How to Get Rid of Bingo Wings!

I’ve been asked several times over the last few months by female clients how to get rid of ‘bingo wings’ so this week I thought it would be useful to tackle this head-on since there’s so much unnecessary complexity if you search online for ‘how to get rid of bingo wings’. 

The reality is actually a lot simpler than you’ve been given to believe – in fact you just need to consistently incorporate a few easy lifestyle additions that will start getting you visible results in around 3 months. But before we jump into that, let’s firstly clarify what we’re talking about here…

What Exactly Are ‘Bingo Wings’?

Specifically the term ‘bingo wings’ refers to the loss of muscle tone and the accumulation of body fat at the back of your arms around the triceps muscle. Apparently ‘bingo wings’ are so named because they become visible when the winner raises up their arms at the end of a game of bingo! And according to a recent survey at Women’s Health magazine many women responded saying they’d rather go bare-legged than expose their arms!

What Causes Bingo Wings?

If you’re reading this, I can pretty much guarantee you’re over 35 years old since that’s typically when they first become visible – in other words they’re a natural part of the aging process. This is because past your mid-thirties, the balance of hormones begins to change, with less growth hormone and testosterone being produced (yes, testosterone is crucial for female health too!) This change becomes more pronounced leading up to the menopause when levels of these hormones can take a precipitate drop. Why is this so important? Well, maintaining higher levels of growth hormone and testosterone are crucial for maintaining a higher ‘resting metabolic rate’ ie the rate at which you burn calories 24/7. 

Not only that, higher levels of growth hormone and testosterone are crucial for maintaining your ‘lean mass’ (think bone density, muscle mass etc). And why is lean mass important? Your level of lean mass is the key to not only maintaining a higher metabolic rate – but also minimising chronically elevated blood glucose levels – a big factor behind weight gain in our 40s and beyond.

So let’s cut to the chase, what can we do about bingo wings?

The Real Challenge…

OK, the first thing you need to understand is that it’s impossible to ‘spot reduce’ body fat – ie to target body-fat reduction in one specific area of your body. The body just doesn’t work that way I’m afraid! Instead, what we need to do is to look at ways to naturally boost back up your levels of growth hormone and testosterone in order to build more toned muscles throughout your whole body, and at the same time burn body fat throughout your entire body via the increased metabolic rate. 

And yes, the two crucial aspects to focus on here are exercise and diet – but luckily for you, my work with many clients facing the same issue over the last few years has enabled me to whittle down to the handful of things that will meaningfully move the needle for you. No need to get side-tracked by all the many ‘bingo wings’ powders and potions being touted online if you just focus on these basics. The real challenge is this – being consistent, executing daily and being patient for 3 months when the results will become apparent. Surely 3 months is not too long in the scheme of things? OK let’s dive in and examine the few things that really do matter:

How to Get Rid of Bingo Wings – Exercise

If you really want to get rid of bingo wings, you need to do a specific type of exercise known as ‘resistance training’ (ie strength training) in order to enable you to build toned muscle and burn more body fat. The good news is that this is quick and easy to do (less than 5 minutes per day). So, what’s the catch? Well, there’s two important points to bear in mind:

1. You need to aim to do them every day of the week for at least 3 months (although if you end up missing one day a week that’s fine).
2. You need to take the exercise to what’s known as ‘muscular failure’ – ie where you can’t move another inch. Note – this is not the same as intense cardio exercise – instead you want to move slowly and smoothly until you literally cannot move the target muscles another inch – which should happen after 10-15 repetitions.

All you need to do is the following three exercises – doing 1 x ‘set’ of each of the three exercises to muscular failure (each ‘set’ should comprise of somewhere between 10-15 individual repetitions – where 1 x repetition is 1 up and 1 down movement). It should take you less than 5 minutes per day – so no excuses! I’d suggest making them part of your regular morning routine. And no, you don’t need to join a gym – you can do these three exercises at home, in your local park – or anywhere that suits you really!

1. Pushing Progressions

Most people can’t do full press-ups off the floor straight off the bat, so the way we tackle this is by ‘pushing progressions’. In other words, we start with an easier version of the exercise, for example, pushing against a wall, and once you can do 10-15 repetitions to muscular failure – you just go to a slightly more challenging form of the exercise next time – eg pushing against a table-top or bench. Just one set to muscular failure per day is sufficient.

See this 3 minute video for a typical ‘pushing progression’ – beginning with presses against a wall for those new to this, and ending up with press-ups on the ground with legs raised for the experts out there! This will tone the front of your shoulders, chest and the back of your arms. But you have to do it every day to see results!

