Do you want to tone up your midsection? Achieving your abfab goals doesn’t have to be complicated, according to one weight loss warrior. Nikki (@nikkigetsfit) is a fitness enthusiast who shares her health journey via social media. In a recent post, she revealed four simple exercises that helped her tone her tummy. “My ab workout that helped me go from this to …to this,” she wrote across the video that revealed dramatic transformation photos. “It will make you sweat, but it feels amazing when you are done!”
She Does 3-4 Rounds
Nikki explains how she does her sets. “I do each exercise back to back with no rest in between. Then, I take a 3-4 minute break and do another round! I do 3-4 rounds depending on how I’m feeling that day,” she writes in her post.
Here Are the Exercises
- 10 leg raises
- 25 suitcase crunches
- 30 Russian twists
- 10 plate sit-ups.
She Does the Workout 1 to 2 Times Per Week
“I usually do this 1-2 times a week in order to strengthen my core; however, every time I post an ab workout, I feel it is important to mention that abs are made in the kitchen! My transformation has mostly come from focusing on my nutrition and eating lots of veggies & protein,” she concludes.
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She Did Weight Watchers
In one of her YouTube videos, Nikki elaborates on her weight loss, revealing that she dropped 70 pounds and has “maintained that loss now for another two years.” Her success is due to ditching a few habits, she claims. “I've struggled with my weight my entire life and it's been something that I never thought I could do. It's something that I've wanted to do and just focus on my health and nutrition, and I've always loved cooking and everything, but it's something I've just always struggled with,” she says.
She Stopped Eating Out One to Two Times Per Day
Nikki reveals that she and her husband would rely on “fast food and just really unhealthy, quick and easy options that were loaded with calories and just really didn't even make us feel good” for meals. “It really had gotten kind of out of control realizing how high points so many fast food items were because we weren't choosing low point items. We didn't really care. It really did impact our health, and I think that's where a huge amount of our weight gain came from,” she said. In her first month on Weight Watchers, she stopped eating out altogether.
“We didn't eat out the first month at all because we just wanted to get away from it kind of and just work on trying to find ways to cook at home,” she said. Instead, they would make “copycat meals” at home, healthier versions of their favorite foods. “It made us excited. We realized we could still eat these foods we loved and have big portions of 'em, and it wasn't as many points as the fast food options.”
She Stopped Putting Herself Down
She also worked on “stopping negativity,” she says. “I would never say the things I say to myself to anybody else, and it just didn't make sense that I was so hard and mean on myself,” she continued. She started saying nice things to herself out loud, and “it really did start to make a difference in the way I thought about things, the way that I was motivated, and it slowly started to make a difference really trying to stop those negative thoughts when they came through and trying to switch them around to thinking a more positive thought or something just not as negative,” she explained.
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She Became Consistent
Another game changer is when she “stopped focusing on an end result and hitting it by a certain time” and instead started “focusing on consistency.” She “focused on what I could control” and things that would make her health improve instead of the number on the scale, which surprisingly dropped as a result. “In the long run, I was able to lose the weight, but my focus was on the consistency aspect and the part that I can control and not the uncontrollable of what the number on the scale says because it changes so frequently. So when I stopped worrying so much about the end result, it really did help take so much pressure off me.”
She Gave Herself Rewards
She also started rewarding herself at the end of the month “ when I stayed consistent,” she says. “I did one month, three months, six months, and then a year,” she says, explaining that she did different rewards, and “it felt good to reward myself because it was something that I knew I had earned and I had done and I had put in the hard work for it.”
She Stopped Restricting Herself
She also “stopped restricting” herself. “In the past, I always thought this was just the best way to go about things. I always thought that this was just what was going to make me lose weight, what was going to help me have success. I pretty much thought that I had to cut everything out that I enjoyed and only eat the things that were dried out: chicken breast, salad, peppers, and bunless burgers. I thought I had to have all the most basic diet foods that everyone thinks about when they think of stuff like that and that I couldn't have any foods that I enjoyed.”
She then learned that “technically, I could have anything that I wanted” with the WW points system, “and that really helped us because we were able to incorporate still so many of the foods that we enjoy and just using our points and deciding what's a priority, what's worth it.” She realized that restricting herself too much led to binge eating, “and so when I restrict something, I just want it more and more and more, and then the second that I'm able to get it, it is just out of control.”
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She Stopped Caring About What Others Thought
Finally, she “stopped caring what others thought,” she said. She explains that when she was bigger, she “ really always felt so much shame” and was “embarrassed” about her weight. “I wanted to be healthier, but I struggled so much with other people knowing that I didn't want people to know that, and part of me not wanting people to know that also kept me in the position I was in.”
However, she stopped being afraid of telling people she wanted to get into shape. “Anyway, I just want to focus on bettering myself and the people judging people for wanting to better themselves. Like I said, they're the ones with the problem, so I just kind of thought through that and realized I just need to do what's best for me no matter what anyone thinks.” And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.
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