Belly Fat and What to Do About It

Myths can be useful to making sense of our world, which is why many end up as the fairy tales and parables we share with our children. A series of myths about our belly fat otherwise known as visceral fat are damaging because they may mislead us. Understand the causes of belly fat and more importantly how to rid ourselves of this destructive accumulation in our body is critical to our physical appearance and well-being. Read on to learn more about visceral fat and how to rid you of it forever.

Myth – Belly Fat is Like Other Fat

 In fact most of the dangers of obesity can be attributed to visceral fat. This fat is very different from other fats and requires more continued effort to eliminate or even reduce. Steps can be taken to reduce belly fat, but it does require strong steps and persistence. Here are some other myths surrounding belly fat to gives us a better understanding of how to win the battle against it.

Myth – Visceral fat that accumulates as a paunch or a belly is like other fats

Visceral fat is different from subcutaneous fat as it is more dangerous. Belly fat is found between internal organs and has links to cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, sleep apnea, Alzheimer’s,  and more.

How do you determine how much visceral fat you have? You can have an MRI done that measure this fat on a scale between 1 and 59. Safe levels are under 13, anything over that should immediately be addressed through the recommendations found later in this article.

Another way to measure without medical equipment is with a simple tape measure. According to the Mayo clinic states that waist size of over 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men indicates excess visceral fat that should be treated.  

Myth – You can reduce visceral fat by doing enough cardio

Just like abdominal strength conditioning cardio is necessary for robust health. And just like stomach or other muscle exercises it does little to reduce the dangerous belly fat. The grain of truth is that High Intensity Interval training burns more energy and can have an impact and combining that with resistance training can boost your metabolism. What this means is that traditional jogging, Stairmaster, walking, swimming, and similar low intensity activities do little or nothing to burn belly fat. High Intensity training in bursts can be achieved by running or swimming sprints, burpees, CrossFit, and exercise equipment like Versa climbers.

Myth  – Waist trainers reduce fat

Stomach corsets have no beneficial effect on your stomach and in fact can restrict breathing, damage organs, and even fracture ribs. I only know one person who used a waist trainer, but there is a demand for them with 3,000 different ones on sale on Amazon. None of which actually reduce belly or any other kind of fat.

Myth – You can spot reduce visceral fat

Although increasing your abdominal muscle strength is a good idea for many reasons like core stability, abdominal strength does not reduce or eliminate visceral fat. The only way to reduce belly fat is by reducing visceral fat is through the Mediterranean Diet, Intermittent Fasting, and High Intensity Exercise.

Myth – Specific foods or drinks can reduce visceral fat

Not necessarily. The Mediterranean Diet as always is the best way to reduce fat, so to that degree this is partly true. The part that is not true is that Matcha Tea, Green Coffee Beans, or skim chocolate milk will easily melt away belly fat. The foods that do help to “melt” belly fat include foods that are high in fiber: avocado, oats, nuts, whole grains, yogurt, bananas, and citrus fruit. These Mediterranean Diet ingredients engage the digestive system in ways that encourage fat burning. To be more specific increasing soluble fiber by just 10 grams per day can decrease visceral fat by nearly 4 percent.

Myth – No exercise and poor diet are the only contributors to accumulating visceral fat

Although lack of exercise and poor diet definitely contribute to run away tummies, irregular sleep, genetics, stress, and age related muscle loss and can lead to more and more dangerous belly fat. It is easy to put this fat on and one must be vigilant to take it off.Stress and Belly Fat

Stress and Belly Fat

Stress eaters almost always go after sugar foods that produces the chemicals that release serotonin into your bloodstream. Serotonin  regulates mood, anxiety, and happiness, that is what makes you feel good.

Another indicator that you are eating as a response to stress is that your body’s natural mechanism that tells you when to stop eating is turned off. Stress eating can also be identified because it has an insistence that needs to be immediately satisfied. Good nutrition with foods that gradually release sugars do not have a sudden hunger effect.  In fact only eating well-proportioned, balanced meals takes the guesswork out of the eating healthy.

Be aware that age, reduced estrogen for women, and genetic factors are mostly out of our control when reducing visceral fat so we are going to stick to things that you can control.

One of the best tools to use is keeping track of your food consumption with a food diary such as My Plate Calorie Counter. That being said my personal preference is to Intermittent Fast, there are several free apps available for that including: FastHabit, LIFE Fasting Tracker, and Zero. These all help you keep track of your fasting window so you do not have to think about it.

As we have been discussing stress elevates your cortisol levels as you prepare to fight or flee. Cortisol makes us crave sugar, and stress combined with inactivity causes our body to store that excess glucose as fat.  In modern society actual danger from wild animals and other humans is uncommon, but our bodies react to stress with the same physical reaction. If you are feeling stress exercise, meditation, out in nature activities, enjoying comedy shows, and spending time with family are proven ways to reduce your stress. (Unless spending time with family is a source of stress ;).

Sleep

The next step to controlling  belly fat is making sure you are getting enough sleep, and importantly regulating you sleeping habits so that  your sleep close to the same time each day. Good quality sleep can lower cortisol levels while producing growth hormones, melatonin, and leptin. The first two hormones fight fat by helping build muscle mass. Leptin helps with appetite control. Those of us getting insufficient sleep also tend to crave sugar to assist with waking up. As we know if we are sedentary during and after consuming sugar the sugar converts to fat, a portion of which is visceral.

