Flavor Your Food With Garlic
A little garlic in your meals could mean a lot less weight around your middle. The results of a Korean study found that mice given a high-fat diet supplemented with garlic lost significantly more weight and abdominal fat than those who just ate fatty foods. Even better, they also improved their liver health, making it easier to stay healthy and burn off that excess fat in the long term. For more flavorful ways to make your food more enjoyable, turn to the metabolism-boosting spicy recipes and watch those pounds melt away.
About The Fat Below The Belly Button
Belly fat consists of subcutaneous fat, the stuff that’s just under the skin and feels soft and pinchable, as well as deep visceral fat. First focus on losing the visceral fat, which responds well to traditional low-calorie diets, cleaner eating and regular exercise. If you’ve lost that, you may find that the subcutaneous fat right under your belly button is more stubborn. The subcutaneous fat, however, is more of a cosmetic issue — the deep visceral fat is what causes your risk for chronic disease to skyrocket.
Abdominal exercises don’t burn fat — they build muscle. You may crunch, leg lift and twist, but when you still have body fat covering the below-the-belly-button region — you won’t see the results you’re after. It’s possible to be thin but still have a high proportion of body fat. Your genes also influence the pattern by which you lose fat. Many people who are of a healthy weight hang on to the fat just above and below the belly button as a last bit of fat storage.
Did you know that keeping a food diary is one of the most effective ways to manage your weight? to easily track calories, stay focused and achieve your goals!
How To Get Rid Of Lower Belly Fat After Having A Baby
Toning your abdomen after pregnancy may pose additional challenges. Wait until you get clearance from your doctor before jumping into any kind of diet and exercise routine.
Its not uncommon to have loose skin or an additional fat layer over your belly after pregnancy, especially if you had a cesarean delivery.
During pregnancy, many women gain weight. After delivery, youll most likely have an extra layer of fat left as an energy store for breastfeeding and the birth recovery process.
This is part of your bodys natural instinct and is normal. Its important to be patient with yourself.
You can, for the most part, follow the same protocols as you would before you were pregnant to lose postpartum weight, with a few exceptions.
Dont restrict calories while youre breastfeeding. It can reduce your breast milk supply.
If it appears that the muscles in your lower abs have been separated by pregnancy, you may have a condition called diastasis recti.
It can worsen with traditional crunch exercises. Ask your doctor about workouts and physical therapy options if you believe you might have this condition.
Your sex may have something to do with the reasons why you gain belly fat. Females tend to store fat in the lower belly because of hormones, genetics, and age, and may be difficult to reduce in some cases.
However, everyone should take the same basic approach to lose weight, regardless of sex or gender.
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The Faqs About The Fat Above Belly Button
There are reason add fat above your belly button and may ways to get rid of upper belly fat under breasts. We have been asked from many of our readers how they can get rid of upper stomach fat roll. Below we have tried to find some answers of a few questions.
Another interesting Reading here How to get rid of FUPA . I hope you Enjoy it.
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Eat Your Way To Better Abs
You’ve heard the phrase that abs are made in the kitchen, right? Well, there’s a good reason for that. Although exercise is important for many reasons, including boosting your metabolism and maintaining a healthy heart, physical activity alone will not burn excess fat, especially over your abdominals.
Instead, the most effective way to lose body fat is to eat a healthy diet and have an overall calorie deficit to burn away extra fat.
“Any weight-loss plan will require a ‘negative energy balance,’ meaning you are burning more calories than you are eating,”Kristi Veltkamp, RDN, a dietitian with Spectrum Health in Michigan, tells LIVESTRONG.com. “The best plan is one that can be followed long-term and allows for balanced nutrition that supports proper body function, like the Mediterranean diet.”
Read more:Ready to Adopt a Mediterranean Diet? Start With This 7-Day Meal Plan
Bell and Veltkamp also recommend nutrition strategies that will help your body optimize its fat-burning abilities and protect from future fat accumulation. For example, you can:
Tip
If you’re cutting calories for weight loss, your daily goal should be to get 1.3 grams of protein for every kilogram of body weight. Keep in mind that a kilogram equals 2.2 pounds so a 180-pound person, for example, should try to eat about 106 grams of protein each day.
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You’re Consuming Too Much Sugar
“If your diet consists of lots of sports drinks, sugar-sweetened drinks like fizzy coca cola and flavoured waters, or sugary foods like chocolate and cakes, it will make losing weight harder,” Dr Luke reckons. He also explains that while whole fruits and vegetables are undoubtedly good for you, they can also sometimes cause weight gain if you eat too much, as they have high levels of natural sugars in them. “Low-fat food options might have high amounts of added sugar in there too, so make sure to check the food label”, he warns.
Plus, cutting back on the amount of simple carbohydrates you eat, like pasta and bread, and substituting for healthier alternatives, like courgetti, could help with weight loss. “It wont be easy, but by dropping your overall carbohydrate intake , you will have the best chance of tackling your belly fat,” shares Dr Luke.
