5 Tips for a Flatter Stomach

Visceral fat, also known as belly fat or abdominal fat, is a particularly harmful type of fat that is accumulated deep within the abdomen and surrounding organs like the liver and intestines and can lead to a variety of health problems like heart disease and stroke. We now know that fat, particularly belly fat and visceral fat, is a source of inflammatory substances, such as C-reactive proteins and interleukin-6—what we call cytokines.

The Dangers of Visceral Fat

Excess body fat is harmful to your health. However, visceral fat, as opposed to the fat that sits just beneath your skin (subcutaneous fat), is more likely to put you at risk for major medical problems. Heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and high cholesterol are only a few of the diseases connected to excess fat in the trunk.

Researchers believe that visceral fat produces more proteins that cause inflammation in your body's tissues and organs, as well as the narrowing of your blood vessels. This can raise your blood pressure and produce additional complications.

5 Tips for a Flatter Stomach

While reducing weight is difficult (and decreasing belly fat is much more challenging), these five science-backed methods can help you lose belly fat quickly.

1. When you're not hungry, don't eat.

Weight gain occurs when you consume more calories than you burn off, and many people consume far more calories than they require. Most dietitians would be out of business if individuals just ate when they were hungry. We eat for a variety of reasons besides hunger. Sadness, depression, anxiety, boredom, and exhaustion are all possibilities. People need to find a life beyond the kitchen in order to change their actions and how they deal with their emotions. You'll have two problems if you use food to comfort yourself or relieve tension or anxiety: the original problem and the extra calories you just ate in an attempt to relieve your stress. People must retrain their habits and find alternate outlets for their feelings, such as physical activity.

2. Time spent watching television should be limited.

Excess belly fat is closely connected to watching hours of television every day, according to studies. These findings are significant because they have implications for health-improvement initiatives. If we find that television viewing is linked to abdominal obesity and we know that people with higher levels of abdominal fat have a higher risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, then reducing television viewing time would certainly be helpful to people.

3. Continue to move.

Working out consistently isn't enough—staying active throughout the day is crucial for reducing abdominal fat and keeping it off. It's critical to get more exercise throughout the day. Unfortunately, technological advancements have resulted in a high level of sedentary behavior in our lives. Even simple things that we used to do, we no longer do. People used to have to walk to the copy room to acquire a printout, for example. Now, printers are so inexpensive that many people have one in their office. That may not appear to be a lot of movement, but it represents a significant reduction in the number of steps required. Alternatively, instead of taking the stairs, individuals frequently use the elevator. Another example, instead of traveling to the supermarket, they order groceries online.

4. Prioritize your sleep.

Unless you have persistent sleep problems, this one is simple: get at least seven hours of sleep every night to help reduce belly fat. Findings show that shortened sleep is associated with an increase in calorie intake, a very small increase in weight, and a significant increase in fat accumulation inside the belly, even in young, healthy, and relatively lean subjects. In most cases, fat is deposited subcutaneously or behind the skin. Inadequate sleep, on the other hand, appears to cause fat to be redirected to the more harmful visceral compartment. Importantly, despite a decrease in calorie intake and weight during recovery sleep, visceral fat continued to rise. This shows that insufficient sleep is a previously overlooked trigger for visceral fat deposition and that catching up on sleep does not change visceral fat accumulation, at least in the short term. In the long run, these data point to insufficient sleep as a contributor to obesity, and cardiovascular, and metabolic disease epidemics.

5. Be Accountable.