Healthy amounts sleep for adults rangers between 7 and 9 hours per night. That can be challenging with today’s busy schedules, but it should become a priority for dietary and overall health. There are many sleep guides available in the marketplace, but be aware that some sleep patterns formed in childhood can be difficult to break and will take knowledge and effort. A technique often use I use whether or not I might be having trouble falling asleep is Yoga Nidra, which has never failed me.  I would avoid sleeping pills because drug free natural sleep is much better for us than drug induced slumber. Avoiding screen time for several hours before sleep, not eating for four or five hours before bedtime, and going to bed near a specific times each night can also help with the regular restful sleep that reduces visceral fat.

Skipping Meals

There is some dissension about Intermittent Fasting and stress as some experts contend that skipping a meal causes a blood sugar drop triggering a stress response. This stress response as we know releases cortisol, which affects your energy levels. When eating the next time the surge of sugar in your blood is stored as fat. While this may be the case for occasionally skipping a meal, if you are Intermittent Fasting the right way your body is fat adapted and easily uses new food for fuel not fat. There is more on fat adaptation later in this article.

Carbohydrates

Controlling carbohydrates consumption will also help with belly fat reduction. The Mediterranean Diet recipes do a great job of ensuring you are eating complex carbohydrates instead of simple carbs. Simple carbohydrates are quickly used by the body for energy. Although simple carbohydrates are found naturally in fruit and dairy products, they are also in processed foods, candy, syrup, table sugar, and soft drinks.

Complex Carbohydrates include chickpeas, whole grains like steel cut oats and barley, yams or sweet potatoes, spelt, butternut squash, black beans, whole wheat pasta, quinoa, green peas, and similar slow digesting foods. The fact that these nutritious grains and vegetables digest slowly means that the sugars in them avoid the spikes simple carbohydrates have.

Alcohol

Another common contributor to belly fat that everyone is familiar with is alcohol, particularly beer. This is nothing new but commonly consumed alcohols are simple carbohydrates and their consumption will again boost cortisol and add visceral fat to your body. That being said the Mediterranean Diet does allow for a glass of red wine, knowing that you will need to offset the effect of the alcohol by having some complex carbohydrates beforehand. 

Junk Food and Sweets

Junk food, sweets, sugary drinks have little or no nutritional benefit and have contain preservatives that are endocrine disruptors that can cause hormonal imbalances. Clearly if someone is consuming these daily or weekly that is the major reason they are retaining visceral fat. If there was ever low hanging fruit to eliminate from your diet permanently it is sweets and liquid calories like soda. Luckily there is hope for sweet addicted folks through Intermittent Fasting and the Mediterranean Diet. People in my groups have mostly found that your body will stop craving sweets as it adapts to these new Ways of Eating.

Allergies

Something as seemingly common as allergies may also be stressing your body and causing the impulse to eat or drink sugars. When combined with possible intestinal inflammation this is a double whammy for those trying to lose their tummies. A common allergy that plagues millions is gluten, with symptoms ranging from fatigue or grogginess, to bloating or stiffness in the joints. Ignoring these symptoms may make it particularly difficult to burn off fat.

Solution – High Intensity Interval Training

As mentioned above, bursts of high intensity interval training is very helpful in reducing belly fat, but I certainly acknowledge that is not for everyone. Some daily physical exercise can make you feel better and increase your metabolism which will have a similar effect to HIIT, just slower. Any activity is better than none in the battle against belly fat. If you are not walking, gardening or doing yoga each day, now is the time to start!

Solution – Wim Hof Technique

Another thing that most people will not be willing to do but I have experimented with is Wim  Hof training. Wim Hof is a Dutchman and is known as the Iceman. His breathing technique is combined with cold to freezing water to engage the parasympathetic system. This brings us to what is liely the single most important thing you can do to reduce all fat, and especially visceral fat. Doing the Wim Hof technique followed by cold or freezing immersion will add brown fat to the body. It sounds counterintuitive but brown fat will aggressively replace other fats, including visceral fat. Brown fat is known as “Good Fat” is called brown adipose tissue BAT by scientists. When activated by cold it will burn other fats. Although we are born with some brown fat, we can also recruit brown fat with exposure to cold.

Solution – Intermittent Fasting and the Mediterranean Diet

Fat Adaptation is one of the best tools in your arsenal to consistently reduce belly fat. Only attainable through Intermittent Fasting, once your body becomes fat adapted your body will burn fat instead of storing fat. Think about the benefit of that. I discovered this by practice after I fully adopted the Mediterranean Diet and was pleased with the results. What was pleasing was non scale victories. I had scale victories that were great, but the way my close fit, how I felt, snoring disappeared, and I had better clarity of thought. Even though that was all great and I weighed less than I ever thought  I would  I thought there might be more. Years before I experimented with water only fasting, 3 days, then 10 days, then 18 days. So I did the research and also adopted regular Intermittent Fasting. Now because I have done and am helping many others do it as well it just seems like literally the only way any of us should eat.

Conclusion

All that being said there are many tools that you can use to reduce dangerous visceral or belly fat. Reducing stress, getting better sleep, adopting the Mediterranean Diet, adopting intermittent Fasting, and even practicing Wim Hof breathing and cold therapy can all be used for the desired result. None of these can be done without substantial commitment, so lace up your boots and get started.