How Do I Lose or Prevent Belly Fat?

There are many reasons why people gain belly fat, including poor diet, lack of exercise and stress. Improving nutrition, increasing activity and making other lifestyle changes can all help.

1. Diet

Sugary food such as cakes and candy and drinks such as soda and fruit juice can cause weight gain, cause a persons metabolism to not work properly, and reduce a person’s ability to burn fat.

Low-protein, especially in older people, may also affect weight. Protein helps a person feel fuller for longer and people who do not include protein in their diet may eat more food overall.

Trans fats, in particular can cause inflammation and may lead to obesity. Trans fats are in many foods, including, breakfast cereals, processed foods, fast food and baked goods.

There are five basic things your diet should provide: energy for your brain, fuel for your body, nutrients for your cells, no unnecessary toxins, and, perhaps most importantly, satisfaction. But most low-calorie, low-fat diets fail to do any of these things. The truth is that many so-called “diet” foods are actually contributing to the obesity epidemic around the world. Dave Asprey

For more energy and fewer snack attacks, choose quality fats instead of sugar and follow a low-carb or keto diet. You'll be glad you did.

Reading food labels can help a person determine whether their food contains trans fats.

2. Alcohol

Excessive alcohol consumption not only makes it easier to pack on pounds (it's all empty calories), but it also can damage your liver, increase your odds of developing health problems and increase inflammation. Alcohol has also been linked to suppressing your body's natural fat-burning abilities.

When your body is using alcohol as a primary source of energy, the excess glucose and lipids end up, unfortunately for us, as adipose tissue, or fat.

Reducing your alcohol intake is one beneficial adjustment you can make. Some studies suggest that alcohol can have health benefits. For example, red wine may lower your risk for heart disease.

While cutting alcohol completely out of your diet isn’t necessarily the only way to lose weight, there are many improvements that can be made in your health journey by simply cutting back on the booze.

You can enjoy a healthier body, improved sleep, better digestion, and fewer of those excess “empty” calories.

And if you do plan to drink, enjoy a vodka or whiskey on the rocks and skip the soda!

3. Exercise

There’s no single exercise that can blast away belly fat. Experts agree that spot reduction, such as doing hundreds of daily sit-ups and crunches to slim your waist, isn't the best or healthiest way to get the job done. You’ll likely end up with rock-hard abs under a layer of pudge. Instead, look for workouts that combine strength training, cardio and core work to reduce body fat and whittle your middle. As an added bonus, regular exercise can lower your blood sugar levels, reduce inflammation and improve the metabolism issues associated with carrying excess belly fat.

Even if you’re new to fitness, you can start where you are. Go for a walk or hop on a stationary bike. Just get moving. Running, walking, swimming and bicycling are all good ways to get your heart pumping. Start building fitness into your daily routine to make a habit of it. For example, you can start walking on your lunch breaks at work, or hop on the treadmill while your favorite TV show is on. The less you have to go out of your way to get workouts in initially, the easier it’ll be for you to make fitness a lifelong health-boosting habit and reach a healthy weight.

4. Stress

One of the biggest misconceptions about exercise is that the longer and harder you hit it, the more fat you’ll burn. Excessive exercise can actually work against you, putting excessive stress on the body. This is actually one of those cases where less can be more.

The stress hormone cortisol puts the brakes on fat-burning, tells your body to store calories, and stimulates cravings for all the wrong foods. Cortisol helps the body control and deal with stress. When a person is in a dangerous or high pressure situation, their body releases cortisol, and this can impact their metabolism.

People often reach for food for comfort when they feel stressed. Cortisol causes those excess calories to remain around the belly and other areas of the body for later use.

While you can’t get rid of life’s stressors, learning to cope will keep cortisol in check.

5. Sleep

If you’re not sleeping enough or sleeping well, losing weight will be difficult. Lack of sleep elevates the stress hormone cortisol, which slows down your metabolism. Plus, being tired weakens your willpower and makes you more likely to make poor food choices. Sleep’s primary purpose is to allow the body to rest, heal, and recover, but it can also affect a person’s weight.

Make sure you prioritize getting a good night’s sleep every night. In one recent study from the journal SLEEP, researchers found a clear link between the amount of sleep people get every night and the amount of weight they gain, particularly around their mid-sections. Short sleepers, who sleep fewer than five hours every night on average, are at the highest risk of gaining abdominal fat. So rest up to boost your chances of maintaining a healthy weight.

A healthy diet and active lifestyle can help people lose excess belly fat and lower the risk of problems associated with it.