Reduce Bloating This Week
Although you can’t lose substantial fat in a week, you can jump start the weight-loss process. Also make a few dietary and lifestyle changes to reduce bloating so your tummy feels flatter.
Avoid over stuffing yourself at meals eat small meals throughout the day. Chewing gum and drinking with a straw can cause excess air to gather in the digestive tract. Carbonated beverages, spicy foods, large servings of beans or cruciferous vegetables, dried fruits and fruit juice often induce gas and bloating. If you’re lactose intolerant, avoid dairy products to help reduce belly swelling make sure you obtain important nutrients, such as calcium and vitamin D, from milk alternatives or other fortified foods.
When Does The Body Start Burning Fat During Fasting
As a general rule, your body will begin to burn fat about 10-16 hours after your last meal.
However, there are many variables it depends on each individual body and type of fasting. For instance, a study with participants that were on an alternate day fasting cycle over 70 days documented a 6% loss in body weight, with a reduction of body fat mass of over 11%. A similar study that decreased food intake to 20% every other day saw a decrease in 8% of body weight in an 8 week period.
Bottom line fat cells begin to release their stored energy when there is no readily available sugar to be used as energy. And, the longer this period is, the more fat we burn.
Intermittent Fasting Makes It Harder To Get Rid Of Belly Fat Animal Study Finds
Australian researchers have mapped out what happens behind the scenes in fat tissue during … intermittent fasting.
getty
Intermittent fasting has been touted as THE way to lose weight by everyone from Silicon Valley bros to TikTok influencers and researchhas shownthat it is an effective wayto lose weight but is it losing the right kind of weight?
A new study, conducted in mice, found that despite all the benefits of intermittent fasting, losing that spare tire isnt one of them.
In fact, according to this latest study it can actually make your losing your belly fat harder, which isnt great since stomach fat is strongly linked to diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
The study, published in the journal Cell Reports, looked at what happens to different types of fat tissue during intermittent fasting in mice.
What they found was that visceral “belly” fat, which is fat tissue surrounding our organs including the stomach, and subcutaneous fat, which lies just under the skin and is associated with better metabolic health, changes how it behaves when the mice only eat every-other-day.
While most people would think that all fat tissue is the same, in fact, the location makes a big difference, said senior author Mark Larance from the Charles Perkins Centre and School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney.
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Exercise And Dieting Helps You Lose Belly Fat
So what can we do about tubby tummies? A lot, it turns out. The starting point for bringing weight under control, in general, and combating abdominal fat, in particular, is regular moderate-intensity physical activity at least 30 minutes per day to control weight and lose belly fat. Strength training may also help fight abdominal fat. Spot exercising, such as doing sit-ups, can tighten abdominal muscles, but it won’t get at visceral fat.
Diet is also important. Pay attention to portion size, and emphasize complex carbohydrates and lean protein over simple carbohydrates such as white bread, refined-grain pasta, and sugary drinks. Replacing saturated fats and trans fats with polyunsaturated fats can also help.
Scientists hope to develop drug treatments that target abdominal fat. For now, experts stress that lifestyle, especially exercise, is the very best way to fight visceral fat.
Getting Rid Of Lower Stomach Fat
First, throw out the idea that you can spot treat areas of fat on your body. You can do thousands of reps of toning exercises to tighten your waistline and not see fat loss.
Exercises like cardio, yoga, and crunches may tone your muscles and strengthen your lower abs, but they wont erase fat deposits.
The only way to lose fat on your lower stomach is to lose fat overall. A calorie deficit helps with this.
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Tracking Progress And Staying Motivated
What Exercise Reduces Visceral Fat
Intense exercise will work the best to burn off the deep visceral stomach fat that surrounds your organs.
The immediate spike in catecholamines from intense exercise will help to better target the visceral fat in your body.
Aerobic exercise and slow-go cardio workouts will not be as effective. Even though they can burn some fat they will also wear down your body and can cause more inflammation.
High-intensity interval training workouts are superior because theyll help to burn more fat off your body .
Just make sure youre not doing simple ab exercises like crunches and sit ups to lose your visceral abdominal fat.
This study found resistance training was helpful in losing visceral fat .
If youre not lifting weights because you think theyll make you bulky then youll be missing out.
Metabolic Resistance Training is the best method of strength training thatll burn off the maximal amount of fat from your body.
