How To Get Rid Of Extra Stomach Fat

Is The Military Diet Safe And Sustainable

The military diet is likely safe for the average person because its too short to do lasting harm.

However, if you were to follow this diet for months at a time, the strict limit on calories could put you at risk of nutrient deficiencies.

This is especially true if you do not regularly eat vegetables and other quality foods on your days off.

Additionally, eating hot dogs, crackers and ice cream every week has the potential to cause metabolic issues. Junk food should not be a regular part of your diet.

In terms of sustainability, this diet is fairly easy to do. It doesnt rely on long-term habit changes and only requires willpower for a short amount of time.

That being said, it probably wont help you keep the weight off for very long because it doesnt help you change your habits.

Bottom Line:

The military diet is likely safe for healthy people, but it shouldnt be done for extended periods of time. It probably does not lead to lasting weight loss.

Snack On Tart Cherries

That sour cherry is pretty sweet when it comes to your health. The results of a study conducted at the University of Michigan found that rats given high-fat foods along with tart cherries ditched nine percent more body fat than those in a control group over just 12 weeks. Cherries are also a good source of antioxidant pigment resveratrol, which has been linked to reductions in belly fat, dementia risk, and lower rates of macular degeneration among the elderly.

Focus On The Way Your Clothes Fit More Than Reading A Scale

As you add muscle mass and lose fat, the reading on your bathroom scale maynot change much, but your pants will be looser. Thats a better mark ofprogress. Measured around, your waistline should be less than 35 inches ifyoure a woman or less than 40 inches if youre a man to reduce heart anddiabetes risks.

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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.”

Ways To Lose Belly Fat

In the previous post, the best ways to lose belly fat, we learned what causes stomach fat and why belly bulges are so hard to lose. Understanding the physiology of abdominal fat will help you discern which solutions work best, and which solutions are not real solutions at all.

Read on to learn how to lose belly fat safely and permanently.

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Do What You Can To Reduce Stress Levels

“If you are working out consistently, eating healthy and still not losing the belly fat, I suggest having your hormones checked,” Tucker suggests. “Too much cortisol can be a result of adrenal fatigue and can cause weight gain and bloat around the lower belly.”

If the belly fat is the result of a hormone imbalance, you’ll also want to prioritize adding stress reduction activities into your day. “Try incorporating a daily meditation practice or yin yoga and limiting time on devices to reduce stress and calm your nervous system”.

How Do I Know If My Belly Fat Is A Problem

An easy way to assess if there may be a problem is to measure your waist. Experts suggest that for women a waist measurement more than 80cm and for men more than 94cm suggests there may be an issue. These guidelines are adjusted for ethnicity with South Asian, Chinese and Japanese men recommended to have a waist circumference no more than 90cm. If your measurements exceed these guidelines and you are concerned, refer to your GP for further guidance.

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Limit Your Alcohol Intake

Consuming alcohol once in a while is okay but, if you want to shed some lower belly fat, then you have to forget about consuming sweet alcohols and beer daily.

Drinking beer every day can alter the shape of your body and make it look like a pear and alcohol on the other hand, stresses the liver which, in turn, has to overwork to detoxify the body by getting rid of the toxins. This can get in the way of your goal to lose lower belly fat.

If you want to know how to lose lower belly fat fast, then you have to say goodbye to beer and alcohol.consumption bump

Instead of drinking alcohol, drink green tea or water with squeezed lemon. Either that, or you can say goodbye to your dream of having a flat belly.

So No There’s Not But Here’s What You Can Do

1. Start simple

Typically there are many things you may need to improve to lose belly fat. But start by focusing on changing or improving just one thing. Then, once you conquer that first objective, you can move on to the next thing, and so on.

2. Target sugar

One good place to begin improving your food choices is to eliminate sugary drinks and not just soda, but juices. Sugar increases belly fat and fiber reduces belly fat thus when you’re juicing fruits, you’re removing the fiber, leaving pure sugar. So one quick fix, a very concrete fix, would be eliminating sugary drinks.

Replacing sugary beverages with water will help dramatically cut down your sugar intake, and then once you’ve taken that step, you can figure out how to cut down on foods that are high in sugar.

If you have a sweet tooth and need to put that final accent to your meal, eat an apple, melon or fresh berries. Just remember, fruit is not a substitute for vegetables.

