Why we need to keep our stomachs flat?

The obvious reason – is to look “good”, the less obvious one is to be healthy. Having a flat stomach helps prevent injuries and various diseases that can otherwise develop.

Goal Setting

Before you even start the process on getting your stomach flat, it’s very important to set the intention and visualise your stomach flat. Your sub-consciousness will play a big part in this process and it’ll do everything to bring you to the image you’ve created. So every time you start exercises, see yourself the way you want to look.

These exercises don’t take a lot of time – only 5 to 10 minutes daily. But you need to do those regularly, so that they become a second nature to you.

Most likely the transformation will not happen overnight, so get ready to persevere and get where you want to be. It’ll be a long journey, and every step brings you closer to the goal. Self determination is a key here.

Nutrition

You can exercise forever, but if won’t do you any good if your eating habits are bad. This is because any weight you lose exercising, you can quickly re-gain because you don’t eat properly. So it’s important that as you set off on this journey you review your dietary habits and make some adjustments.

Avoid eating too much fat foods. Eat more healthy foods like vegetables, fruit, whole wheat bread, low fat cheese, yogurts and foods containing complete proteins, vegetable fats. Drink natural fruit juices and a lot of water.

Exercise

There are two approaches to choose from:

1. – To train all three groups of stomach muscles daily
2. – To train only one group of muscles per day. For example:

1. first day – the abdominal exercises
2. second day – oblique
3. third day – muscles of the bottom part of stomach
4. the fourth day – rest.

When you do your exercises do them very slowly, keep your eyes close and imagine the muscles you’re exercising at that moment.

Don’t forget to breath.

Don’t forget to suck in your stomach all the time: while walking, standing and sitting, both at work and outside of it.

Example of exercises for stomach muscles.

In a prone position on the back make 30 straight sit ups, then 30 sit ups to the right knee and another 30 to the left. Carry out these exercises slowly, then repeat them in the same order. Next do the same exercises with a faster rate.

Next time try to freeze at the top of the sit up, hold the breath and execute 15 short and fast micro-sit ups.

With time gradually increase the number of sit ups.

Before and after the exercises it’s very helpful to do stretching.

I wish you good luck on your journey to flat stomach and trim waistline.

If the bloating does not go away and persists for days you may want to visit your doctor. In this article we are going to deal only with short-term stomach bloating, which related directly to intake of foods.

Reasons for Stomach Bloating:

• Dairy products can increase gas formation. Traditional Chinese Medicine explains this as a weakness of a spleen which is the case with most adults. The modern medicine explains it as decrease in presence of enzymes necessary for processing lactose (dairy sugar) contained in dairy products.
• Badly digested food can promote increased formation of gas as well. Good examples of such foods are cabbage, beans, yeast, nuts, potatoes, sunflower seeds, fruit, sweets, soda water and certainly any fatty products.
• Eating too fast causes ingestion of air that also contributes to stomach bloating

Treatment

In this article I’m going to teach you how you can help yourself reduce stomach bloating and eliminate intestinal gas, using techniques from Su Jok.

As usual with Su Jok, the first thing you are going to do is to identify areas on your hand that correspond to stomach, duodenum and gall bladder. See figure 1 for details:

Once you found the areas you need to stimulate those areas. You can use a little stick with a not too sharp edge (e.g., a toothpick with a broken sharp edge, ball pen without ink, etc.)

Now find most painful point on these areas. Press these points with moderate effort and begin a slow rotation of the stick in two directions.

Carry out this massage for several minutes (figure 2).

If you didn’t find painful points simply massage whole areas. You can also use your fingers to do the massage.
Massage these areas with constant moderate effort while slightly rotating a finger, without moving it. While the picture shows only one finger, you should repeat the same massage on all fingers but your thumb.

Next apply fennel seeds to the area corresponding to stomach. Replace these seeds every 10-12 hours. See also the technique explained in “How To Get Rid Of Neck Pain“.

If the discomfort persists you are next going to massage two very important points. Here is how to find those points:

Look at figures 3 and 4. Put your hand according to figure 3. The middle finger will specify to you the location of the first point. It is at the distance of one finger width from the anterior crest of the tibia.

Now look at figures 5 and 6. Put four fingers according to figure 5 and you will find the place of the second point.
It is on the medial part of the tibia.

Massage these points on both legs.

These points should not be stimulated if you are pregnant.

After that heat up these points using Moxa.

To conclude, here is some advice to avoid having stomach bloating in first place.

• Walk after meals
• Do not hurry to eat your meals; instead carefully chew your food.
• Limit the use of milk. Drink lactose-free milk and yogurts instead.
• Avoid the use of excessively hot or cold food.
• Reduce consumption of stimulating substances. Coffee, tea and chocolate can lead to stomach bloating.

If you liked this self-healing technique, Self Healing Series has more self-empowering materials.