This because Metabolic Resistance Training will create an afterburn effect.
This will have your body burning fat well after youre finished working out. Its known as EPOC and youll lose weight like a machine with it.
The great thing about HIIT workouts and MRT is you can do twice the work in half the time. So if youre crunched for time or if you have to work out at home then theyre great options for you.
For complete HIIT and MRT, workout system check out The Flat Belly Formula.
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Intermittent Fasting Does Not Compete With Visceral Fat
But: The positive effects were only seen in the so-called subcutaneous fatty tissue the fat that can often be seen as a classic lifebuoy on the stomach. The visceral fat appeared to defend itself successfully against intermittent fasting. Because there, the fasting method reduced an important protein, which is responsible for fat loss, by a factor of four. On the other hand, the proportion of proteins that are responsible for building fat increased. Most noticeable in visceral adipose tissue is the downregulation of fat dissolving and the ramping up of the metabolic pathways for the synthesis of fatty acids, as the study authors write. This type of adjustment could be the reason why belly fat can stubbornly resist losing weight, even with lengthy diets.
Dress Up Your Veggies
While some dressings are dietary demons loaded with sugars and weird fillers, dressing your veggies in an apple cider vinegar-based concoction can help your abs pop. After consuming a tablespoon or two of vinegar daily for eight weeks, obese study participants were leaner and had less visceral fat than those who didn’t consume the vinegar. How does it work? According to Japanese researchers, ACV produces proteins inside the body that burn fat. Add some to your salad with olive oil and spices for a sweet and tangy topping. Here’s What Happens to Your Body When You Drink Apple Cider Vinegar
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Days 15 To : Feeling Proud Accomplished And Hitting The Home Run
When I got to the 15th day of my water fasting for weight loss I was incredibly proud of myself. I knew that very few people reached this stage I also knew that this was a period when I had to be immensely attentive to my condition and visit a doctor if I felt that something had gone wrong. Luckily I felt no different, in fact I felt light and active.
By the way many sites and blogs giving water fasting for weight loss tips recommend limiting physical activity for the period. Some of them went as far as to suggest taking some time off work but I couldnt afford this and so I went on with my normal life. I commuted by train every day, I worked 10 hours a day and I didnt even give up my gym routine. Naturally I tried to reduce the pressure on my heart by doing cardio that wasnt too intense but at the same time when I lifted weights I didnt notice that Id become weaker.
Quick Repair And Healing Of Your Body
An added benefit of water fasting is a much faster healing process of your body as inflammation is drastically reduced. As a consequence, the recovery repair and healing of your body becomes faster and more efficient. In a process called autophagy where the body recycles old body cells, it helps in helping you heal quicker.
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Look At The Quality Of Your Sleep To Help Lose Belly Fat
Dont underestimate the power of a good nights sleep, too. Yes, it can help combat under-eye bags but, according to the University of Leeds, adults who get more than six hours of sleep per night are likely to carry 3cm less around their waist.
Head to bed earlier and follow the WHhow to get to sleep guide to ensure a lack of shut-eye doesnt hold you back from losing belly fat.
Realistic Ways To Lose The Weight After 60
So, losing weight after 60 is a real problem that many men and women face. However, there are some tricks to nudging that weight off so that you can tip the scale in your favor.
Related: 8 Ways to Increase Your Slowing Metabolism After 60 and Over 60? How to Use Smartphone Apps to Lose Weight and Track Fitness
1. Strength Training
Strength training, also called resistance training, isnât usually the first thing older adults think of when they think of exercise. Typically, cardio exercises, like walking on a treadmill or hopping on an elliptical are the most common.
However, Idea Fitness Trainer of the Year, Carol Michaels, worries that many seniors are forgetting about strength training.
âThe missing exercise component to help those over 60 lose weight is oftentimes strength training. This is an exercise using weights to strengthen and build muscle. It increases the size and strength of the muscle fibers and strengthens the tendons, ligaments, and bones.â
As we age, we lose muscle mass â mainly because of the slowing metabolism, which then contributes to an even slower metabolism, and suddenly, youâre in a vicious cycle.
Read More: Aging Is Real: 10 Ways Your Body Changes After 60
However, you can stop that cycle of muscle loss by strength training â in fact, you can reverse the muscle loss at any age.
