You're not alone if you've been trying to lose belly fat only to fail repeatedly. Unfortunately, abdominal fat is easy to gain and hard to lose, especially when you're older. Carrying excess belly fat is also dangerous to your health.
Why Is It Important To Lose Belly Fat?
Too much weight gain is never pleasant or healthy, but the fat in your abdominal region can be dangerous. Science suggests that abdominal fat cells -- particularly visceral fat cells -- are "biologically active", meaning they secrete hormones and other substances that affect health.
In the past few years, researchers have discovered that the fat cell is an endocrine organ that secretes hormones and other substances that positively or negatively affect health. However, the substances secreted by visceral fat have been shown to have a potentially harmful effect on surrounding tissues and your health.
What Are Two Types of Body Fat?
There are two types of body fat: subcutaneous and visceral.
Subcutaneous Fat
Subcutaneous fat is located just beneath the skin and distributed throughout the body. Around 90% of stored fat is subcutaneous.
Subcutaneous body fat is not as harmful as the visceral kind. However, storing too much of it can increase your risk of various health problems, including:
• Type 2 diabetes
• Sleep apnea
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• High blood pressure
• Fatty liver disease
• Kidney disease
• Certain types of cancer
In addition, carrying a large amount of subcutaneous fat is usually a sign that you also have a large amount of visceral fat.
Visceral Fat
Visceral fat is located deep within your abdominal cavity under the abdominal muscles. It surrounds several essential organs, including the heart, liver, and kidneys, impairing bodily functions.
This type of belly fat secretes hormones, chemicals, and inflammatory substances that can cause numerous health issues and diseases.
Health Risk of Visceral Fat
Excessive visceral fat is associated with numerous conditions, including:
• Insulin resistance
• Type 2 diabetes
• Abnormal cholesterol levels
• High blood pressure
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Breast cancer
• Fatty liver disease
• Sleep apnea
• Gallbladder disease
• Respiratory disorders
• Colorectal cancer
• Polycystic ovary syndrome
• Alzheimer's disease
Why Is It So Hard To Lose Belly Fat?
Unfortunately, visceral belly fat is the most challenging to lose -- for a few reasons.
Chronic Stress
Let's face it, living in this modern society is stressful. We've got work, family, and financial pressures. As a result, most people feel like they're constantly pulled in a hundred different directions. Though you may feel like you're ultimately the victor, that you're being productive, chronic stress is harmful to your health and contributes to the visceral fat you're carrying with you.
Numerous research studies suggest that chronic stress increases the risk of belly fat, especially when combined with a high sugar/fat diet. This effect is likely due to increased cortisol, the primary stress hormone, poured into your bloodstream.
Excess cortisol levels are associated with visceral fat accumulation. Too much cortisol also triggers cravings for sweets and unhealthy fats -- and indulging in these foods while stressed gives you a significant risk of gaining dangerous belly fat.
So, as long as you remain chronically stressed, it can be difficult or impossible to shed that belly fat.
Lack of Sleep
A large percentage of Americans also suffer from sleep deprivation. After all, trying to accomplish everything in our busy lives often means sacrificing sleep. But like chronic stress, a lack of sleep is not only harmful to health but also promotes belly fat storage.
Multiple clinical studies show an association between sleep duration and visceral fat accumulation; short sleep duration is associated with increased abdominal fat in adults, with longer sleep duration associated with a decrease in belly fat.
Sleep deprivation affects visceral fat for the same reason chronic stress does -- excess cortisol secretion. For example, a few studies showed that sleep deprivation or sleep loss resulted in a significant elevation of cortisol levels, and we know how cortisol affects visceral fat storage.
So, to lose weight in the belly, you may have to start getting more sleep, which is not easy for many of us.
Consuming Liquid Sugar
Sugary drinks are trendy today. But unfortunately, they can lead you to store fat in your abdominal area.
Several research studies show a direct correlation between "greater sweetened beverage consumption and increased visceral fat."
For example, data from 1,000 participants found that daily sweetened-beverage drinkers gained significantly more visceral belly fat than non-drinkers or occasional drinkers.
Though researchers aren't sure exactly why sugary drinks promote visceral fat storage specifically, they suspect it has something to do with sugar's impact on insulin resistance. This condition worsens when sweetened beverages are consumed every day.