However, Emily has a slightly different take on this one. She explains that, while Dr Luke isn’t wrong in saying that, nutritionally speaking, the above foods aren’t as nutritionally-dense, they won’t ultimately affect weight loss if you’re still maintaining a calorie deficit. “I’m a big believer that you don’t need to cut out foods or become consumed with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ labels when it comes to your nutrition,” she shares.
See, you don’t have to cut out the foods you love. It’s all about moderation.
What Is Belly Fat Anyway
The definition of belly fat might sound obviousit’s clearly the fat that sits around your middle, right? Well, not quite. While belly fat does indeed reside around your midsection, it goes deeper than just below the skin, padding your intestines and other vital organs, Lawrence Cheskin, MD, professor and chair of the department of nutrition and food studies at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, tells Health.
“The reason it’s different than other forms of fat is because it’s more metabolically activeit gets into the bloodstream faster than the stuff under your skin,” Dr. Cheskin explains. “Belly fat has a bad influence on blood cholesterol and blood sugar, and all the metabolic diseases.” So with belly fat also comes a heightened risk of those metabolic diseases, like diabetes.
Belly fat can also be independent from overall body fat, meaning someone who’s not overweight could still have a lot of excess fat around his or her waist. The good news: For most people, when they lose weight, it tends to come off the middle, says Dr. Cheskin. People also tend to shed belly fat a little quicker than other areas, because the tummy is just a temporary holding zone for fat, he adds.
Something to keep in mind: It’s normal to carry some weight around your middle. Dr. Cheskin says a normal waist circumference is less than 40 inches for men and 36 inches for womenbut if you want to trim it down, here are a few things you can do.
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You’ve Got Too Much Of The Wrong Gut Bacteria
Most of the bacteria that dwell in your gut are pretty useful. They produce hormones, regulate your immune system, digest food, extract nutrients, control your mood, manage your appetite and much more besides.
Now, two groups of beneficial bacteria are dominant in the human gut, the bacteroidetes and the firmicutes. However, the number of bacteroidetes is decreased in obese people when compared with lean people, according to research.
In another study, scientists took stool samples from 1300 twins and found that the less diverse your gut bacteria, the more likely you are to have belly fat. Grow your gut community to shed serious timber.
The Best Exercise To Lose Belly Fat
Before you ask about the best exercises for a flat stomach, let’s get clear on why crunches and sit-ups alone not going to be the thing to help you lose belly fat. ‘While crunches will help strengthen your abdominals and core muscles, theyre not enough in isolation to burn calories,’ Luke Hughes, Origym PT says.
Instead, Hughes recommends a rounded bodyweight or free weights workout routine done at a higher intensity as the best exercise to lose belly fat. These sessions will help to burn calories and increase muscle mass, which will, in turn, tap into your body fat stores even within a limited time period.
Do note though, too much HIIT can elevate cortisol in your body, which could hinder how effectively you lose stomach fat . Aim for three to four sessions per week and make sure you’re allowing your body plenty of time and space to recover.
‘Burning calories through cardio exercise like this helps to burn belly fat, particularly when we operate at a calorie deficit,’ says Hughes. ‘Try adding star jumps and mountain climbers into your workouts.’
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Avoid Eating After Dinner
Stop treating your kitchen like an all-night diner and you’ll stop seeing those unwanted pounds piling onto your frame, too. The results of a study published in Cell Metabolism found that mice who only had access to food during an eight-hour period stayed slim over the course of the study, while those who ate the same number of calories over a 16-hour period gained significantly more weight, particularly around their middle. When you’re finished with dinner at night, shut the fridge and don’t look back until morning your belly will thank you. When you do head back to the kitchen in the A.M., make sure the best healthy kitchen staples for cooking are there waiting for you.
What Causes Visceral Fat
Fat gets stored when you consume too many calories and have too little physical activity. Some people tend to store fat around their belly rather than on the hips because of their genes.
In women, getting older can change where the body stores fat. Especially after menopause, womens muscle mass gets less and their fat increases. As women age, they are more likely to develop more visceral fat in the belly, even if they do not put on weight.
In men, age and genetics also play a role in developing visceral fat. Drinking alcohol can also lead to more belly fat in men.
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Tighten Skin After Weight Loss Naturally
One of the problems with extreme rapid significant weight loss is you could very well end up becoming skinny fat.Skinny fat is kinda like deflating the balloon. You might lose a lot of weight but you also lose a lot of muscle too.
So even though youre losing weight your body fat percentage wont change or might even get worse. This what happens when you end up starving yourself to lose weight. You waste away a lot of your muscle mass in the process.
The good news is if you dont have a ton of extra loose skin then you might not even need surgery. But if you lost more than 100 pounds really fast then theres a chance you might still need it.
The integrity of your skin will also affect how easy it is to tighten the loose saggy skin on your body. Depending on how your skin responds to your weight loss is critical.
Try losing weight slower and healthier since crash dieting can make your loose skin even worse. When you lose weight too fast it doesnt give your skin enough time to retract into a tight new formation.
