Here are the Best Ways to Lose Visceral Fat, Including Managing Gut Health

What to Know About Visceral Fat

Visceral fat is the fat that surrounds our organs, it is deep inside the abdomen and it cannot be seen. The higher your percentage of visceral fat the more likely you are to develop chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes mellitus, heart disease, fatty liver disease and stroke.

Visceral fat can wrap around your internal organs and release chemical signals that cause inflammation and damage your metabolism, raising blood sugar levels and insulin secretion. When this happens, you can develop metabolic syndrome, which is a form of pre-diabetes. High amounts of visceral fat increase the risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer — as well as obesity.

How to Tell if You Have Visceral Fat

When too much visceral fat grows, however, it grows it causes your belly to protrude. You may notice a growing waist circumference, so you need a larger waist size for pants. Similarly, when you lose visceral fat, your waistline shrinks, and your belly pouches out less.

What Causes Visceral Fat

Stress has been consistently linked with a variety of health problems including heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, and stroke. Stress is also linked with unhealthy diet consumption and habits such as smoking, alcohol use, and sleep disruption (all linked with visceral fat accumulation). Therefore, stress is both indirectly and directly linked with body fat accumulation (e.g., release of cortisol type stress related biochemicals in the body).

Alcohol use is another major cause of visceral fat accumulation. Alcoholic beverages are rich in fat and sugar which are accumulated as visceral fat. Visceral fat accumulation is directly linked with drinking habits (number of drinks, type of drink, duration of drinking, etc.). When we consume a lot of alcohol, the liver starts burning alcohol instead of fat. Similarly, smoking increases the accumulation of fat more towards the abdomen resulting in greater deposits of visceral fat. So smoking is also linked in this way to diabetes, heart disease, strokes. If you make a commitment to reduce visceral fat, give up drinking, smoking, stressing too much, and maintain sleep hygiene.

How to Get Rid of Visceral Fat and Best Ways to Lose it

Like fat everywhere in the body, visceral fat can be decreased by not eating (fasting), by increasing your physical activity (exercise), and by eating certain types of food that burn away fat tissue (metabolism-activating foods). Losing visceral fat is not an overnight event. It can take months to reduce it in meaningful amounts. Some foods, such as cayenne pepper, activate fat burning systems. Clinical studies have shown it can reduce visceral fat in 3 months.

One can try more fiber, proteins, probiotics, fruits, and vegetables. Above all, there is a direct link between consuming sugary, salty, starchy, processed, greasy, and artificially sweetened foods and beverages high in calories and saturated fats. Without controlling salt and sugar intake, it is difficult to lose any type of fat. Not only does excess sugar accumulate as visceral fat, it is linked with a variety of other biochemical and metabolic changes leading to chronic diseases (e.g. heart disease, high cholesterol, and diabetes). Excess sugar intake can also cause deposition of fat on vital organs (e.g., heart).

The Worst Thing to do for Visceral Fat

The worst thing for visceral fat is something we all do everyday, be sedentary and eat junk food. Diet and exercise are part of the pillars of health and to stray leads to big trouble down the line. We all need to move more and eat healthier. This is the best way to decrease visceral fat and maintain a disease free healthy life.

Studies have shown that aerobic training of moderate or high intensity is most likely to help reduce visceral fat tissue. However, this needs to be regular and for a certain duration. For example, an average adult should engage in at least 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity or 75 to 150 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity or a combination of both types.