So, if you want to lose belly fat, you should significantly reduce your intake of sugary beverages. Unfortunately, these drinks are so popular and addictive that it can be challenging to say goodbye to them.
Sedentary Lifestyle
Almost everything is automated in our modern society. But unfortunately, while automation is a time-saver and convenient, it reduces physical activity for many people. Most Americans do not get enough physical activity for various reasons.
Consider this passage from an article titled, Americans Sit More Than Anytime In History And It's Literally Killing Us, published online in Forbes magazine:
"The average American adult sits more than at any other time in history. According to the American Heart Association, sedentary jobs have increased 83% since 1950. And Johns Hopkins contents that, 'Physically active jobs now make up less than 20% of the U.S. workforce, down from roughly half of jobs in 1960.'"
Unfortunately, living a sedentary lifestyle is dangerous for your health.
According to an overview of the research article published in the Korean Journal of Family Medicine:
"Sedentary behaviors have wide-ranging adverse impacts on the human body, including increased all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease mortality, cancer risk, and risks of metabolic disorders such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and dyslipidemia; musculoskeletal disorders such as arthralgia and osteoporosis; depression; and, cognitive impairment."
One reason leading a sedentary lifestyle negatively impacts health is that it promotes dangerous visceral belly fat storage.
The prevalence of sedentary jobs makes it more challenging to get enough physical activity to lose that dangerous belly fat, but it's not impossible.
Menopause
Most women in menopause and perimenopause notice an increase in belly fat. One reason for this effect is a reduction in estradiol, a form of estrogen. Estradiol typically helps regulate metabolism and body weight, so weight gain often results when levels drop.
In addition, decreasing estrogen levels causes a change in the distribution of body fat. So, the excess fat that used to be distributed evenly throughout your body now primarily ends up in your abdominal regions.
This doesn't mean you will carry excess belly fat once you hit menopause. Instead, you'll need to make lifestyle changes to compensate for this issue.
Genetics
Last but not least, genetics can help determine fat storage location because it influences body type. For example, if you have an apple-shaped body where your extra weight resides in your belly, you're at a higher risk of gaining belly fat.
What can you do?
Say NO to processed foods.
(This includes fast foods from the local eatery and most packaged, ready-to-eat foods from convenience stores -- unless it's fresh fruit, salads, raw nuts, etc.)
Heavily processed foods are made in a lab and filled with toxic chemicals, salt, sugar, and unhealthy fats. Unfortunately, your body doesn't recognize these "food-like" products as food, so it stores many calories in your stomach.
You'll find all the heavily processed foods on shelves in the middle of the store.
Eat more whole foods.
Try to eat foods as close to their natural state as possible.
These unprocessed or minimally processed foods include fresh or frozen fruits, fresh or frozen vegetables, beef, fish, poultry, eggs, milk, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, etc. Ensure the frozen fruits, vegetables, and yogurt contain no added sugar. (One 6-ounce container of fruit yogurt has around 26 grams of sugar or a little more than two tablespoons!)
You'll find most of the whole, unprocessed foods on the perimeter of the supermarket.
Cut back on refined carbs.
Refined carbs like white flour, white sugar, and white rice are terrible for your health and belly fat. That's because they are digested quickly, causing a spike in blood glucose levels that trigger a significant release of insulin, a hormone responsible for fat storage.
Unfortunately, that fat often ends up in the belly area.
Instead of refined carbs, try to fill up on non-starchy vegetables. Though whole grains are popular replacements for refined ones, they can still cause a significant spike in blood glucose levels.
Get more physical activity.
There are a few ways to increase physical activity, lose weight, and reduce belly fat. Here are just a few suggestions.
Do high-intensity interval training exercises.
Multiple clinical research studies suggest that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is great for increasing metabolism and burning fat, particularly visceral fat.
HIIT involves repeated intense bursts of exercise interspersed with low- or no-intensity "recovery" periods. Studies show that HIIT burns significantly more calories and dangerous visceral belly fat than low-intensity exercise performed at a steady speed.
Studies also show that metabolism remains elevated hours after a HIIT workout.
And one of the best things about HIIT is that you can achieve metabolism-boosting weight loss results in just 15 to 20 minutes, three days a week.
Due to the intensity, you should not perform HIIT workouts every day. Instead, experts recommend giving your body one day of rest. However, you can still do low-intensity exercises and weight training on your "off days."
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