This can end up giving you the loose, saggy skin that can drive you crazy. Your skin can only stretch so far before it stretches beyond what is repairable. But the good news is if the damage isnt too bad then you can definitely fill out your loose excess skin.
Reduce Your Intake Of Inflammatory Foods
The foods we consume can cause inflammation within our bodies, which can then contribute to lower belly fat. Some foods that promote inflammation include the saturated fats found in meat and dairy products, processed food, fast food, fried food, palm oil, and more.
“Saturated and trans fats damage blood vessel walls, which triggers the immune response associated with inflammation and encourages blood fats, like cholesterol, to stick and become imbedded in the artery wall leading to atherosclerosis, the underlying cause of heart disease, stroke, and even some forms of dementia,” explains Elizabeth Somer, a registered dietitian and Medical Advisory Board Member at Persona Nutrition.
But we have some good newsthere are many foods that can help inhibit inflammation, like the fats in fish oils, nuts and flaxseed , olive oil, many fruits and vegetables, mushrooms, nuts, soy, whole grains, tea, and spices like turmeric and ginger.
“Cutting back on calories and increasing exercise will shrink your waistline, including the dangerous visceral fat around the middle, especially if you’re overweight,” Somer says. To lower inflammation and reduce belly fat, “focus on unprocessed foods, such as colorful fruits and vegetables, 100% whole grains, nuts and seeds, legumes, fatty fish such as salmon, and low-fat milk products. Then watch portions and exercise daily.”
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The Best Way To Burn Belly Fat If You’re Over 40
One thing to note if you’re a 40+ woman: losing belly fat naturally might be harder than before. Let us introduce you to a new word: somatopause. It refers to the time in your life when the growth hormone somatotropin begins to decline, something that happens once you hit your 40s.
Combined with declining levels of oestrogen and progesterone, fat storage will also tend to move from your hips and thighs to your stomach. But, this isn’t the time to go HAM on HIIT workouts. Kate Rowe-Ham, personal trainer and founder of the Fit Hut in Sussex advises focussing on resistance training to build muscle tissue that’ll support your metabolism as you age.
‘You cant spot-reduce fat,’ says Rowe-Ham, referring to the myth of removing fat from specific parts of your body. ‘Increasing lean body mass by building muscle is the most sustainable way forward if healthy weight loss is the goal.’
Will My Hormones Influence How Much Belly Fat I Have
During our reproductive life women have less visceral fat than men, but this changes as oestrogen levels fall during midlife and at the menopause. At this stage, testosterone starts to play a more significant role in where women lay down fat, favouring the upper body rather than the hips and thighs, with our proportion of fat to body weight also increasing.
Menopause is not the only time when hormones play an influential role in fat storage. Women diagnosed with the condition PCOS may also be prone to increased intra-abdominal fat storage.
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Stop Adding Sweeteners To Your Food And Drinks
While many people turn to artificial sweeteners in a misguided attempt to whittle their waistlines, those fake sugars are likely to have the opposite effect. According to Yale researchers, artificial sweeteners are actually linked with an increased risk of abdominal obesity and weight gain, possibly because they can trigger cravings for the real stuff and spike insulin levels in a similar fashion to real sugar.
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Ramp Up Your Cardio Exercise
You don’t have to be the next Usain Bolt in the making to enjoy some serious belly-slimming results from hitting the track from time to time. Even a moderate-rate jog a few times a week can blast through that belly fat in fact, a study conducted at Duke University Medical Center found that, over the course of an eight-month study, overweight adult study subjects who jogged 12 miles a week lost the most belly fat and burned 67 percent more calories than participants who did an equivalent amount of resistance exercise, or a combination of cardio and resistance work.
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Reduce Your Stresslevels To Lose More Fat
Along with physical activity and good nutrition, one way you can help shed excess fat in your body is to reduce your levels of stress. Yup, that’s right. Although many of us think of being stressed as just a normal part of daily life, too much stress over long periods of time can actually lead to physical changes in the body that will increase your fat stores.
The visceral fat within your abdomen is significantly affected by stress levels. When you’re stressed, your body releases cortisol, which Bell describes as the “stress hormone.” Although cortisol release is a normal process on a short-term basis, if your cortisol levels stay high for an extended period of time, you will have more trouble losing fat and run into health problems.
“Cortisol increases when we are feeling overwhelmed in any way,” Bell explains. “It is our bodies’ natural response to both physical and psychological stress and its main goal is to preserve carbohydrates to use for more vital organs, such as the brain. If cortisol becomes too high, however, it can lead to symptoms such as overeating, depression and weight gain.”
Read more:8 Ways to Beat Stress-Induced Belly Fat
According to a February 2017 study published in Obesity, long-term cortisol exposure has a significant impact on fat accumulation in the body.
On top of all of that, elevated cortisol levels will increase your appetite and make you crave more energy-dense foods , so you will feel hungrier and eat more too, Veltkamp adds.