But the benefits of strength training donât stop at weight loss. Other benefits of strength training include:
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How Does It Help With My Belly Fat
Intermittent fasting helps in three ways with unwanted belly fat:
- Firstly, by not consuming any calories for set periods of time you are reducing the total amount of calories you consume. This is without making any other change to your diet â and without hardship .
- Secondly, intermittent fasting increases catchecholamines in the bloodstream. These hormones increase blood flow to the subcutaneous fat regions, meaning the stubborn belly fat is targeted for fat mobilization.
- Lastly, by fasting for more than 12 hours at a time you shift the primary fuel source of your body from carbohydrates to fat. So all your movements and exercises performed during the fast are directly leading to fat loss.
Snack On Tart Cherries
That sour cherry is pretty sweet when it comes to your health. The results of a study conducted at the University of Michigan found that rats given high-fat foods along with tart cherries ditched nine percent more body fat than those in a control group over just 12 weeks. Cherries are also a good source of antioxidant pigment resveratrol, which has been linked to reductions in belly fat, dementia risk, and lower rates of macular degeneration among the elderly.
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Keep Whole Grains In Your Diet
You don’t have to go low-carb to ditch those extra pounds around your waist in a short period of time.
To get rid of belly fat, ditch refined grains like white bread and white rice, and eat more whole grains such as:
- Oatmeal
- Barley
- Farro
In fact, opting for more whole grains might just get you there faster. Researchers at Tufts University have linked eating three or more daily servings of whole grains to as much as a 10 percent reduction in visceral body fat, the kind that ups your risk for chronic diseases, like diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
The Perils Of Belly Fat
As you age — even if your weight on the scale doesn’t change — you may notice that your belly increases in size. The development of visceral fat — which is deep, internal belly fat that surrounds your internal organs and interferes with liver function — increases your risk of heart disease and sets you up for type 2 diabetes. Visceral fat is different from subcutaneous fat, which lies right beneath the skin on your hips, legs and arms. This reduction of estrogen in women and testosterone in men after age 40 means that fat will go to the abdomen more easily. As you age, fat is more likely to accumulate as belly fat instead of going to other parts of the body.
If you intervene with diet and exercise, belly fat will shrink. A study published in the journal Obesity in 2012 showed that after one year, post-menopausal, overweight women who participated in 45 minutes of cardiovascular exercise five times a week and who reduced their caloric intake, experienced a notable reduction in their body mass index, waist size and percentage of body fat. Although this study only included women, the same strategy can be effective for men, too.
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How To Create A Calorie Deficit
Creating a calorie deficit boils down to a simple math equation: Are you burning more calories than youre consuming on a daily basis? If you are, youre at a calorie deficit.
Burning 3,500 calories more than you consume is equal to 1 pound of fat, according to the Mayo Clinic.
For most people, losing more than 2.5 pounds of fat per week involves extreme calorie restriction and isnt recommended.
Types Of Intermittent Fasting
There are several popular ways to intermittent fast. Perhaps the most common is the 16:8 method, where you fast for 16 hours and eat over an 8-hour window. Another popular form is the 5:2 diet, where you eat normally five days a week and then reduce calories to one-quarter of your plan two days per week. So, for example, if you consume 2,000 calories per day on average, 2 days a week, you would drop down to 500 calories per day.
Eat-Stop-Eat from Brad Pilon is another common method. Just pick two non-consecutive days per week to fast for 24 hours. Similarly, alternate-day fasting allows you to alternate eating whatever you want every other day with fast days. You can also modify this diet to allow 500 calories on fasting days.
The Warrior Diet, created by Ori Hofmeler, is allegedly based on ancient warrior eating patterns and is one of the most extreme methods of IF. You eat very little for a full 20 hours during the day but can eat as much as you want during a four-hour window in the evenings. For example, during the day, you subsist on small portions of hard-boiled eggs, raw vegetables and fruits, and dairy products. Once your eating window hits, you can eat as much as you wantjust as long as its unprocessed and healthy. Organic foods are recommended.
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How To Get Rid Of Belly Fat In A Week
You’re fed up with your belly fat, and you want it gone — now. Your abdomen didn’t expand in one week, so you can’t expect it to slim down in that short time either. Use a week to introduce measures to help you lose belly fat over time and reduce bloating. You might feel a little lighter after seven days, but true loss of fat will take several weeks or months.
