How To Lose Belly Fat
Many people get a gym membership to shed weight and lose body fat. Most of these people quit working out in a couple of months when they don’t see any results. The ability to lose belly fat is thought to be a superpower that is possessed by a few chosen people.
In this article, we’ll talk about how the fat is accumulated on your midriff, how you can get rid of it, and how to make sure it doesn’t come back. We recommend that you bookmark this page because this is the only resource you’ll ever need for getting rid of the stubborn body fat.
Everything You Need To Know About Shedding Body Fat
Why Your Body Stores The Fat and It’s Effects
The main reasons for body fat accumulation are widely accepted. In a nutshell, if your daily caloric intake is higher than what you burn, you’ll start seeing fat deposits on your body. There are varying degrees of the fat being stored on your body which depend on factors like your body weight, sex, age, BMI, and activity levels.
Apart from being aesthetically unappealing, belly fat can have serious implications for your health. The visceral fat (belly fat) is stored in the abdominal cavity and shares space with the stomach, kidney, liver, and intestines. The abdominal cavity is expensive real estate, and you don’t want to be renting it out to useless tenants like the belly fat.
The belly fat is metabolically active which means your body treats it like an independent organ. What is the role of this new organ, you ask? It’s incredibly effective at pumping out various inflammatory substances which can interfere with hormones that regulate your weight, appetite, mood, and brain function.
The belly fat excels at sending your cortisol levels – responsible for stress – through the roof. All these effects of belly fat are associated with type 2 diabetes, heart diseases and some types of cancer.
The Causes of Visceral Fat
Wrong Eating and Drinking Habits
All the causes mentioned in the article are inter-related. One cause can lead to the other and they tend to amplify the negative effects of visceral fat on your health. If you want to get rid of your belly fat, you might need to consider giving up the booze.
As soon as you gulp down a sip of alcohol (which your body can’t store, btw), your body turns into acetate and uses it as the primary source of fuel. In the meanwhile, the other macronutrients are converted into fat and stored in your belly.
In your eating habits, trans fats are the villain and can contribute to your bulging waistline by adding new fat and moving fat from other areas of your body to your belly. The cheat day favorites like fried food, ice cream, cakes, cookies, popcorn are enriched with trans fats. Imagine the mayhem you can instigate on your health by consuming trans fats and alcohol together.
High-Stress Levels
Taking on too much stress can cause your cortisol levels to rise which can result in the accumulation of body fat. The “fight-or-flight” response triggers the release of insulin in your body and shuts down the digestive system so you can deal with the “threat”.
But once the perceived threat has been navigated, you’ll start feeling hungry. At this point, your blood sugar levels will be low due to the release of insulin and you’re more likely to feast on junk food. Over and above this, cortisol helps release myostatin, a protein that breaks down muscle.
Not Taking Care of Your Gut Health
Not all bacteria are created equal, and the gut bacteria is a prime example of this. Most of the bacteria in your stomach are useful. They produce hormones, regulate your immune system, digest food, extract nutrients, control your mood, manage your appetite, and much more besides.
Obese people have higher numbers of Firmicutes bacteria in the gut which can increase the number of calories your body absorbs from food. As a rule of thumb, the less diverse your gut bacteria, the more likely you’re to have belly fat.
How To Lose Belly Fat
Best Fat Burning Supplements
Now that you understand why your body stores the fat, let’s get into how you can shed and keep it off.
1. Fix Your Diet
The first building block for a chiseled midriff is a personalized diet. You need to follow a macro-based diet that is custom made for you. Following someone else’s program or a vanilla diet isn’t going to get you results.
To lose weight, some people make the mistake of cutting out the fats from their diet. Eliminating fats can hurt your bone and joint health. In most cases, carbs are the culprit behind your body fat. You should consider a high-protein, low carb, and restricted fat diet to shed the extra kilos.
2. Fire-Up Your Metabolism
A slow metabolism can be the result of eating less frequently to limit the caloric intake – which is another very common mistake amongst the fitness rookies. Eating 6-8 small meals can give you better fat loss results as compared to eating 2-3 large meals.
Having a high metabolism rate means that you’ll be burning calories throughout the day – even when you’re not physically active. Make sure each of your meals has enough protein as it can fasten up the fat burning process.
3. Train Hard
If you want to burn body fat, you’ll have to sweat it out in the gym. The best way of burning body fat is to follow a HIIT (high-intensity interval training) program. In a HIIT workout, you keep the intensity high by keeping the rest time between sets minimal.
We also recommend doing two cardio sessions in a day. The first session should be a LISS (low-intensity steady-state) workout which should be around 30-35 minutes and done on an empty stomach. The HIIT workout will be a 10-15 minute session which you can do post weight training.
4. Recover Better
While on a fat-torching mission, some people push too hard and end up burning out. Overtraining can result in you quitting the fit lifestyle which is exactly the opposite of the desired outcome. Training, diet, and recovery have equal importance in your fat loss journey.
You need to make sure you’re recovering optimally between your workouts. Sleeping for 6-8 hours every night is uncompromisable. Using supplements is an incredibly effective way of shortening your recovery periods.
What is your body fat percentage goal? Let us know in the comments below.
