Everyone has some belly fat, even people who have flat abs. That’s normal. But too much belly fat can affect your health in a way that other fat doesn’t.
Some of your fat is right under your skin. Other fat is deeper inside, around your heart, lungs, liver and other organs.
It’s that deeper fat – also called “visceral” fat – that maybe the bigger problem, even for thin people.
You need some visceral fat. It provides cushioning around your organs.
But if you have too much of it, you may be more likely to get high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and certain cancers, including breast cancer and colon cancer.
Some ways to reduce the belly fat
Protein diet: Protein plays a critical role in weight loss and maintenance, it helps in preserving and building lean muscle tissue and increase the number of calories you burn, during digestion. Protein can also help to increase the amount of energy you expend each day, which promotes weight loss. Protein helps in providing satiety (feeling of fullness). Also, weight loss can be more difficult with an inadequate amount of protein intake. There are two types of protein:
_ Plant based protein: tofu, beans, lentils, milk and other milk products.
_ Animal based protein: fish, meat, eggs, poultry, beef and cheese.
One of the main reasons you need to consume an adequate amount of protein when trying to lose or maintain a healthy body weight is that protein helps fight hunger. Unlike carbohydrates, which digest quickly, protein takes much longer to process. It also helps us in boosting our metabolism. Protein has a high thermiceffect which means it is the amount of energy (in calories) your body needs to burn in order to break down, digest and metabolise the food.
It also helps us from muscle loss so we should make sure to take an ADEQUATE amount of protein for weight loss.
Use of coconut oil: Coconut oil is the world’s most weight loss friendly fat. you can lose fat, especially the “dangerous” fat in the abdominal cavity just by adding coconut oil in your diet. Coconut oil is vastly different from most other fats in the diet. It contains a unique combination of fatty acids with powerful effects on metabolism. It contains fatty acids which are sent directly to the liver from the digestive tract, where they are either used for energy right away or turned into ketone bodies.
This oil can be used in a ketogenic diet, in order to increase ketone levels. It also helps in boosting our metabolism. Coconut oil can reduce appetite, making you eat less without trying.
Reduce your stress: Stress can make weight loss more difficult for many people for several reasons. First, stress causes many people to stress eat. Stress eating is a type of emotional eating, which contributes to excess calories and when done often enough causes weight gain. In addition, the types of food people crave when stressed are usually high fat and sugar. Second, stress causes the body to produce more of the hormone cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone that promotes body fat and makes it harder to lose weight, especially around the stomach. Third, when someone is stressed they generally sleep less. Less sleeping, chronic fatigue causes the hormone ghrelin to rise. Ghrelin is the primary hunger hormone, and causes someone to feel hungry even when they don’t need to eat.
For other people, stress causes weight loss, but not in a good way. For those people that lose their appetite, weight loss is unhealthy and can cause dehydration, weakness, and suppresses the immune system. Overall health is negatively affected.
Drink green tea: Green tea is one of the healthiest beverages on the planet. It is loaded with antioxidants and various plant compounds that may benefit your health. Tea leaves contain many beneficial compounds. Green tea really shines in its antioxidant content. Studies show that drinking a cup of green tea increases the amount of antioxidants in your bloodstream. This healthy beverage is loaded with potent antioxidants called catechins. Your body is constantly burning calories.
Even when you’re sleeping or sitting down, your cells are performing millions of functions that require energy. Several studies suggest that taking green tea extract or EGCG supplements can make you burn more calories, even at rest. Green tea’s primary effect is to increase calorie expenditure, making you burn more fat but it doesn’t appear to have any noticeable effect on how much food you end up eating throughout the day.
Quality sleep: Being short on sleep can really affect your weight. While you weren’t sleeping, your body cooked up a perfect recipe for weight gain. When you’re short on sleep, it’s easy to lean on a large latte to get moving. You might be tempted to skip exercise (too tired), get takeout for dinner, and then turn in late because you’re uncomfortably full. So it’s a little like being drunk. You don’t have the mental clarity to make good decisions.
A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that when people were starved of sleep, late-night snacking increased, and they were more likely to choose high-carb snacks. Sleep is like nutrition for the brain.
Too little sleep triggers a cortisol spike. This stress hormone signals your body to conserve energy to fuel your waking hours. So it’s not so much that if you sleep, you’ll lose weight, but that too little sleep hampers your metabolism and contributes to weight gain. The basics are pretty simple:
_ Shut down your computer, cell phone, and TV at least an hour before you hit the sack.
_ Stick to a schedule, waking up and retiring at the same times every day, even on weekends.
_ Turn out the lights. Darkness cues your body to release the natural sleep hormone melatonin, while light suppresses it.
Increase your water intake
Drinking water can make you burn more calories. Drinking water increases the amount of calories you burn, which is known as resting energy expenditure.
Drinking water before meals can reduce appetite. drinking water before breakfast reduced the amount of calories consumed during the meal by 13 per cent. Since water is naturally calorie-free, it is generally linked with reduced calorie intake. Drinking more water is linked to reduced calorie intake and a lower risk of weight gain. This is mainly because you then drink water instead of other beverages, which are often high in calories and sugar.
It is very important to spice up our meal when it comes to weight loss. It is not a very difficult task to achieve. By simply adding a few herbs and spices to your kitchen collection, you can prepare dishes from all over the world. “It’s very personal to you and what your family likes,” says Erd. Cumin and turmeric are staples, though. Other possibilities include―but aren’t limited to―coriander, ginger, black pepper, red pepper, cloves, white pepper, nutmeg, fennel, cinnamon, saffron, and mace. There are different ways to spice up your meals:
Freezer meals: If you spend a day once a month or once a week making up a bunch of freezer meals that you haven’t included in your meal plans for the week, you’ll have something to fall back on in case you change your mind last minute!
Try a new style of eating: If you’re just throwing regular recipes into your rotation, it might be a nice way to spice up your meal plans by trying something new! No matter what it is, trying a new style of eating will spice up your meal plans – and you might even find that you like that style of eating better than what you’re used to!
Try not to repeat anything: By relying on freezer meals, prepping ahead, and using the slow cooker, you’ll find that it’s not as bad as you might think! To spice up your meal plans, try cooking something different each night. You can certainly eat leftovers for lunches during the day to be cost-effective and not wasteful, but having a new dinner each night is a great way to spice things up!
And last, losing weight is not a difficult task, maintaining it is one. Also, nothing is impossible in this world, we all need some determination and hard work to achieve our goals anyway.
Be the CEO of your own health. Stay healthy, stay happy
