You can avoid gaining weight if you stop eating when your stomach is 80% full.
1 Dugué B, et.al., Scand J Clin Lab Invest. 1993 Oct;53(6):555-61.Effects of psychological stress on plasma interleukins-1 beta
and 6, C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor alpha, anti-diuretic hormone and serum cortisol.
2 Heer M, et.al., Am J Physiol Renal Physiol. 2000 Apr;278(4):F585-95. High dietary sodium chloride consumption may not induce
body fluid retention in humans.
3 DiBona GF, et.al., Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2010 Feb;298(2):R245-53. doi: 10.1152/ajpregu.00647.2009. Epub
2009 Dec 2. Translational medicine: the antihypertensive effect of renal denervation.
4Kyle J Hackney, et. al., Extrem Physiol Med. 2012; 1: 3. Published online 2012 Sep 4. doi: 10.1186/2046-7648-1-3PMCID:
PMC3707098 Skeletal muscle volume following dehydration induced by exercise in heat
6 Walker AF, et. al., J Womens Health. 1998 Nov;7(9):1157-65. Magnesium supplementation alleviates premenstrual symptoms of
fluid retention.
7 Liska DJ, Altern Med Rev. 1998 Jun;3(3):187-98. The detoxification enzyme systems.
8 Horita S, Int J Hypertens. 2011;2011:391762. doi: 10.4061/2011/391762. Epub 2011 Apr 12.Insulin resistance, obesity,
hypertension, and renal sodium transport.
9 Supatra Lohsiriwat, Urol Ann. 2011 Jan-Apr; 3(1): 14–18. doi: 10.4103/0974-7796.75862 PMCID: PMC3036994, Effect of
caffeine on bladder function in patients with overactive bladder symptoms
10 González-Castejón M. et.al., Nutr Rev. 2012 Sep;70(9):534-47. doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2012.00509.x. Epub 2012 Aug
11 Gallen IW, Am J Kidney Dis. 1998 Jan;31(1):19-27. On the mechanism of the effects of potassium restriction on blood pressure
and renal sodium retention.
13 Aiso I, Inoue H, Seiyama Y, Kuwano T. Compared with the intake of commercial vegetable juice, the intake of fresh fruit and
komatsuna (Brassica rapa L. var. perviridis) juice mixture reduces serum cholesterol in middle-aged men: a randomized controlled
pilot study. Lipids Health Dis. 2014;13(1):102. doi:10.1186/1476-511X-13-102
14 Swithers SE, Davidson TL. A role for sweet taste: calorie predictive relations in energy regulation by rats. Behav Neurosci.
2008;122(1):161-173. doi:10.1037/0735-7044.122.1.161.
15 Suez J, Korem T, Zeevi D, et al. Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Nature. September
2014. doi:10.1038/nature13793.
17 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-buettner/okinawa-blue-zone_b_ 7012042.html
18 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/fashion/dinner-with-blue- zones-solution-dan-buettner.html?_r=0
19 http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/04/11/398325030/eating- to-break-100-longevity-diet-tips-from-the-blue-zones
20 http://www.today.com/health/beans-wine-best-friends-secrets- longevity-blue-zones-t93486