Belly Fat Loser

The most common questions I’m asked by people interested in health and fitness are about how to lose belly fat. There’s good reason for the interest, too. Yeah, the stuff looks terrible; all jiggly and warbbly, but there is a much more important reason to learn about how to lose that fat around your belly. Recent research indicates that for certain people, that extra layer around your belly is an early death sentence. That sounds pretty dire, and you could be forgiven if you take it as just some Internet hype, but you’d be wrong, and the mistake could be very costly. More and more medical studies are concluding that even a fairly thin layer opf belly fat for people of certain body types is an excellent indicator that they may not be long for this world.

For example, lead researcher Rachael Whitmer of Kaiser Permanente in California concluded a study of more than 6,000 subjects in early 2008. Her findings were rather unsettling, especially for those of us that have a tendancy to pack on fat around the belly area. If you value your mental faculties, you should pay close attention. The study found that even if you’re not obese, or are only slightly overweight, the disposition of your fat plays a huge role in your likliehood of developing dementia by the time your reach your 70′s, if in fact you make it that far.. That’s right, belly fat seems to have a direct link to losing your mind later in life; so not only can it kill you, it can drive you nuts, literally.

Not a pretty picture, especially if you’ve ever had to care for someone with dementia. Another reason to avoid that fatty layer obscuring your abs. The dementia risks for those of normal weight, but slightly higher levels of belly fat were an astounding 89% higher than those without the extra belly fat! If you’re obese and have a large belly (and most people who are obese have a large chance of having one) you face a whopping 360% greater chance of developing chance of slowing losing your mental acuity when you’re in your 70′s.

Then there is the Europen study released late last year that I mentioned earlier in the week. This study links excess belly fat to a risk of early death at such an alarming rate that the research team indicated they had never before seen such a dramatic link between a single non-behavior related risk factor and early death. Research team leader Dr. Tobias Pischon even said “There aren’t many simple individual characteristics that can increase a person’s risk of premature death to this extent, independent of smoking and drinking.” A bit frghtening if you tend toward that adipose growth around the abs.

Here’s yet another belly fat study to put in the back of your mind. Miina Ohman, MD, PhD, a research scientest at the University of Michigan published a study last year in the medical journal Circulation that indicated belly fat has a direct link to atherosclerosis, which itself has a direct link to heart attacks and strokes. Of course, this research was conducted on mice, but they feel it has a direct correlation to the condition in humans as well.

So, if you are one of the those people that need to lose belly fat, i.e. you have an apple, rather than a pear shaped body, the question is “how to lose belly fat”.

The first thing to know is that there are actually 2 kinds of belly fat; deep and shallow. The deep belly fat, also known as visceral belly fat, lies under the abdominal muscle layer, and actually does not obscure the 6-pack abs we all know you’re really toting around. Although it doesn’t obscure the 6-pack look, it does push the belly out, and more concerning, seems to be the more dangerous kind of fat. The deep fat therefore, would be the fat to target when concerned about your health. Here are some effective ways to lose it, and the rest of your belly fat along with it.

How to Lose Belly Fat Method #1 – Walking – I posted on walking as a fat loss tool a few weeks ago, and with good reason. It is easy to do, you don’t need any special equipment, and it is relatively easy on your joints. It also doesn’t cost any money, which is pretty darn nice in our current economic climate. To top it off walking is very effective at reducing belly fat, especially the deep layer. Yet another study, this one performed by Tim Church, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University, (it was actually a look at other studies) indicated that only 20 minutes of walking per day is an extremely effective fat burner. Indeed, that 20 minute investment in your health pays large dividends. On average you’ll lose about 1″ a month with such a walking program. You must walk briskly however. No loafing, but you needn’t adopt that silly looking strut of those Olympic race walkers either.

How to Lose Belly Fat Method #2 – Resistance training – Resistance training (weights or bands) is an extremely effective fat destroyer. Those of you who know me are well aware that I’ve been a proponent of weight training as a way to lose fat for decades. I’ve even been known to eschew cardio and rely exclusively on weight training.

The reason is simple. Weight training not only burns calories while you’re doing it, it increases muscle mass. Muscle burns so many calories even when you’re not really using it that it causes your metabolic fires to burn ever brighter, and your fat to whither away. Not only that, but sometimes cardio bores me to tears and I have trouble staying with it. Weight and other resistance training allows so many variations that it’s less likely to induce a fit of boredom. Try these 3 exercises for a 20 minute fat loss workout that will blast off that fat from your midsection. Actually the workout will last 30 minutes, because you should warm up for about 10 minutes on a treadmill, bike or with a brisk walk first. On the other hand, you only nbeed do this workout 2 times a week to experience dramatic gains if you haven’t been weight training. Here it is:

Belly Fat Loss Weight Workout – Barbell Power Cleans (4 sets) Squats (4 sets) Dumbell Bench Press (4 sets). You’ll not that these exercises are all compound movements, meaning they involve multiple joints. If you’ve ever sone any of them, you’ll also note that they can be a bit brutal if you do them correctly. By correctly I mean ramping up the intensity to an 11. The only way to get a real benefit from short workouts is to have short, but very intense workouts. Rest about 1 minute between sets. Start with a weight you can easily lift 15 times for the first set and increase the weight for the 2nd to a weight you can easily lift for 12 reps. It’s the last 2 sets that are the real killers. You should choose a weight that you can barely lift for 8 reps, then do 10 or possibly 12.

You’ll need a spotter to do this at all, much less safely, so find someone who wants to lose fat as much as you do to help out. The spotter has another vital role to play here. They have to harrangue you relentlessly to complete those extra reps, just like Jillian does on “The Biggest Loser”. She does that for a reason. That’s how you get intensity in a workout, and that’s how you lose your belly fat. Besides, would you rather run for an hour, or lift weights for 20 minutes? Remember to warm up and stretch because the last thing you want is to get hurt while you’re training.

How to Lose Belly Fat Method #3 – Cut back on these 3 foods – White bread, white rice, and refined sugar. By cut back, I mean eliminate them altogether. White bread has a glycemic index only a bit below glucose. Basically all these foods will cause spikes in blood sugar which lead to your body storing additioinal fat. You’ll note that avoiding white bread doesn’t mean just not buying that loaf of Wonder bread. That baugette you love every morning at Starbucks is out too. Ditto the omnipresent bagel. Lose all these white flour containing victuals, and throw rice cakes out along with them. Switch to whole grain breads and pastas. Your belly fat will begin to dissapear with just this simple diet change. For some it may not actually be so simple, as almost everything they eat is laden with white flour and sugar, but do you want to lose fat, or stay fat?

Those 3 things can really help you to lose belly fat, and improve your overall health, not to mention your appearance.

Until next time……..lose your belly fat.

Tags: fat loss, lose belly fat