2. Pulling Progressions

You also need to do a daily ‘pulling’ exercise in order to tone your body in a balanced way – follow the pulling progressions in this 3 minute video to tone the front of your arms, back and rear shoulders. Don’t skip this one as it’s crucial to developing a balanced body tone, ensuring a complete upper-body strength workout. Again, the key point is to do just 1 ‘set’ every day – it should take less than a minute so no excuses!

3. Tricep Dips

Tricep dips can be performed from any chair or bench and will directly target the tricep muscles themselves (ie the back of the arms) – although as noted earlier whilst they will certainly tone up the muscle at the back of the arm, no exercise can ‘spot-reduce’ body fat! Have a look at this 1-minute video to see exactly how to perform them – very straightforward!

The only other thing you need to think about on the exercise front is to aim to get in 30-45 minutes of ‘brisk’ activity every day (split into 2 or 3 x 15 minute chunks if you prefer). This can either be brisk walking, cycling, swimming or a step machine/ cross-trainer etc. If you really wanted to optimise this, a good time to do it is within an hour after eating or before your breakfast when fat-burning is optimised – but the bottom line is just fit it in whenever is the best time for you! You can download the free Active10 app to monitor how much of you daily activity falls into the ‘brisk’ category.

Now, whilst you may have heard that doing additional ‘HIIT’ style high-intensity cardio exercise can optimise things a little further, I don’t want to burden you with that here because a.) HIIT is pretty hard to keep up (!) and b.) just following the above simple and quick protocol will get you the results you want – as long as you execute consistently (aim for every day) – no need to complicate things!

How to Get Rid of Bingo Wings – Diet

Again, let’s keep this simple and just focus on the following 4 x key aspects of diet that will lead to visible results (more detail and actionable tips on exactly how to do this can be found on the free trial of my Enhanced Energy weight-loss programme):

1. Increase your intake of ‘lean’ protein (eg eggs, dairy, whey protein, legumes, meat, fish) to 2.2 x your ideal body weight (in kilograms) and spread across 3 or 4 meals/ snacks. For most people this generally works out to be a minimum of 30g of protein at every meal/ snack – which I guarantee is a lot more than you’re currently eating!

Boosting up your protein in this way works together with the daily strength training to naturally elevate the levels of the hormones which help boost your metabolism and build toned muscle. And no, don’t worry – none of this will make you ‘bulk up’ like a bodybuilder – you’ll need to train in a gym with heavy weights (and probably take steroids too) for several years to do that!

Again, more details on my Enhanced Energy weight-loss programme for exactly how to do this, but I strongly advise you use a free dietary tracker app for 1 week to work out how much protein you’re currently consuming – you’ll be shocked how little it is!

If you only make one change to your diet – boosting up protein is by far and away the most important when the goal is burning more body fat and building toned muscle – as well as regulating appetite and cravings.

2. Increase your water intake to 2 litres – 2.5 litres per day. Cut back on sugar-containing juices/ squash/ smoothies – even those containing only natural sugar including natural fruit juices.

3. Increase natural, whole, minimally-processed foods. As much as you can, switch away from ultra-processed foods (ie foods containing added sugar or artificial sweeteners/ refined grains & flours/ emulsifiers/ flavourings etc). If possible, get all those ultra-processed snacks out of the house for a month – and see the difference in how you look and feel!

4. Timing: No calories/ alcohol/ snacks after dinner (have your dinner as early as possible – ideally at least 3-4 hours before bed). 

And that’s it – nice and simple!

How Long Will It Take to Get Rid of Bingo Wings?

If you follow these 4 x easy exercise tips and 4 x dietary tips every day, then you’ll see visible results in around 3 months, and the results will continue to improve from there. As mentioned above though, although these diet and exercise tips are all easy and quick to implement – the key is to execute every day! For the dietary recommendations above, you can take 1 day where you are a little more relaxed if required – but if you extend beyond 1 day off per week then your results will be a lot slower coming – so beware!

So, What Should You Do to Get rid of Bingo Wings?

The key take-out point is that most women will develop some type of underarm body-fat and lose muscle tone as they get into their 40s – but that the hormonal changes underlying this can be manipulated back to your advantage through 4 quick and simple daily exercise habits and 4 simple dietary tips. At the risk of repeating myself though – the real key to making this work is patience and consistency – ie executing daily (or at least 6 days per week) – but since these 8 tips are so quick and simple, that shouldn’t be an issue – as long as you take the time up-front to plan them into your daily routine.

Just remember – many women I have worked with have achieved toned upper arms (as well as many other health benefits) by following these 8 simple tips – so there is absolutely no reason why you can’t too!

Struggling to manage your metabolic health or balance your hormones? Just before I sign-off – if you’re tired of ‘generic’ advice and want a personalised, evidence-led approach, I just want to let you know that I offer premium 1-to-1 online coaching for busy professionals. Click here to learn more and book a Free 30-Minute Health Review. I’d love to hear from you!

Good luck!