How To Get Rid Of Visceral Fat Naturally

Last updated on : June 26 2021

What Is Visceral Fat

Everyone has at least a small percentage of body fat. Fat itself is commonly mistaken to mean bad or unhealthy when some kinds of fat are right for you.

On occasion, however, the stereotype is right, and some types of fat will not do you any good. Visceral fat is one of these harmful kinds of fat. It is stored around the organs in the abdomen, such as the liver, stomach, and intestines, and can be a factor relating to several health problems.

It is essential to understand the different kinds of fat when attempting to get rid of visceral fat. The body fat that you may be able to see on your stomach is subcutaneous fat, which sits just under the skin. You can also find it on your arms and legs. Visceral fat is much deeper, and therefore unable to be seen by the naked eye.

Rating And Measuring Visceral Fat

To accurately diagnose visceral fat, you would need to have an MRI or CT scan. These scans can be expensive, so it will not be a feasible option for most people. Likewise, health services will most likely decline any requests for scans, except in circumstances where a practitioner suspects a severe health condition.

If you use an imaging scan, you measure the results on a scale between 1 and 59. A score of 13 or lower is deemed reasonable. However, anything above 13 means that a person has higher-than-average levels of visceral fat, and so should adapt their diet and lifestyle to reduce these levels and, therefore, their health risk.

There is a cheaper alternative to imaging scans that your doctor is more likely to use to determine whether you are likely to have above-average visceral fat levels.

Your doctor will measure your waistline and ask you questions about your diet and lifestyle. If you are female and your waist is more than 35 inches, or male and more than 40 inches, this is a good indication that you likely have excess visceral fat and should, therefore, implement the same diet and lifestyle changes mentioned above.

Health Risks Of Visceral Fat

Harvard Health research has shown that healthy people have around 90% subcutaneous fat. While this can be a sign of unhealthy lifestyle choices and cause weight gain and health problems, subcutaneous fat also serves a purpose to help the body store energy and will protect our bones and organs from injury.

A 90% level of subcutaneous fat leaves the final 10% as visceral fat content. Any more than this can pose serious health risks that their wobbly counterparts may not, such as:

• heart attacks and heart disease
• type 2 diabetes
• high blood pressure
• stroke
• breast and colorectal cancer
• Alzheimer's
• Increased insulin resistance (makes you glucose-intolerant)

Read More: The MIND Diet Is Scientifically Proven To Reduce The Risk Of Alzheimer's

How To Naturally Remove Visceral Fat

As mentioned before, your doctor may suggest that you adapt your diet and lifestyle choices to reduce your visceral fat and health risks. You will also find that when you lose weight, your overall health will also improve.

Improve Diet and Exercise

Imagine that your belly fat is like a bank account that stores fat (energy), not money. If you happen to spend more than you earn, you will run out of money.

Similarly, to get rid of visceral fat, you need to increase your output of energy while decreasing the number of calories you put into your body. Your body will realize that it is spending more power than your food has to offer, so it will look for something to make up for the lack of energy.

Eventually, the body will start using the visceral fat to make up for the energy deficit, thus allowing you to lose the fat.

Removing visceral fat is a part of a two-step process that involves:

• Reducing your calorie intake by making healthier food choices and eating smaller portions.
• Increasing the amount of exercise in your daily plan.

The main goal here is to stick to whichever you can commit your time to the longest.

In other words, instead of doing lots of cardio, which can breed too much stress on you, try doing less stressful exercise three to four times a week, and pair it with a decent diet. Composite exercises like the squat and deadlift provide a full-body workout and provide benefits over the long term.

And, when you diet, focus on food that is simpler, wholesome, nutrient-filled, and cut back on foods that give you only a short window of pleasure but no real health benefits.

To exercise, you will need the necessary energy. When your body is experiencing an energy deficit, it needs to be fuelled by the right foods so that it will know to start taking on visceral fat to make up for the lost energy.

Additionally, more exercise is likely to boost your immune system, a positive factor when trying to eliminate fat from your body. 

