What is Belly Fat?

We call that resistant fat around our midsection a muffin top, jelly-belly, or beer belly and no one wants it hanging around. Regardless of what we call it, that Visceral fat lies deep within the abdomen and is stored around vital internal organs such as the liver, pancreas, and intestine.

Deep Storage

That belly fat can lead to serious health issues, let alone bulge our body shape in an undesirable form. High visceral fat can affect insulin resistance leading to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and even Alzheimer’s. Plus belly fat plays a potentially dangerous role in causing a hormonal imbalance which is closely tied to weight gain, and disease.

What is Too Much?

How can you tell if you have too much visceral fat? An easy way is to track your waistline circumference measurement over time. That Measurement should always be smaller than your chest and hip circumference measurement. If your waist measurement is larger than your hip or chest measurement, you likely have too much visceral fat.

How do we get rid of Visceral Fat?

Well, unfortunately, you can’t spot reduce belly fat no matter how many crunches you do. And forget about cosmetic surgery like Liposuction – it will remove subcutaneous fat but does not reach inside the abdominal wall for the visceral fat. Instead, it is a combination of healthy lifestyle habits. Like, exercising for 30-60 minutes each day. Interval training (short bursts of aerobic exertion alternated with slower strength building) is the best to use up your visceral fat stores.
Eat a diet high in lean protein, unrefined grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables. Leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, and beans are all good for keeping away belly, and eating less than 50 grams of carbs per day results in fat loss in most overweight people.

Avoid Trans Fats and cut way back on all sugars and alcohol since these will end up as visceral fat. Eat fish high in Omega 3 fats like salmon, herring, sardines, mackerel, and anchovies 2-3 times per week. Eat Pro-biotic foods or even better take a concentrated Probiotic supplement targeted at digestive health. Green tea contains caffeine and the antioxidant (EGCG), both of which boost metabolism and help lose belly fat.

And one of the cheapest and easiest weight loss methods? Drink 64-80 oz of H2O each and every day.

Get more sleep and less stress.

Too little sleep and too much stress can make you eat more fat and sugar, reduce exercise, drink more alcohol, and -unleash the “stress hormone” cortisol, which can boost belly fat. If you still smoke and need yet one more reason to quit, smoking makes you more likely to store fat in your belly, rather than subcutaneous on your hips and thighs.

Combine your Efforts

Since no one single item will make a difference in burning belly fat try to combine as many of these methods as you can. When you have healthy habits and eat real food, fat loss naturally happens.