Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It
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Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It
We’ve talked before about how waist circumference is a much more useful indicator of metabolic health than BMI.
So, let’s say you’ve a bit more around the middle than you’d like, but it stubbornly stays there. What’s going on underneath what you can see, why is it going on, and how can you get it to change?
What is visceral fat?
First, let’s talk about subcutaneous fat. That’s the fat directly under your skin. Women usually have more than men, and that’s perfectly healthy (up to a point); it’s supposed to be that way. We (women) will tend to accumulate this mostly in places such as our breasts, hips, and butt, and work outwards from there. Men will tend to put it on more to the belly and face.
Side-note: if you’re undergoing (untreated) menopause, the changes in your hormone levels will tend to result in more subcutaneous fat to the belly and face too. That’s normal, and/but normal is not always good, and treatment options are great (with hormone replacement therapy, HRT, topping the list).
Visceral fat (also called visceral adipose tissue), on the other hand, is the fat of the viscera—the internal organs of the abdomen.
So, this is fat that goes under your abdominal muscles—you can’t squeeze this (directly).
So what can we do?
Famously “you can’t do spot reduction” (lose fat from a particular part of your body by focusing exercises on that area), but that’s about subcutaneous fat. There are things you can do that will reduce your visceral fat in particular.
Some of these advices you may think “that’s just good advice for losing fat in general” and it is, yes. But these are things that have the biggest impact on visceral fat.
Cut alcohol use
This is the biggie. By numerous mechanisms, some of which we’ve talked about before, alcohol causes weight gain in general yes, but especially for visceral fat.
Get better sleep
You might think that hitting the gym is most important, but this one ranks higher. Yes, you can trim visceral fat without leaving your bed (and even without getting athletic in bed, for that matter). Not convinced?
- Here’s a study of 101 people looking at sleep quality and abdominal adiposity
- Oh, and here’s a meta-analysis with 56,000 people (finding the same thing), in case that one study didn’t convince you.
So, the verdict is clear: you snooze, you lose (visceral fat)!
Tweak your diet
You don’t have to do a complete overhaul (unless you want to), but a few changes can make a big difference, especially:
- Getting more fiber (this is the biggie when it comes to diet)
- Eating less sugar (not really a surprise, but relevant to mention)
- Eat whole foods (skip the highly processed stuff)
If you’d like to learn more and enjoy videos, here’s an informative one to get you going!
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5 Hip Exercises To Strengthen Bones & Improve Balance (Osteoporosis-Friendly)
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Today’s video choice was inspired by: your writer here just got back from the radiology clinic where she had her hips and spine scanned for bone density (I get the results in a week; wish me luck!).
This is an important topic, because…
- Bad news: hip fractures are common in adults over 50 and can lead to long recovery and loss of independence (or indeed, loss of life; too many people go into hospital with a broken hip, get an infection in hospital, and don’t come home)
- Good news: consistent, targeted exercises can strengthen bones and joints to reduce fracture risk and maintain an active, confident lifestyle (and indeed, one conducive to healthy longevity)
Dr. Alyssa Kuhn explains:
Use it or lose it
Dr. Kuhn recommends the following exercises:
- Side stomp: this gentle impact exercise involves stepping to the side and stomping to stimulate bone strengthening, with adjustable intensity and optional upper body support, aiming for 10–15 stomps per side.
- Weighted squat: you can strengthen your leg muscles and bones by doing controlled squats with or without weights (held at shoulder level), keeping an upright posture, avoiding forward bending, and placing weights on a raised surface to prevent unsafe lifting; aim for 10–12 reps, 2–3 sets.
- Heel drops: raise up onto your toes and let your heels drop to create vertical impact for bone strength, starting gently and increasing intensity gradually on soft surfaces or barefoot if comfortable, with a goal of 10–20 reps, 2–3 sets.
- Tandem walking: walk heel-to-toe in a straight line to challenge balance and lower fall risk, using a wall or counter for support and adjusting foot spacing if needed, aiming for 1–2 minutes per round, 2–3 rounds, focusing on control over speed.
- Hop (jumping): begin with supported hops to test readiness, then progress to controlled free jumps that keep knees aligned and hips engaged on landing to safely build hip bone strength, starting with 10–20 reps, 2–3 sets, and increasing gradually.
Find a way to build them (or at least: one or more of them) into your daily routine. A good example, since these are quite “casual” exercises and not the kind for which one necessarily gets changed and/or goes to the gym, is to do some of these while waiting for water to boil, or for the microwave, or things like that.
