You fag eat Bflly foods as part of a balanced Belly fat reduction tips, Increase metabolic efficiency you may opt to follow a high-protein diet that is heavily populated by high-protein foods and supplements. Water also helps food move through your digestive system, lessening feelings of bloating. Making a point of increasing activity levels throughout the day helps burn calories.

Belly fat reduction tips -

Replacing sugary beverages with water will help dramatically cut down your sugar intake, and then once you've taken that step, you can figure out how to cut down on foods that are high in sugar.

If you have a sweet tooth and need to put that final accent to your meal, eat an apple, melon or fresh berries. Just remember, fruit is not a substitute for vegetables. The popular "flat belly diets"embrace much of the wisdom found in eating a Mediterranean diet, which helps everything from brain health to hearth health.

The basic premise for both diets is eat foods rich in monosaturated fatty acids MUFA that may help reduce your belly fat storage. MUFA-rich foods include olive oil, nuts and seeds, avocados, and fish. Eating yogurt regularly has also been found to be helpful in reducing belly fat.

Another diet trend that promises results when it comes to belly fat: the apple cider vinegar diet. While animal studies have been promising, current research in humans has yet to show impressive results.

The data supporting the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, however, are real and cause for making some dietary changes. Start your meal, especially your largest meal, with seasoned vegetables, be it vegetable soup or the vegetables on your entrée plate. And remember that vegetables should always comprise at least half of your plate and be a mix of starchy like potatoes and nonstarchy ones your leafy greens, broccoli, etc.

Eating the vegetables first will leave less room for other foods that aren't as healthy, because vegetable fiber is filling. The single most important thing people can do to prevent the buildup of belly fat and get rid of existing belly fat is commit to physical activity, and better yet, a physical lifestyle.

In a way, moderate-intensity physical activity is that "magic pill" a lot of people are looking for, because the health benefits go beyond keeping your waistline trim: Not only can it reduce your risk of cancer , stroke , diabetes and heart attacks , but studies have shown that physical activity can significantly improve the moods of patients with major depressive disorders.

Overtraining, though, can be problematic when it comes to fighting belly fat because it can lead to coristol overproduction. Excess amounts of this stress hormone has been found to be associated with belly fat. Simply walking briskly an hour each day can have an impact by boosting your metabolism, as can adding an incline to your treadmill routine.

Here's something else most people probably don't know: Fidgeting is good for you. It's considered a nonexercise physical activity, and it's an important way to burn energy.

You get more health benefits if, in addition to exercising, you are a more fidgety, more active person the rest of the day. This means gesturing while you're talking, tapping your foot, just moving around. Studies have shown that people who sit eight to nine hours a day, even if they exercise the recommended minutes per week, do not get the same benefits of exercising as people who are more active throughout the day.

Having an active hobby — and if you don't already have one, developing one — is important. Get engaged in some kind of sport, whether it's a group activity or something you can do alone. Essentially, if an activity is pleasant to you, you'll continue to do it.

If your leisure time involves sitting around on the sofa or in a chair, you might actually be offsetting the positive health effects of exercising even if you're working out regularly.

Unfortunately, the general understanding of rest is relaxing in front of TV or dining out — what we call "passive rest. Statistics suggest that out of months in his life, the average man in the U.

spends approximately months watching TV, five months complaining about his boss, and five months waiting on hold. Think of the other things you could do with those months of your life. You could find activities that are better for your health and will help keep the belly fat away.

Unfortunately, sit-ups and crunches can't eliminate visceral fat directly. You can't reduce fat from specific parts of your body by exercising that body part; our bodies simply don't work that way. With sit-ups or other abdominal exercises, you're toning the abdominal muscles but not burning intra-abdominal fat.

The key is to lower your overall body fat with moderate-intensity physical activity and a healthy diet; when you reduce your total body fat, you'll also be reducing your belly fat. So if you want to do abdominal exercises, make them part of your fitness routine.

Just don't treat them as a substitute for the recommended minutes of weekly moderate-intensity physical activity. While sit-ups can't "target" belly fat, what they can do is help you burn calories, strengthen your core and develop more muscle.

Because muscle is more metabolically active than fat, the more muscle you have, the more calories you'll burn when you're at rest. You can also try lifting heavier weights and resting less between repetitions, which can promote calorie burning after you leave the gym. Burning those extra calories can help you achieve and maintain a healthier weight in conjunction with regular cardiovascular exercise and a healthy diet.

A recent study of 70, individuals showed that those getting less than five hours of sleep were more likely to gain 30 or more pounds. So far, there is not one single drug that is approved by the Federal Drug Administration for the reduction of belly fat.

