These exercises target your waist.

Yoga
Yoga may be especially effective for trimming your waistline because in addition to burning calories, it helps you manage stress. Get started with yoga under the supervision of an instructor or by following along to a yoga workout at home.

Planks
Planks work your abdominal muscles, as well as the muscles that surround your core and help support healthy posture.

Start in a pushup position with your hands at your sides and your feet shoulder-width apart. It might help to do this exercise on a thin yoga mat or another stable, cushioned surface.

Breathing out, lift your body with your forearms so that you are parallel to the floor. Try to stabilize your core as you hold the position for as long as you can, taking slow breaths. Be careful not to hold the stress of this pose in your neck or your knees — it’s your core that should be supporting your full weight.

Try this exercise in increments of 30 seconds, a minute, or more if you can do it, working up to multiple sets and longer lengths of time.

Standing oblique crunch
A standing oblique crunch works the muscles on your sides. Toning these muscles can give you a firmer, trimmer waist.

Start standing up, using an optional 5- or 10-pound weight. Stabilizing your left arm by touching your head, lower your right arm slowly while you keep your core stabilized. Try not to move your hips at all as you stretch toward the floor.

After several repetitions of this move, switch to the opposite side. This is a great alternative to traditional crunches if you have back pain or difficult lying on the floor.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT)
HIIT exercise may be more effective than traditional cardio at cutting down abdominal fat. This type of cardiovascular exercise involves brief periods of “all-out intensity,” like sprinting, biking, or running, followed by spans of lower-intensity activities while your heart rate stays accelerated.

To try HIIT, use a treadmill. Figure out your maximum intensity setting on the treadmill, and a “rest” setting that feels like 60 percent of the effort.

After warming up, aim for 30-second increments of your highest setting, offset by 60 to 90 seconds of your lower-intensity setting. Experiment with the lengths of time you sustain your higher intensity, always returning to your “rest.”