For more on each of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
21% Stronger Bones in a Year at 62? Yes, It’s Possible (No Calcium Supplements Needed!)
Take care!
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Escape Self-Sabotage
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Stop Making The Same Mistakes
It’s easy to think that a self-destructive cycle is easy to avoid if you have no special will to self-destruction. However, the cycle is sneaky.
It’s sneaky because it can be passive, and/or omissions rather than actions, procrastinations rather than obvious acts of impulse, and so forth.
So, they’re often things that specifically aren’t there to see.
How to catch them
How often do you think “I wish I had [done xyz]” or “I wish I had [done yxz] sooner”?
Now, how often have you thought that about the same thing more than once? For example, “I should have kept up my exercise”.
For things like this, habit-trackers are a great way to, well, keep track of habits. If for example you planned to do a 10-minute exercise session daily but you’ve been postponing it since you got distracted on January the 2nd, then it’ll highlight that. See also:
How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits
Speaking of habits, this goes for other forms of procrastination, too. For example, if you are always slow to get medical check-ups, or renew your prescriptions, or get ready for some regularly-occurring thing in your schedule, then set a reminder in your preferred way (phone app, calendar on the wall, whatever) and when the appointed time arrives (to book the check-up, renew the prescription, do your taxes, whatever), do it on the day you set your reminder for, as a personal rule for you that you keep to, barring extreme calamity.
By “extreme calamity” we mean less “running late today” and more “house burned down”.
Digital traps
Bad habits can be insidious in other ways too, like getting sucked into social media scrolling (it is literally designed to do that to you; you are not immune modern programming hijacking evolutionary dopamine responses).
Setting a screentime limit (you can specify “just these apps” if you like) will help with this. On most devices, this feature includes a sticky notification in the notification bar, that’ll remind you “27 out of 30 minutes remaining” or whatever you set it for. That’ll remind you to do what you went there to do, instead of getting caught in the endless scroll (and if you went there to just browse, to do so briefly).
Here’s how to set that:
Instructions for iOS devices | Instructions for Android devices
Oh, and on the topic of social media? If you find yourself getting caught up in unproductive arguments on the Internet, try the three-response rule:
- You reply; they reply (no progress made)
- You reply; they reply (still no progress made)
- You reply; they reply (still yet no progress made)
You reply just one more time: “I have a personal rule that if I’m arguing on the Internet and no progress has been made after three replies, I don’t reply further—I find this is helpful to avoid a lot of time lost to pointless arguing that isn’t going anywhere. Best wishes.”
(and then stick to it, no matter how they try to provoke you; best is to just not look until at least the next day)
When “swept up in love” gets to one of those little whirlpools…
The same works in personal relationships, by the way. If for example you are arguing with a loved one and not making progress, it can be good if you both have a pre-arranged agreement that either of you can, up to once on any given day, invoke a “time-out” (e.g. 30 minutes, but you agree the time between you when you first make this standing policy) during which you will both keep out of the other’s way, and come back with a more productive head on (remembering that things go best when it’s you both vs the problem, rather than vs each other).
See also:
Seriously Useful Communication Skills: Conflict Resolution
What if the self-sabotaging cycle is active and apparent?
Well, that is less sneaky, but certainly no less serious, and sometimes moreso. An obvious example is drinking too much; this is often cyclical in nature. We wrote about this one previously:
That article’s alcohol-specific, but the same advices go for other harmful activities, including other substance abuse (which in turn includes binge-eating), as well psychological addictions (such as gambling, for example).
Finally…
If your destructive cycle is more of a rut you’ve got stuck in, a common advice is to change something, anything, to get out of the rut.
That can be very bad advice! Because sometimes the change you go for is absolutely not the change that was needed, and is rather just cracking under pressure and doing something impulsive.
Here’s one way to actively get out of a slump:
Behavioral Activation Against Depression & Anxiety
Note: you do not have to be depressed or anxious to do this. But the point is, it’s a tool you can use even if you are depressed and/or anxious, so it’s a good thing to try for getting out of most kinds of slumps.
And really finally, here’s a resource for, well, the title speaks for itself:
When You Know What You “Should” Do (But Knowing Isn’t The Problem)
Take care!
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Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
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Time to go nuts for nuts!
Nuts, in popular perception, range from “basically the healthiest food anyone can eat” to “basically high calorie salty snacks”. And, they can be either!
