How to lose belly fat fast –  5 Tips for a Flatter Stomach

Toned abs, flat stomach is the dream of many people.While it can be difficult to achieve a fit body without a strict lifestyle and a favorable amount of genetics, there are good reasons for you to lose belly fat — and they have a lot to do with your overall health. than your looks. Learn how to lose belly fat fast through the article below.

Deep Belly Fat

You need some visceral fat. It provides cushioning around your organs.

But if you have too much, you can be prone to high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and certain cancers like breast and colon cancer.

The fat doesn’t just sit there. It’s an active part of your body, making “lots of nasty substances,” says Kristen Hairston, MD, assistant professor of endocrinology and metabolism at Wake Forest School of Medicine.

If you gain too much weight, your body starts to store your fat in unusual places.

With obesity on the rise, you have people with areas of frequent fat storage so full that fat is stored, says Carol Shively, PhD, professor of comparative pathological medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine. accumulates in organs and around the heart.

How Much Belly Fat Do You Have?

The most accurate way to determine how much visceral fat you have is a CT or MRI scan. But there’s a much simpler, low-cost way to check.

Take a measuring tape, wrap it around your waist at your navel and check your circumference. Do it while you stand up and make sure that the tape measure is level.

For your health’s sake, you want your waist size to be less than 35 inches if you’re a woman and less than 40 inches if you’re a man.

Having a “pear shape” — bigger hips and thighs — is considered safer than an “apple shape,” which describes a wider waistline.

“What we’re really pointing to with the apple versus pear,” Hairston says, “is that, if you have more abdominal fat, it’s probably an indicator that you have more visceral fat.”

Thin People Have It, Too

Even if you’re thin, you can still have too much visceral fat.

Visceral fat likes inactivity. In one study, lean people who followed a diet but didn’t exercise were more likely to have too much visceral fat.

The key is to be active, no matter what size you are.

4 Steps for Beating Belly Fat

There are four keys to managing belly fat: exercise, diet, sleep, and stress management.

1. Exercise: Vigorous exercise removes all of your fat, including visceral fat.

Get at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least 5 days a week. Walking counts, as long as it’s fast enough for you to sweat and breathe harder, with a faster-than-normal heart rate.

To get the same results in half the time, step up your pace and get vigorous exercise — like jogging or walking. You’d need to do that for 20 minutes a day, 4 days a week.

Jog, if you’re healthy, or walk briskly at an incline on a treadmill if you’re not ready to run. Cris Slentz, a Duke researcher, says vigorous exercise on stationary bikes and ellipticals or rowing is also effective.

Moderate activity — raising your heart rate for 30 minutes at least three times per week — also helps. It slows the amount of visceral fat you gain. But to burn visceral fat, you may need to step up your workout.

“walk, garden, go to Zumba, play soccer with your kids. It doesn’t have to be in the gym,” Hairston says.

If you are not active right now, you should check with your healthcare provider before starting a new exercise program.

2. Diet: There is no magic diet for belly fat. But when it comes to weight loss with any diet, belly fat usually falls first.

Getting enough fiber can be helpful. The Hairston study found that people who ate 10 grams of soluble fiber per day – without any other dietary changes – accumulated less visceral fat over time than others. It’s as simple as eating two small apples, a cup of chickpeas, or half a cup of pinto beans.

3. Sleep: Adequate sleep helps. In one study, people who slept 6 to 7 hours a night gained less visceral fat over 5 years than those who slept 5 or less hours per night or 8 or more hours per night. Sleep may not be the only thing that matters — but it is part of the picture.

3. Stress: Everyone has stress. How you handle it matters. The best things you can do include relaxing friends and family, meditating, exercising to let off some steam, and getting counseling. That makes you healthier and better prepared to make good choices for yourself.

“If you could only afford the time to do one of these things,” Shively says, “exercise probably has the most immediate benefits, because it gets at both obesity and stress.”