3. Go Mediterranean

The popular “flat belly diets”embrace much of the wisdom found in eating a Mediterranean diet, which helps everything from brain health to hearth health. The basic premise for both diets is eat foods rich in monosaturated fatty acids that may help reduce your belly fat storage. MUFA-rich foods include olive oil, nuts and seeds, avocodos, and fish. Eating yogurt regularly has also been found to be helpful in reducing belly fat.

4. Front-load your meal

5. Commit to a physical lifestyle

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Eat Calcium And Vitamin D

Studies suggest calcium and vitamin D, two nutrients we typically associate with bone health, may be useful in our mission to reduce visceral adiposity. Researchers think these nutrients play an important role in how the body metabolises fat. Look to include dairy or fortified plant-based alternatives, canned oily fish with bones and egg yolks.

Increase Your Neat To Get Rid Of Belly Fat

We’ve been conditioned to think that super hard exercise is going to be the thing to help us get results, especially when trying to lose lower belly fat. In fact surprise, surprise it’s much more holistic than that. Instead of hammering the HIIT, keeping your nutrition, exercise and general movement in check are all important.

Outside of gym workouts , the movement you’re doing walking to the shops, making a cup of tea or taking your pooch out to stretch their legs can contribute more to hitting your healthy fat loss goals. This is known as NEAT and is a cornerstone of healthy body composition.

‘NEAT simply refers to the energy used carrying out any daily activity that isn’t formal exercise or sleeping,’ says Elliott Upton, personal trainer at Ultimate Performance and Head of LiveUP Online Coaching.

NEAT plays a major role in how much energy you expend per day and increasing your metabolic rate. It also helps control your blood sugar, aid muscle recovery, lower stress levels and improve cardiovascular health.

You can increase your NEAT by walking instead of taking public transport, opting for the stairs over the elevator or doing household chores. Whichever you choose, they’ll all contribute to the process in which you lose belly fat.

Get around everything you need to know about NEAT exercise with our full explainer.

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Hormones Can Play A Major Role In Fat Stores

Believe it or not, hormone imbalances can cause weight gain expanding your waistline.

Stubborn belly fat can be affected by medical conditions and lifestyle factors.

Having hormone imbalances can be the result of medical conditions like PCOS, menopause, insulin resistance, insulin sensitivity, diagnosis of diabetes.

These conditions are a health issue, they throw your body out of whack yet mostly can be treated in different ways as long as the condition is identified and addressed.

Non-medical conditions can be malnutrition, lack of exercise, the stress hormone cortisol reacting to stress, under-eating can also trigger the ghrelin hunger hormones. All things that can also be addressed with healthy habits.

What Causes Belly Fat And Why Is Stomach Fat So Stubborn

When talking to people about weight loss, they usually associate it with fat loss. If you ask people which area they would like to focus their fat loss on, most would tell you they’d like to lose belly fat. Fat loss in this area can be tough. In fact, belly fat loss occurs at a slower rate than other body fat. There are a number of factors that contribute to this.

Dubbed the spare tire, love handles or muffin top, stubborn belly fat is anything but cute. Youll likely see magazines and websites littered with tips to lose belly fat, but its smart to understand why its there in the first place. Heres how it takes up residence on your valuable bodys real estate:

For one, there are more fat cells in the belly and they don’t respond to lipolysis as easily as fat cells in other areas of the body. The primary reason for this is the type of receptors found in belly fat cells. Fat cells contain 2 types of receptors alpha and beta receptors. Basically, alpha receptors slow lipolysis down and beta receptors trigger lipolysis. Fat cells in the stomach area have a higher amount of alpha receptors, which makes them more stubborn to get rid of. This is why when you start a fat loss program, you see results in the face, arms and chest before you lose the belly fat.

So, if you’re looking to lose belly fat, you may need a little extra help. Read on to learn how we help with belly fat loss.

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How Can I Get Rid Of Belly Fat

Whether its a round beer belly or a jiggly spare tyre you either love it or you wish you could get rid of it.

The problem is that belly fat isnt just the inch you can pinch , it is also what is in your abdomen and surrounding your internal organs this fat is known as visceral fat. If you have too much fat you can grab that probably means you have too much internal visceral fat too, and that is much more dangerous.