Some notes, then:
- Raw is generally better that not
- Dry roasted is generally better than the kind with added oils
- Added salt is neither necessary nor good
Quick tip: if “roasted salted” are the cheapest or most convenient to buy, you can at least mitigate that by soaking them in warm water for 5 minutes, before rinsing and (if you don’t want wet nuts) drying.
You may be wondering: who does want wet nuts? And the answer is, if for example you’re making a delicious cashew and chickpea balti, the fact you didn’t dry them before throwing them in won’t make a difference.
Now, let’s do a quick run-down; we don’t usually do “listicles” but it seemed a good format here, so we’ve picked a top 5 for nutritional potency:
Almonds
We may have a bias. We accept it. But almonds are also one of the healthiest nuts around, and generally considered by most popular metrics the healthiest.
Not only are they high in protein, healthy fat, fiber, vitamins, and minerals, but they’re even a natural prebiotic that increases the populations of healthy gut bacteria, while simultaneously keeping down the populations of gut pathogens—what more can we ask of a nut?
Read more: Prebiotic effects of almonds and almond skins on intestinal microbiota in healthy adult humans
Pistachios
Not only are these super tasty and fun to eat (and mindful eating is all but guaranteed, as shelling them by hand slows us down and makes us more likely to eat them one at a time rather than by the handful), but also they contain lots of nutrients and are lower in calories than most nuts, so they’re a great option for anyone who’d like to eat more nuts but is doing a calorie-controlled diet and doesn’t want to have half a day’s calories in a tiny dish of nuts.
Walnuts
Popularly associated with brain health (perhaps easy to remember because of their appearance), they really are good for the brain:
Check it out: Beneficial Effects of Walnuts on Cognition and Brain Health
Cashews
A personal favorite of this writer for their versatility in cooking, food prep, or just as a snack, they also do wonders for metabolic health:
Brazil nuts
The most exciting thing about these nuts is that they’re an incredibly potent source of selenium, which is important not just for hair/skin/nails as popularly marketed, but also for thyroid hormone production and DNA synthesis.
But don’t eat too many, because selenium is definitely one of those “you can have too much of a good thing” nutrients, and selenium poisoning can make your hair (however beautiful and shiny it got because of the selenium) fall out if you take too much.
Know the numbers: Brazil nuts and selenium—health benefits and risks
Bottom line on nuts:
- Nuts are a great and healthful part of almost anyone’s diet
- Obviously, if you have a nut allergy, then we’re sorry; this one won’t have helped you so much
- Almonds are one of the most healthful nuts out there
- Brazil nuts are incredibly potent, to the point where moderation is recommended
- A handful of mixed nuts per day is a very respectable option—when it comes to food and health, diversity is almost always good!
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Artichoke vs Onion – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing artichoke to onion, we picked the artichoke.
Why?
It wasn’t close:
In terms of macros, artichoke has more than 3x the fiber, more than 3x the protein, and about the same carbs. An easy first-round win for artichoke.
In the category of vitamins, artichoke has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B7. B9, C, E, and K, while onions are not higher in any vitamins, though they do at least equal artichoke for vitamin B6. In any case, an overwhelming win for artichokes in this round.
Looking at minerals next, artichokes have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while onions have more selenium, yielding an 8:1 victory to artichokes here.
In other considerations, artichokes are much higher in polyphenols, so that’s another point in their favor.
Adding up the sections makes for a very clear overall win for artichoke, but by all means enjoy either or both, as diversity is best!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Enjoy!
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Hold The Banana!
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Bananas are a healthy fruit for most people (there is such a thing as a banana allergy, so we can’t extend it to all people, but certainly most people).
Full of fiber, carbs for energy, vitamins and minerals, and a stack of nutritious phytochemicals.
One thing we will quickly say as a small counterpoint, which isn’t the main point of today’s article but is worth mentioning: the claim of bananas being “a good source of potassium” is true but greatly overstated; they’re not even in the top 10 of fruits for potassium; just, it was mentioned in a popular TV show, referenced in another popular TV show, and then the English-speaking world never let it go.
But that’s just a minor “not quite as good as people make it out to be” thing, rather than an actual negative.
So, what’s the problem with bananas?
It’s about polyphenol oxidase (PPO)
Researchers (Dr. Jodi Ensunsa et al.) found that adding bananas to berry smoothies drastically reduced flavanol absorption, with blood levels dropping by about 84% compared with a flavanol capsule or a low-PPO berry smoothie.
