Belly fat is one of the most stubborn fats in our body. It is very difficult to get rid of belly fat even if you’re doing all the things you can. Other than being extremely stubborn, belly fat also has serious health hazards.
The fat around the belly is called as visceral fat and when it exceeds its normal value it can cause serious problems like hormonal imbalances, heart problems and increased risk of Diabetes Type 2. Not only visceral fat but obesity in general has a lot of health hazards which should be taken care of.
Belly fat is dangerous but there is a certain limit for both males and females where it becomes alarming and something has to be done about it. These limits are:
- Belly circumference more than 40 inches for men
- Belly circumference more than 35 inches for women
You will find thousands and thousands of ways of losing belly fat, on the internet but all of these are not always reliable and work seldom. Following are a few proven ways of reducing belly fat.
1. Work out
When you keep yourself moving, you don’t put on a lot of weight. Keeping yourself active is the key to beat the increasing weight. But when your belly fat is getting out of control you need much more than just moving.
Belly fat can be lost fairly easily by indulging yourselves in aerobics, running, biking, swimming etc. these activities burn a lot of fat and help you lose some around the belly.
Studies have shown that 16 weeks of yoga in postmenopausal women have helped reduce significant fat around the belly. Even when you’re not able to do all the bending exercises, breathing exercises in yoga also help considerably well.
2. Protein diet
We all have heard about the famous protein diets, there are hundreds of them available online. Do they actually work? Yes! They do. Protein helps you keep yourself leaner and is essential for losing belly fat.
As soon as you start growing older, your muscles and other fat cells stop responding to the increased Insulin, this increased insulin in your body deposits fat. This fat is mostly visceral fat, deposited around the belly.
When you start taking lot of proteins prevents blood insulin to increased and start fat deposition. People who have about 30% of protein in your diet have shown to lose more weight as compared to those who take only 15%.
3. Sleep well
You might think that sleeping a lot might lead to increased weight. That is true in a way but that doesn’t at all mean that sleeping less will help you lose any. Researchers say that if you sleep less than 5 hours every night it may cause an increase in visceral fat i.e. fat around the belly.
It is advisable to sleep for around 8 hours every night, this is good enough for you to function well for an entire day and also helps you lose weight, because sleep well keeps your biological clock working and so hormones like cortisol etc are controlled.
4. Drink green tea
Green tea has antioxidants called catechins. These antioxidants help eradicate free radicals from your body, keeping you protected from diseases like cancer and early aging. Green tea also increases metabolism and helps you keep your weight under control.
Green tea is found be effective on itself, but when taken by moderate exercisers it has shown brilliant results than in those who don’t work out often. Thus diet control works better when you have a good work out plan too.
Green tea is now also available in different flavors which are good for people who don’t like its flavor.
5. Vinegar intake
Vinegar has a lot of benefits, these include better skin, and better complexion, better digestion etc. but one of the most proven benefits is that it helps with weight control.
The acetic acid present in vinegar helps burn fat inside our body. It is advisable to take a tablespoon of vinegar before breakfast. It is beneficial in a lot of other ways too.
6. Consume fibrous food
Belly fat is also found in people who stay constipated for a very long time. Indigestion is one of the leading causes of visceral fat.
Indigestion can only controlled when you take a lot of fiber in your food. Fibrous food included whole wheat bread, whole grain food, oats, fruits, green, leafy vegetables etc. One should make sure that you take fiber in every meal and drink lots and lots of water.
7. Say no to sugar
Unnatural and added sugars are extremely harmful. It hampers the metabolism a lot. Refined sugar is made of half fructose and half glucose. When present in small amounts it is used up by our body instantly.
But when it is present in huge amounts, it forced our liver to be converted into fat. This fat is mostly deposited around belly, also called visceral fat. This sugar is also deposited over the liver and this makes our body resistant to insulin which causes a number of disturbances in our metabolism.
Liquid sugar is even worse; these include sugars in carbonated drinks and fruit juices.
These should be totally avoided and not only cut down in quantity. When you are trying to cut it completely, it is better that you read the ingredients before buying food. Nowadays number of healthy and diet food have processed sugars in them.
Conclusion
Above are listed the 7 proven ways of losing fat over the belly. All of these have shown results pretty soon. But one should always keep in mind that while losing weight one should adopt a balanced lifestyle.
This means that by doing one thing and completely ignoring the other completely might not show desired results. That is why it is very important to have a little bit of everything in your lifestyle.
This gives better and quick results and also keeps you healthy and active.
