Much too often, we hear of the dangers of being overweight and the health issues it can cause. Some persons may not appear weighted to the naked eye, but on closer inspection, you may notice that they have a bit of a punch or gut that they need to work on.
While you may make jokes about the state of their waistline, this excess fat, called visceral fat, can be dangerous for their health. A lot of fitness enthusiast will work on how to get rid of visceral fats. It may be something that you may have to work on too, especially if you are slim, but have a bit of a thick waistline.
The location of your body’s fat is a determining factor in how your health will be affected in the future or even how it is affected presently. If you have had visceral fat for years, getting rid of this fat may be a bit challenging because initially, without the knowledge, you may believe that you have a tummy caused by beer, flour, or eating too many sugary foods.
While this may be the case, it also comes down to your overall diet and your choice and frequency of exercise activities. In this article, we will provide you with effective ways in which you can get rid of visceral fat. Before that, though, allow us to define it for you first.
What is Visceral Fat?
Visceral fat is belly fat and found inside of your abdominal muscles. Too much of it is extremely harmful as it correlates with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases.
The reason why this fat poses a danger is the fact that it is usually wrapped around your organs. Judging how much fat you have may be a difficult task, but two of the main signs of visceral fat is having a large waistline and a protruding belly. This type of fat differs significantly from subcutaneous fat in that subcutaneous fat is fat that you can pinch as it is stored right beneath your skin.
Visceral fat is harmful because they produce hormones and inflammatory substances. These hormones in visceral fats promote inflammation, increasing the risk of the fat bearer developing chronic diseases, and suffering from increased and unhealthy cholesterol levels. This may result in clogged arteries, cause heart attacks, and block the liver.
How to Know If You Have Bad Fat
If you are uncertain if you have visceral fat, you should consider your body shape. Body shapes are usually described using fruits. If you have more of an apple shape, it is possible that you have visceral fat as apple-shaped persons tend to store fat in the upper body region.
Pear-shaped persons, on the other hand, tend to store fat in the lower body regions. Using this is not a perfect method to judge if you have visceral fat or not, so it may be recommended that you check the circumference of your waist and hips.
How to Get Rid of Visceral Fat
The ideal waistline for men is 40 inches and 35 inches for women. The ideal waist-to-hip ratio is about less than one for men and less than 0.8 for women. That being said, you should start working on making sure that you keep your visceral fat to the minimum. Below, you will find what you need to know about how to get rid of visceral fat.
Change of Diet
Contrary to popular belief, having a low-carb diet is actually more effective than having a low-fat diet in terms of losing fat. When you replace carbs with fat, you naturally put your body in a metabolic state. Also, a good amount of fibers added to your diet would help greatly.
High-soluble fibers help to slow the digestive process, and this actually suppresses your appetite too. Increasing the amount of protein in your diet is also essential for fat loss. Similarly, protein is also known as a metabolism booster, which promotes weight loss and fends of hunger. In fact, there is a correlation between protein intake and body mass index.
So, when people say they have a beer tummy or a sugar tummy, there is some truth to these statements. Drinking too much alcohol has been known to encourage the storage of visceral fat. It is therefore imperative that you limit your alcohol and beer intake if you want to lose visceral fat.
You also need to reduce your added sugar intake. It is not only unhealthy as it provides no nutritional value but consuming too much of it leads to weight gain. This does not mean that you should eliminate dessert completely from your diet. The Lean Belly Breakthrough Series actually has a list of desserts that are good.
Cardio and Aerobic Exercises
Fat burns when you engage in endurance exercises such as biking, swimming, running, jogging, and other kinds of exercise routines. These are described as aerobic exercises and tend to accelerate your heart rate.
Fat helps to fuel your body, giving it energy. So, when you do high-endurance exercises, your body automatically uses your visceral stores to fuel your exercise. These exercises are popular for weight loss and weight maintenance because they tend to burn a lot of calories. There have also been instances when a person lost visceral fat without dieting by simply doing aerobic exercises.
Then again, it does not mean that you should abandon a healthy diet in favor of exercise. They actually go hand-in-hand, and an unhealthy diet can actually be counterproductive to all the work you would have put in with your exercise.
If you are not a fan of high-endurance exercises like those listed above, or you never really exercise, then you should start with brisk walking or even consider joining aerobics or Zumba classes at your local gym.
The Bottom Line
Visceral fat is a type of body fat that you need to get rid of because it has the potential to develop into serious, life-threatening diseases. Some of these diseases cannot be cured but can be prevented once you adapt yourself a healthy and active lifestyle.
Getting rid of it extends way beyond simple sit-up exercises but requires that you do cardio exercises and follow a healthy diet. It’s that easy. However, you should combine both good exercise routines and a healthy diet in order to get the most out of your weight loss journey.