Visceral fat is thought to be more metabolically active than subcutaneous fat. It produces hormones and chemicals that can cause harm and affect how our organs function. This puts us at greater risk of diabetes or heart disease. Anything we can do to reduce this belly fat can only do us good.

So is there an answer and is it diet or exercise?

We are bombarded online by a variety of techniques which claim to be able to target problem areas such as a belly using quick fixes. The question is can we really target fat within our bodies doing something known as spot reducing by exercise or diet?

We set out to find out, with the help of Fredrik Karpe, Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Oxford, and his team as well as Professor Dylan Thompson, Director of Research at the University of Bath, along with his team.

Swap Ketchup For Salsa

Sure, ketchup is tasty, but it’s also a serious saboteur when it comes your weight loss efforts. Ketchup is loaded with sugar up to four grams per tablespoon and bears little nutritional resemblance to the fruit from which it’s derived. Luckily, swapping out your ketchup for salsa can help you shave off that belly fat at home without a diet. Fresh tomatoes, like those used in salsa, are loaded with lycopene, which a study conducted at China Medical University in Taiwan links to reductions in both overall fat and waist circumference. If you like your salsa spicy, all the better the capsaicin in hot peppers, like jalapeños and chipotles, can boost your metabolism, too.

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Focus On Low Calorie Foods

One of the most effective ways to lose body fat is to eat fewer calories than the body burns. This leads to fat loss throughout the body, including the abdomen.

Eating fewer calories than the body uses up creates a caloric deficit. This can help burn both visceral fat and excess subcutaneous fat.

Also, low calorie foods are often more nutritious than high calorie foods.

Eating fewer foods that are high in calories and low in nutrition for example, processed foods, baked goods, and french fries is a beneficial way to create a caloric deficit and improve health.

Try replacing these foods with nutritious, low calorie options, such as fruits, vegetables, pulses, and whole grain foods.

Taking in excess sugar seems to be a main driver of weight gain, especially in the abdominal area.

A high sugar intake may increase levels of visceral fat by promoting insulin resistance and spurring inflammation throughout the body.

It can be easy to consume high levels of sugar in drinks without realizing it. Check the sugar contents of beverages such as soda and sweetened tea and coffee.

For many people, reducing the amount of sugar in hot drinks and eliminating soda can remove excess sugar from their diets.

How To Get Rid Of Excessive Stomach Acid

If you are suffering and are trying to figure out how to reduce excess stomach acid, you will likely have luck with one of the following approaches. Some people do take antacids to help fight the symptoms, but it is important to know that chronic antacid use can cause side effects.

The following are more natural remedies for excess stomach acid:

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Remember: There Are 2 Types Of Belly Fat

If you’re looking to lose fat, it’s also important for you to understand the difference between the two major types of fat in the body. Your body actually has two different kinds of fat: visceral fat, sometimes called “hard” fat, and subcutaneous, or “soft” fat.

Bell explains that subcutaneous fat is the type of fat we can see and feel. It lies just under the skin and having some of it is necessary for survival. According to Bell, subcutaneous fat provides an extra layer of protection, which helps to regulate body temperature, create a barrier between skin and bone and serves as a storage sight for unused energy.

Visceral fat, on the other hand, lies deep in the abdomen, surrounding your organs, and poses a greater threat to your health. It releases hormones and inflammatory compounds called cytokines, which can increase the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, according to Harvard Health Publishing.

Change Your Lifestyle And Combine Different Methods

Just doing one of the items on this list wont have a big effect on its own.

If you want good results, you need to combine different methods that have been shown to be effective.

Interestingly, many of these methods are things generally associated with healthy eating and an overall healthy lifestyle.

Therefore, changing your lifestyle for the long term is the key to losing your belly fat and keeping it off.

When you have healthy habits and eat real food, fat loss tends to follow as a natural side effect.

SUMMARY

Losing weight and keeping it off is difficult unless you permanently change your dietary habits and lifestyle.

There are no magic solutions to losing belly fat.

Weight loss always requires some effort, commitment, and perseverance on your behalf.

Successfully adopting some or all of the strategies and lifestyle goals discussed in this article will definitely help you lose the extra pounds around your waist.

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