Just when you thought you’d got your spring wardrobe covered - nice pencil skirt, pastel shades, pretty blouse, phew, no need to bare any flesh just yet apart from maybe a tiny sliver of ankle - a pile of celebrities go and bare their midriffs. Isn’t a bit early in the year for this, I hear you cry?
Bare legs? That’s so 2013 – at California’s coolest Coachella festival last week, there were more midriffs about than gladiator sandals. Queen of the scene appears to be Poppy Delevingne and her beautiful hippy followers who all have tummies as taut as a Gucci leather handbag. Love it or hate it, it seems nearly every celebrity is at it, including Beyonce who last week snapped a pic of herself about to board a flight in leopard print leggings and cropped top. What's more, there have been all manner of A-listers on the red carpet of late slinking about in dresses with cut-out sections flashing their upper abs. Since when did it become OK to expose your stomach at a black tie do?
But here’s the point - unlike the nineties when the Buffalo-booted Spice Girls flashed a strip of flesh, complete with stomach piercings aplenty, this time round the trend feels somewhat more sophisticated. The key now is in exposing upper abs only (no belly button required). Either that or the trend seems to be about flashing a sliver of stomach a la Gwyneth Paltrow who is forever wearing dresses with cut out sections around the tummy area and who at 40 has unfortunately well and truly crushed the idea that only teenagers should expose their stomachs. (Cheers Gwyn)
Undoubtedly midriff baring will be more divisive than Marmite, but for those of you who do fancy giving it a go, we asked our experts at Get the Gloss for their tips to getting a washboard wonder.
1. Abs are made in the kitchen
I wrote a piece about this following a bikini mission last year. My trainer Steve Mellor from Freedom2Train taught me that you can do as many crunches as you like but unless you get rid of the overlying fat on top, then your abs will be buried forever, Only through fast burning exercises (see below) and clean eating (also see below) will you beat the belly blubber.
2. Manage your insulin levels
Amelia Freer who is a nutritional therapist we love at GTG and who has helped me endlessly with my own diet says “elevated levels of insulin encourage the storage of fat, particularly around the middle. So managing blood sugar levels to reduce insulin production is key to reducing abdominal fat storage.” This means saying no to refined sugars and processed foods such as white bread, white pasta, cakes and pastries which lead to fat storage, and yes to anything unprocessed such as fresh everything.