My Belly Fat Won’t Budge

It’s not unusual for people to come in with a goal to eliminate belly fat. It’s a big problem faced by both men and women, but more often by men. Belly fat is the accumulation of fat around the middle. It’s also called visceral fat, which is located and can crowd vital organs, such as the stomach, liver and intestines. It is the most unhealthy type of fat and also the hardest fat to eliminate. It produces inflammation and can cause plaque. Getting rid of this type of fat means making lifestyle changes.

Changing your eating habits is a start.

Eating healthier isn’t dieting, but you’ll achieve your proper weight when you do it. It means cutting out processed food and opting for more whole foods that don’t contain harmful substances like sugar, refined flour, additives and preservatives. Fresh fruit and vegetables that are high in fiber can help improve the digestive system and reduce bloating. Reducing the amount of carbohydrates in the diet help, too. Studies show that a low carbohydrate diet worked far better than a low fat diet to eliminate visceral—belly—fat.

Eating more fiber helps, too.

Eating more soluble fiber reduces visceral fat. It keeps your appetite under control and boosts the level of healthy bacteria. Increasing protein intake also helps by boosting your metabolism. Studies also show that people who include more protein in their diet have less visceral fat. Another study showed that eating more protein increased good cholesterol and led to a smaller waist circumference. A high waist circumference is an indication of visceral fat.

Start a program of regular exercise.

You can’t spot exercise—do an exercise to eliminate fat from one spot. When you workout, you lose weight and fat comes off your entire body, toning your muscles at the same time. To lose visceral fat, you have to lose fat all over your body. Complex strength training exercises help you do that. HIIT—high intensity interval training—is another way to burn larger amounts of calories and in the process, lose more fat. While it’s good to strengthen abs, just doing ab exercises and nothing else won’t get rid of belly fat. You have to lose weight.

• Don’t forget about what you drink when it comes to cutting calories. Diet soft drinks won’t do it either. One recent study showed that people who drank diet soft drinks had a bigger waistline than people who didn’t.
• Stress can make your middle bigger. Studies show that cortisol, one of the hormones of stress, is associated with the accumulation of belly fat. Learn ways to reduce stress, like meditation or deep breathing.
• Get adequate sleep. If you don’t have enough sleep, your body produces less leptin, the hormone that makes you feel full, and more ghrelin, the hormone that makes you hungry. Lack of sleep causes overeating.
• Fill up on water. You’ll flush your system, while boosting your energy level and curbing those hunger pangs. Put a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in one glass of water a day. Studies show it could reduce your waistline in 12 weeks, even if you made no other changes.

For more information, contact us today at Jari Love