Wanna know a secret? You can look up to ten pounds thinner, have your clothes look better and ooze confidence with every step you take. And you might just get rid of those tension headaches and lower back pain too!
Sounds like a come on for a bad late night infomercial, right? It's not.
It's actually what you'll achieve if you pay attention to one often neglected area of body conditioning – your posture.
" You would be amazed at what a difference making a few simples changes in how you hold your body can make in not only how you look, how your clothes fit, even how young you look," says personal trainer Sue Fleming, creator of the Buff Fitness line of DVDs and books.
Posture expert Janice Novak agrees. "We spend a lot of money on our clothes, our hair, our makeup, but without good posture your mid section can look at least a couple of inches wider than it is – and because you are also pushing your gut forward you are creating a pot belly that might not otherwise be there, " says Novak,, director of ImproveYourPosture.com and author of the "Posture: Get It Straight " series of books and DVDs.
What's more, she says, your posture also influences how others see you.
"They did some research about 10 years ago at the University of Louisville where 60 people were asked to rate the appearance of two women in a series of pictures – in some they were slumping, in others they were standing up straight … consistently viewers rated the women who were standing up straight to be younger and more attractive," says Novak
In fact, she says looking at just the bodies of the women, (the heads were masked) the study found the woman who weighed more – 125 pounds compared to the 105 pound model – was perceived as thinner and more attractive simply because she was standing up straighter and taller.
Personal trainer Jessica Bottsech isn't surprised. " "When you slump over, you lose inches in your height, so you are taking whatever your body mass is and scrunching it down, making yourself look shorter and wider," says Bottesch, co-owner of Empower Personal Training studios in North Carolina.
On the reverse side, Fleming adds that " When your body is in alignment, your head is sitting squarely on your shoulders, and your shoulders are pulled back with your core muscles pulled in, you not only increase your height and stretch out your body mass, making you look thinner, but you're also projecting an image of confidence, of being more alert and more youthful, all of which makes you look more attractive."