Supplements claiming a "one trick solution" to belly fat are not strictly regulated, and a lot of the claims made in the ads are not backed up by research. The bottom line is that when it comes to belly fat, the answer is not in drugs or supplements.

Enjoying a healthy lifestyle should be the focus. That should give you a good idea of whether you're gaining unhealthy visceral fat. Visceral fat can be measured in a variety of ways. CT scans and full-body MRIs are the most precise, but they are expensive and rarely available, so investigators often use estimates based on waist circumference or waist size in proportion to height see "Gut check".

To ensure that they're not just measuring overall obesity, researchers also check whether a person's waist circumference is higher than average for her or his body mass index BMI. Cardiovascular disease. Several studies have documented this effect. For example, a large study of European women ages 45 to 79 concluded that those with the biggest waists and those with the largest waists in relation to their hip size had more than double the risk of developing heart disease.

The risk was still nearly double even after adjustment for several other risk factors, including blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking, and BMI. Higher visceral-fat volume also has a deleterious impact on several other heart disease risk factors. It's associated with higher blood pressure, blood sugar levels and triglyceride levels, and lower levels of HDL good cholesterol.

Taken together, these changes, known as metabolic syndrome, create a serious risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Researchers at Kaiser Permanente found that people in their early 40s with the highest levels of abdominal fat, compared with those who had the least abdominal fat at that age, were nearly three times more likely to develop dementia including Alzheimer's disease by their mids to early 80s.

Dementia was not associated with increased thigh size. The risks were highest for women who were both large-waisted and overweight or obese. The investigators believe that belly fat raises the risk of asthma more than other poundage because it has inflammatory effects throughout the body, including in the airways.

Breast cancer. A combined analysis of several studies found that premenopausal women with abdominal obesity the largest waist size in proportion to their height were at greater risk for breast cancer.

Large waists were also linked to breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women, but that effect was not significant once BMI was taken into account. Colorectal cancer. People with the most visceral fat have three times the risk of developing colorectal adenomas precancerous polyps than those with the least visceral fat.

The relationship was found after many other risks were accounted for. The researchers also confirmed that adenomatous polyps in the colon are associated with insulin resistance, which may be the mechanism that increases the cancer risk. Where you tend to gain fat depends on your genes, your hormones, your age, your birth weight smaller babies more readily add belly fat later in life , and whether you've had children women who have given birth tend to develop more visceral fat than women who haven't.

As young adults, women on average have less visceral fat than men, but that changes with menopause. You can't change your birth weight or your genes, and you can't hold off menopause. But there are several ways you can minimize the accumulation of visceral fat. The good news is that because it's more readily metabolized into fatty acids, it responds more efficiently to diet and exercise than fat on the hips and thighs.

Here are some approaches that may help:. Keep moving. Exercise can help reduce your waist circumference. Even if you don't lose weight, you lose visceral belly fat and gain muscle mass. Engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity most days, such as brisk walking or bicycling at a casual pace.

Also create opportunities to add motion to routine tasks. For example, park farther from your destination and walk the rest of the way, take the stairs instead of the elevator, and stand while you talk on the phone.

Studies have shown that you can help trim visceral fat or prevent its growth with both aerobic activity such as brisk walking and strength training exercising with weights. Spot exercises, such as sit-ups, can tighten abdominal muscles but won't get at visceral fat. Exercise can also help keep fat from coming back.

Eat right. Choose a balanced diet that helps you achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Avoid products that seem to encourage belly fat deposition, especially simple sugars like fructose-sweetened foods and beverages.

Don't smoke. The more you smoke, the more likely you are to store fat in your abdomen rather than on your hips and thighs. Get your sleep. Too little is bad. A five-year study found that adults under age 40 who slept five hours or less a night accumulated significantly more visceral fat.

But too much isn't good, either — young adults who slept more than eight hours also added visceral fat. This relationship wasn't found in people over age Mind your mood.

Middle-aged women who show more hostility and had more depressive symptoms tend to have more visceral fat — but not more subcutaneous fat. Forget the quick fix.

Liposuction for cosmetic fat removal doesn't reach inside the abdominal wall. As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content.

Please note the date of last review or update on all articles. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

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Drinking during exercise Clinic offers appointments in Redjction, Florida and Minnesota and at Mayo Clinic Health System locations. What Bell your reductikn say about your health? Find out tipe belly Satiety and meal frequency is more common after menopause, the danger it poses and what to do about it. An expanding waistline is sometimes considered a price of getting older. For women, this can be especially true as body fat tends to shift to the abdomen after menopause. That extra belly fat does more than just make it hard to zip up a favorite pair of jeans, though. Research shows that belly fat carries serious health risks.