Belly fat loss is something that interests both men and women but have difficulty achieving. But if your belly fat loss goal is just driven by the need to look good, then here is better motivation for you: having fat in your midsection increases your risk of disease.
Belly fat, also known as visceral fat or abdominal fat, is the type fat found on the inside of your body. It is different from subcutaneous fat, the type of fat found under your skin, which dimples, jiggles, and forms cellulite. Your vital organs may be surrounded by abdominal fat, which provides cushioning but also secretes harmful substances. Too much belly fat is associated with an increased risk of certain cancers (breast, colon, endometrium), cardiovascular disease, dementia, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
How To Lose Belly Fat for Women; How Men Can Get Rid of Their Spare Tire
There is no magic bullet when it comes to belly fat loss and weight loss in general. No single diet or type of exercise is specifically designed for belly fat loss. Fortunately, belly fat is actually the first type of fat that you tend to eliminate when you lose weight.
According to Mayo Clinic endocrinologist and obesity researcher Dr. Michael Jensen, 98 percent of people who lose weight will lose it in the abdominal region and lose proportionally more weight from the upper body. This is because visceral fat is more metabolically active and easier to lose compared to subcutaneous fat. This also means that if you are overweight and start your weight loss efforts, you are most likely to see quicker results in your belly than someone who has less fat to lose in his or her midsection.
Doing hundreds of crunches or sit-ups is not the way to go if you want to achieve belly fat loss. Recent studies suggest that crunches produced the least amount of muscle activity among core exercises, and that you would need to do 250,000 crunches to burn a pound of fat – that’s 100 a day for 2,555 days.
There is no shortage of exercise programs out there promising to help you trim your belly fat but the truth is, “spot training” is rarely effective. If you want to burn fat fast in your midsection, you need to shed fat throughout your body with physical activity and the proper diet.
Ideally, your workout routine should incorporate the four pillars of exercise: aerobic exercises, anaerobic exercises, core exercises, and strength training. If you are trying to lose weight, you should focus on strength training, as increasing your muscle mass can help you burn calories more efficiently. Anaerobic exercises like interval training can also significantly boost your body’s ability to burn fat.
Exercise provides you with profound benefits but you still need to watch what you eat. Reduce your intake of refined and processed carbohydrates, which make you gain weight and keep it on. You can also increase your intake of monounsaturated fats, which are found in avocado, nuts, and seeds, as these dietary fats have been found to help reduce the accumulation of both belly fat and subcutaneous fat.
Author Info: Francis Lucas writes for SweetSweat.com. When not blogging or creating content for web pages, he can be found running, dreaming that he is God’s gift to basketball and soccer, conspiring with the Dark Side, and inflicting his idiosyncrasies on family and friends.