image via: pexels.com
Belly Fat. We hate the way it looks, and we strike various strange poses in the mirror trying to pretend we don’t have as much of it as we do.
No one asks for belly fat, and we all wish we had less of it but is belly fat really as harmful as doctors make it out to be? Unfortunately, experts say that it is. So, let’s tackle the problem of how to get rid of belly fat together.
Well, according to an article by the New York Times, “if your waist measures 35 or more inches for women or 40 or more inches for men,” That belly pooch may be more harmful than you think, and, as it turns out, there just isn’t that much to love about “love handles.”
Moreover, if your waist meets the above criteria, chances are the fat around your belly most likely surrounds your other vital organs as well.
And fat around your organs is bad news, as, according to medical professionals the world over, it can lead to cancer, heart disease, and even dementia.
Plus, you don’t even have to be overweight or obese to be at risk. Some reports say that even people of “normal” size and weight can be hiding dangerously high levels of hidden fat beneath the abdominal wall, and that is decidedly not a good thing.
How To Get Rid Of Belly Fat?
However, none of that is new news as far as health professionals are concerned. And, furthermore, sometimes dangerous fat remains even after all of the exercise and toning up is done.
So, what’s a person to do? What is the secret of how to get rid of belly fat?
That is the very question that this article hopes to answer, and, according to Style Craze, the key is, surprise, surprise, affecting healthy weight loss through a wholesome, whole foods diet and plenty of high-impact exercises.
According to the experts, activities like strength training and walking are especially beneficial, but you should also never neglect your old exercise buddy, crunches, because, even though many of us shun them, they will help most of all.
And the reason crunches are so successful at burning belly fat is that they keep burning it long after your workout is over. See, crunches strengthen the abdominal muscles by targeting them directly, and, with healthy abdominal muscles come the ability to burn fat without even thinking about it.
All of your muscles will gladly burn fat for energy, and dumbbell crunches, side crunches, twist crunches, vertical leg crunches, and reverse crunches are an efficient and effective way to get there. However, it is highly recommended to consult your doctor before jumping into a crunch exercise routine, or any exercise routine to be sure you are physically able to perform repetitive movements of any kind.
Man Vs Food
iamge via: pexels.com
The trouble with food is that we like to eat it, and, more to the point, we often want to eat a lot of it. There we said it. People love food. And we love bad food most of all. However, some of that yearning for fatty, salty, sweet foods is not our fault, at least not entirely. According to Science ABC, humans are attracted to high-calorie foods on an evolutionary level.
We are also programmed to eat more than we physically need to in a sitting from a self-preservation perspective, the article continues. It all has to do with our hunter-gatherer roots, food historians say, and not knowing where our next meal is coming from.
And, as if it were not hard enough to fight those evolutionary urges, many modern food producers pack their products with preservatives, fillers, emulsifiers, and carcinogens to make their foods even more addictive.
image via: pexels.com
Plus, a scientist can’t seem to make up their minds on what is good and what bad. First butter is bad, and then it isn’t. Then it is again. Moreover, we were all taught in school to follow the USDA’s food pyramid based on 6-11 servings of cereal, bread, grains, and pasta per day, as well as a disproportionate amount of meat and dairy.
So, as you can plainly see, food can be a complicated and essential ingredient in getting rid of belly fat. In fact, an an article by FoodTank basically flips the USDA RDA pyramid on its head and, instead, claims the basics of a healthy modern diet should start with 6-11 servings of vegetables and 3-4 servings of lean protein, featuring Omega fatty acids.
Typically, one should only consume a single serving of fruits or carbs per day, and processed foods are not on the menu at all.
To Paleo Or Not To Paleo
Further, according to according to National Geographic Magazine, modern scientists originally got the food pyramid wrong, thinking that the healthy benefits of society began with an agrarian diet.
See, humans were not always farmers, the article tells us and, long before that happened (9000-7000 BC), they were nomadic hunters-and-gathers, with a diet primarily based on fruits and veggies and lean protein from procured from hunting or fishing.
It wasn’t until around 10,000 years ago that societal farming emerged and produced cereal grains, dairy products, and beans.
Moreover, as a result of this new agrarian lifestyle, nomads and tribes were pushed from prime farmland toward the arid grasslands of Africa, the dense forests of the Amazon, the remote tropical islands of Southeast Asia, and the tundra of the Arctic, their ways almost lost forever.
And that shift was significant, as paleoanthropologists now believe the human race spent a lot more time in their existence on earth as hunter-gatherers than as farmers, so modern nutritional needs of the human body have not adapted to grain-based diets with little-to-no exercise.
Inasmuch, many of the same food scientists have concluded that a lot more of a hunter-gatherer’s diet was comprised of meat and veggies – up to 73% more – the article goes on to say.
So, scientists got is wrong in thinking human biology was fit for the benefits of an agrarian society, and many are now in a rush to recover the food knowledge of those lost nomadic tribes before they vanish forever.
There Is No Magic Pill For Exercise
Though learning about food history may illuminate the belly fat problem, it is no magic bullet for getting rid of it. However, there is another critical element we can discern from these historical revelations. When Ancient humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers, they were much more active than when he was a farmer.
Moreover, according to History.com, Homo erectus even had a larger brain and a shorter digestive tract than his ancestors due to his diet of mainly meat and veggies. Additionally, the article says, he was “built for long-distance walking.” Now, bells should be going off as to what is a great exercise to help solve the riddle of how to get rid of belly fat.
So, inevitably, this brings us back to that dreaded idea with which we began: exercise equals weight loss. And, if you are targeting belly fat, some activities are better than others. As mentioned above, you can drop pounds from your midsection by starting a routine of crunches, and one site even suggests varying your workout to accommodate crunches with dumbbells, twist crunches, side crunches, reverse crunches, and vertical leg crunches on different days of the week.
But, if crunches are not your game, you should at least incorporate other exercises to get rid of belly fat. Exercises like bicycle training and spin, lunge twists, rolling planks, and stomach vacuum exercises are all great ways to target your core and answer the question of how to get rid of belly fat.
But, if you insist on using a chair for exercise or you can’t lay flat for medical reasons, the captain’s chair exercise is also a great option. Sometimes, just getting up and getting active is enough to start the ball rolling, and walking and running, as our ancestors, provides a fantastic and healthful aerobic workout.
image via: pexels.com
Even various yoga positions or bending gently from side to side are healthy, low-impact beginner exercises. If you were to drop one hand to the ground, continuing to reach out and up with the other, will have just about have achieved the yoga pose, the extended triangle. See, that was easy.
Get Rid Of Belly Fat And Keep It Off
So, as you can see, the solution to the problem of how to get rid of belly fat hasn’t changed, and, if you have been upright and facing the right way for the last couple of decades, you already know the USDA food pyramid is outdated.
Look, nobody wants to believe scientists (remember the whole butter debacle?), but they might be onto something with the whole targeted-diet-and-exercise-combo thing. But, hey, don’t take our word for it. Just check out these five studies that have found that there may some benefit to adopting a Paleo lifestyle like our ancient ancestors