Stress And Visceral Fat

Stress plays a huge role in accumulating visceral fat.

Whenever you are stressed, your body releases a hormone called cortisol, which aggravates your visceral fat levels and causes it to store more. Too much cortisol can also mess with your sleep patterns and mindset.

Try to focus more on relaxation each day, with meditating, deep breathing, or other stress management techniques, so that you will not be prone to making your visceral fat problem worse.

Diet Changes

Not only will cutting back on sugary and fatty foods help you take better control of the visceral fat in your body but cutting back on said food can also help you lose weight.

Necessarily, you will need to be on a healthy diet that should include the following:

• lean proteins
• fruits and vegetable
• complex carbohydrates such as sweet potatoes, beans, and whole grains

You can boil, steam, bake, and grill foods as an alternative to frying them that will also let their natural flavors stand out.

The Right Type Of Exercise

Exercising more will give you a wide range of benefits, especially with a recommended 150 minutes per week. That equates to 30 minutes per day of moderately intense activity, with two days off.

You may choose to partake in exercise on your own, such as cycling, swimming, or other aerobic exercises, or to join a gym where you can exercise with the guidance of a personal trainer.

How you exercise at a gym, and the order in which you use weights and machines plays a vital part in shedding your visceral fat.

The findings of an Illinois study show that to lose visceral fat, any abdominal exercises you undertake will not matter. Abdominal exercise will not affect belly fat, whether subcutaneous or visceral. The only likely difference after six weeks of training five days a week with these exercises will be you gaining muscular endurance that, while acceptable, is not the result you want.

The findings of a study at East Carolina University show that not only does lifting weights help you to build lean and healthy muscle, but it will also help burn fat and raise your metabolic rate by about 10%.

This finding means that, if you go to the gym, it is vital that you lift weights first and then undertake your cardio exercises to reap the most benefit from your workout.

Develop An Exercise Regimen

Instead of wasting time doing crunches and sit-ups, which won't tackle your visceral fat, try other exercises that engage muscles that are nowhere near your belly. Exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench pressing, and rows are excellent aerobic-based exercises to try.

Plan regular strength training so that you consistently burn fat both during and after working out. Regardless of whether you're exercising or going about your day, your body will always be burning fat. But, watch for common workout mistakes that can hurt your goals. 

If you want to increase the amount of fat that you're burning after each exercise, lifting weights can give you post-exercise fat oxidation. Fat oxidation happens quickly and has proven to last for at least 24 hours from just a single workout. You can use fat oxidation to reduce any excess visceral fat, as your body will most likely target those areas in the following post-exercise period.

Overall, using a combination of cardio-based and weightlifting exercises in conjunction with each other is the best method for reducing your visceral fat.

Conclusion

This article covers the types of fat you will find in your body and how to diagnose a potential excess of visceral fat. It also includes the changes that medical professionals may suggest that you put into place to minimize your risk of developing many serious health problems from an abundance of visceral fat.

Regardless of how you change your lifestyle, like going to the gym at your own time and pace, or practicing calorie cuts to your diet, eating natural fat burning foods, it is best to take your time and be committed. If you force things to happen, then your motivation and progress may falter.

By applying hard work and patience into your diet and exercise regimen, you will be surprised at what you will achieve by eliminating visceral fat.

Before undergoing any form of diet or exercise regime, you should always speak to your Doctor, Nutritionist, or other registered healthcare practitioners. To ensure that these changes will positively benefit your lifestyle, particularly if you have any pre-existing medical conditions.

Editorial Policies Applied In This Article

The Kewl Shop employs strict sourcing guidelines for articles concerning health, exercise, and nutrition. We seek reliance on trusted peer-review studies, academic research papers, and medical association publications to present to you a well balanced and adequately researched article. We link to these trusted sources in the text where required.

Author Bio

Kelly Glisson writes for Luckyassignments and Gumessays. As a development manager and entrepreneur, she helps clients grow personally and professionally in a fast-changing and unstable market. And as a writer, she enjoys writing on different aspects of s-care and healthy life at such sites as Researchpapersuk. 

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