Quick recap on what flavanols are: flavanols are a kind of polyphenolic plant compounds linked to cardiovascular and cognitive health, that are found in foods like blueberries, blackberries, grapes, apples, pears, tea, and cocoa.
See for example: Are You Getting The Right Kinds Of Flavonoids? ← flavanols are a kind of flavonoid
Why bananas had this effect: bananas contain high amounts of polyphenol oxidase (PPO), which (as you might have guessed) mediates the oxidation of polyphenols; it’s the enzyme responsible for the browning of cut fruit, and the researchers believe PPO breaks down flavanols before your body can absorb them.
What the study tested: healthy participants consumed:
- a banana-based smoothie with high PPO activity
- a mixed berry smoothie with low PPO activity
- a flavanol capsule control
What they saw in the results: the berry smoothie produced flavanol absorption similar to the capsule control, while the banana smoothie produced much lower levels of flavanol metabolites in blood samples.
Also! A surprising follow-up finding: even when flavanols and banana were kept separate until consumption, absorption was still reduced, suggesting that PPO continues degrading flavanols in the stomach after ingestion.
You can read the paper in full, here: Impact of polyphenol oxidase on the bioavailability of flavan-3-ols in fruit smoothies: a controlled, single blinded, cross-over study
Quick note before we move on: no, the study doesn’t mean bananas are unhealthy; bananas still provide many wonderful nutrients; it’s just that they don’t pair well with flavanol-rich foods if maximizing flavanol intake is your goal 🙂
Want to learn more?
On a similar topic (it has many important bits of information like the one we discussed today), you might like to check out:
Make Your Vegetables Work Better Nutritionally
As for why you might want to favor getting it from food if you can, then while the title says “vitamins”, this book discusses an assortment of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients; the “other nutrients” category including amino acids (branched chain and essential), prebiotics and probiotics, and triglycerides of various kinds:
Eat Your Vitamins – by Mascha Davis, RDN ← see our review, here
Take care!
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Dates vs Raisins – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing dates to raisins, we picked the dates.
Why?
There are benefits for each fruit, but we say dates come out on top. See what you think:
In terms of macros, while they’re both dried fruits, dates contain more water (unless you leave them sitting open for a while), which will tend to mathematically lower the relative percentages of other components because they’re being held against water weight too. However, even though this is the case (i.e. dates are being mathematically disadvantaged), dates contain more than twice the fiber that raisins do (8g/100g compared to raisins’ 3.7g/100g).
While we’re talking macros, dates are also lower in total carbs, as well as obviously net carbs, and have a much lower glycemic index than raisins (dates have a glycemic index of 42, considered low, while raisins have a glycemic index of 64, considered medium; their respective glycemic loads are even more telling: 13 for raisins and just 2 for dates!).
About those carbs… For dates, it’s an approximately equal mix of sucrose, glucose, and fructose, while for raisins it’s 49% glucose and 49% fructose. Because sucrose is the only disaccharide here, this (as well as the fiber difference) is one of the reasons for the different glycemic indices and glycemic loads, since glucose and fructose are more quickly absorbed.
That’s more than we usually write about macros, but in this case, both fruits are ones especially often hit with the “aren’t they full of sugar though?” question, so it was important to cover the critical distinctions between the two, because they really are very different.
Summary of macros: dates win easily in every aspect we looked at
In the category of vitamins, raisins get a tally in their favor. Raisins are higher in vitamins B1, B2, C, E, K, and choline, while dates are higher in vitamins A, B3, B5, and B9, giving raisins a 6:4 lead here. In dates’ defense, the difference in vitamin K is marginal, and it’d make it a 5:4 lead if we considered that within the margin of error (because all these figures are of course based on averages), and the vitamins that dates are higher in, the margins are much wider indeed, meaning that both fruits have approximately the same overall levels of vitamins when looked at in total, but still, we’ll call this category a nominal win for raisins.
When it comes to minerals, dates have more magnesium, selenium, and zinc, while raisins have more copper, iron, phosphorus, and potassium. Nominally that’s a 4:3 lead for raisins, but if we consider that raisins also contain more sodium, it’s more like a tie here. If we have to pick one though, this is a very slight win for raisins.
Adding up the sections, we have one huge win for dates (macros) with two very marginal wins for raisins—hence, we say that dates win out.
Still, of course enjoy both; diversity is good for the health.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
Take care!
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