Belly fat is more than unsightly, it is dangerous. Visceral fat releases a hormone that causes diabetes and inflammation. It’s also linked to cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and gallbladder issues. The only way to get rid of belly fat is to eat certain foods and exercise.
Miracle cures, pills, and surgery won’t help. Belly fat is very responsive to diet and exercise. By eating these foods, you will see results very quickly. And the best part is, you’ll feel better overall.
2. Stop Eating Sugar
Now stop eating sugar/artificial sweeteners. It’s going to be tough! But losing dangerous belly fat is worth it. Eliminating sugar means no more soft drinks, fruit juices, cookies, pastries, and candy bars.
It also means reading labels. You might eat a healthy salad, but your salad dressing is probably packed with sugar. So is your ketchup, barbeque sauce, and even mustard.
3. Eat Fruit
Soothe a sweet tooth by eating fruit. At first, you may crave a lot of fruit, but that wears off.
Fruit is healthy, even through it contains sugars, because fruit generally comes in a single serving size, chewing makes your brain release hormones to make you feel full, and fruit contains fiber. Fiber makes you feel full longer and you won’t eat as much.
4. Eat Your Veggies
Eat raw, steamed, or roasted veggies. Veggies contain vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, and other important nutrients. Eat the rainbow – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet veggies each contain different nutrients. Like fruit, veggies contain a lot of fiber and it will take longer for you to digest them.
Don’t add butter, cheese, mayo, or commercial dressing to your veggies. If you roast them, use olive or coconut oil for added health benefits.
5. Eat Meat
Lean meat like beef, chicken, whole eggs, and fish are winners in the belly fat fight. Plant based proteins like beans, legumes, quinoa and seitan are also excellent for belly fat loss.
Studies show that the more good quality protein you eat, the less belly fat you have. Obviously, you can get too much of a good thing, so try for about 5 ounces a day.
This doesn’t include processed meats. These are full of additives linked to cancer and contain a lot of salt. Too much salt causes bloating and will offset any weight loss.
6. Avoid Refined Carbs
You will want to avoid carbs. Fruits, grains, vegetables and milk products are carbohydrates. Not all carbs are created equally. Refined carbs must be avoided to lose belly fat.
Refined carbs are metabolized into sugar and from sugar to belly fat. They’ll also increase your appetite. Cutting refined carbs leads to a quick reduction in water weight. Limiting carbs increases loss of belly fat.
Refined carbs include beer, white flour/bread and rice, pastries, sodas, snacks, pasta, sweets, and breakfast cereals.
7. Go Whole Grain
Instead of refined grains, eat less than 50 grams a day of whole grains. There are hundreds of whole grains that are excellent sources of plant-based protein.
Whole wheat is not always a whole grain. Some “whole wheat” products are refined white flour with food coloring and some additives like bran. Read the ingredients list for whole wheat flour. Keep your carbs low for increased belly fat loss.
8. Eat Viscous Fiber
Viscous fiber forms a thick “gel” that takes a lot of time to work through your guts. You’ll feel full much longer. You’ll also absorb more nutrients as food moves more slowly through the intestines.
Study show that eating 10 to 14 grams of soluble fiber a day reduces belly fat by 4.5 pounds over 4 months.
Viscous fiber is found in foods like oat bran, dried beans, nuts, barley, flaxseed, oranges, apples and carrots. Try a bowl of oatmeal (without margarine and maple syrup) and add flaxseed for a super breakfast.
9. Add Chia Seeds
If you are looking for one perfect food, try chia seeds. They are exceptionally high in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fiber, protein, healthy fats and are a terrific viscous fiber. Eat your daily chia seeds raw, soaked in juice, or added to oatmeal, cereal, yogurt, vegetables or rice dishes.
Eat about 1.5 tablespoons twice a day.
10. Choose Healthy Fats
All fats are not created equal. You absolutely must cut down on all fat intake. Saturated fats are found in meat, so the leaner the meat, the better.
Transfats are really bad for you. These include partially hydrogenated and hydrogenated vegetable oils. Do not eat these. They will not help you lose weight and are hard on your heart. Cook with coconut, avocado, sunflower or olive oils but use them in moderation.
11. Exercise
11. ExerciseThis isn’t food, but…. Exercise is extremely important. If you eat the foods discussed, you will lose weight. Adding aerobic exercise will increase the belly fat loss.
Continuing to exercise after you’ve lost weight will keep it off. Work up to 105 minutes of aerobic exercise a week. That’s 15 minutes a day!
Credit: foodeatsafe
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