Visceral fat is the fat found deep inside your abdominal cavity.
It surrounds important organs, like your stomach, liver, intestines.
And although some levels of visceral fat are healthy and serve as a way to protect your
organs, too much visceral fat can lead to serious health issues like diabetes and heart
disease.
In this video, I put together 3 things you can do starting today to tackle visceral fat
that doesn't involve any exercise.
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Now without wasting anymore time, lets get straight into it.
There is a reason why visceral fat is called hidden fat.
Because you can be skinny and thin, but still pack on a decent amount of visceral fat around
the abdominal region.
Just because you can't see the fat doesn't mean your organs are not surrounded by it.
And Fat cells do more than simply store energy and keep us warm.
They also produce hormones and inflammatory substances.
For example, Visceral adipose tissue produces more proinflamatory cytokines like (TNF-alpha,
and IL-6) and less adiponectin.
And thats a problem because, these changes impact insulin resistance and puts us at risk
of developing atherosclerosis, which we know is what thins out and hardens our arteries
affecting our blood flow and circulation.
And it doesn't just stop there.
There is a theory about visceral fat called the portal theory that explains how visceral
fat releases inflammatory markers and fatty acids that end up traveling down the portal
vein into the liver, which in turn may cause fat buildup in the liver making the liver
become insulin resistant which leads to type 2 diabetes.
And a good way to illustrate visceral fat is by comparing apples to pears and what do
I mean?
Let me show you.
You see, Visceral fat makes the belly stick out or gives a person an 'apple' shape.
So youll store more fat in the upper region (belly and chest.
But if youre pear shaped, youll tend to store the fat in the lower extremities for example:
(hips, thighs, and buttocks) as subcutaneous fat.
For a quick measurement, take one of these, for Men aim for a Waist circumferance of less
than 40 inches or 102 cm and for women aim for less than 35 inches or 89 cm.
We tend to base our results off a scale, which is not reliable, its helpful but you shouldnt
base your results only on a scale, which we know can fluctuate up to 5 or 6 pounds per
day.
And remember, measure from the top of the waist bone, and dont suck in your gut, you
want to relax and stick it out and take an average of 2-3 measurements, to get somewhat
of a baseline.
So go ahead and do that now.
It can be uncomfortable, especially if youve never done it, but you can pause the video
and write it down and make this video a practical one, dont let it be another video you watch
and forget.
So now that we have some background, let me give you some good news before I get into
my 3 tips.
And although you cant directly target a certain area of fat in the body, for example, only
the belly, or only the flappy arms, or the double chin, what we do know is that Visceral
fat can be easier to lose than subcutaneous fat.
Yes, easier to lose.
This is because its beleived that it metabolizes quicker and your body can get rid of it in
sweat and urine.
And although exercise is a huge takeaway to get the ball rolling, even if its short bits
of walking.
My first tip that isnt exercise is.
Avoiding those sneaky Trans Fats that can still be out there.
Now if youre in the US, the fda has banned them.
But heres the catch, some products label their products “trans-fat-free” as long as there
are fewer than 0.5 grams of these fats per serving.
And if youre outside the us, trans fats can be part of your daily diet and you might not
even know it.
A good tip is Don’t eat foods that have any partially hydrogenated items on the ingredients
list.
Cakes, cookies, frozen pizzas, and pies.
Check those labels.
By far one of the most interesting studies on trans fats causing visceral fat change
was done actually on monkeys over 6 years and found that trans fats led to visceral
fat even in the absence of caloric excess, and were associated with, guess what insulin
resistance.
The second tip to lose visceral fat without exercise is to increase your soluble fiber
intake.
Only 5% of men and 9% of women are getting the recommended daily amount of dietary fiber.
That means more than 90% of us arent getting enough fiber.
And how much is enough, this chart shows a good representation.
38 grams a day for men, and 25 grams a day for women.
And if youre 51 or older, than its lowered to 30 grams a day for men, and 21 grams a
day for women.
And in this study with 1114 people, increasing soluble fiber intake by 10 grams daily reduced
the risk of visceral fat gain by up to 3.7%, which is awesome.
And the last tip to lose visceral fat without exercise is to reduce your stress levels.
Not eliminate stress, because stress is important for survival and We all need stress in order
to get out of dangerous situations, but not everyone can turn off these responses when
that stress is no longer needed.
Some research shows us that This may be even harder for Women who already have large waists
in proportion to their hips, which we refer to as the hip to waist ratio, which is a marker
of visceral fat, these women tend to produce more cortisol when stressed and can lead to
central fat.
ANd the thing with Cortisol is, that it does not distinguish between physical and mental
stress, so having physical illnesses like diabetes can already drive up cortisol levels,
becoming a vicious cycle, so its important that you give yourself the time if you haven't
already to find out what works for you today.
Whether that is deep breathing techniques, finding a hobby you enjoy like gardening,
writing in a journal, getting adequate sleep, finding a support system, daily exercise,
and trying out a whole food plant based diet, can be a few changes that can help.
And although there are obviously more ways to tackle down visceral fat, which I encourage
you to write down what they are down below in the comment section if you know of any,
so we can have a discussion.
I do believe you should also balance this out with other lifestyle changes like aerobic
exercise, increasing your probiotics, limiting your alcohol intake, quitting smoking, and
intermittent fasting, which I will discuss soon.