Saturday, November 1, 2008

When You Understand Belly Fat, You Really Can Reduce Your Girth

By Christine G. Shannon

The older we get, the harder it might seem to lose fat by dieting. Many times, weight gain is in our belly and it gets harder to take off the fat. If you have ever had somebody comment that you're getting a beer belly when you don't drink beer, then you are on your way to understanding belly fat. Most of your fat cells settle around the mid-section.

Your body has a natural drive to store energy in the form of belly fat to guard you against times of scarcity. Although in western societies, there is rarely if ever a risk of famine, our bodies have not kept pace with the progress of our society. Our bodies are still inclined to accumulate belly fat even when there is no shortage of food.

When you try to lose fat by dieting, the body's metabolism sends a signal to the brain that tells the fat burning or fat storing hormones that you are experiencing a famine and hold onto any empty calories you take in. The body thinks if you are taking in calories that are empty in nutrition, you have nothing else to eat, so it holds onto as many of those calories as it can, many times as belly fat. You have to fool the metabolism by eating different foods, so it will not think it is experiencing famine.

When you are stressed, you may not have time to eat much, yet you have gained a pound from what little you did eat. This is a symptom of the famine, fat store metabolism and Cortisol, a belly fat storing enzyme.

Most diets do not offer enough variety to keep your metabolism and fat burning hormones at the necessary levels to match your caloric intake. What happens is that if you drop the amount of calories you are taking in, your body will respond by slowing your metabolism to only burn that amount of calories; meaning that you will reach a plateau and again find it difficult to lose weight. If you're trying to diet to lose fat, you should change up your diet every few days to stay ahead of your metabolism.

To eliminate fat, you need to trick your fat burning hormones and your brain into believing that you are still taking in enough calories - this will cause your metabolism to go ahead and use the energy stored as fat, which helps you to lose belly fat.

When you diet to lose fat, you have to make sure to eat the right amounts of nutritional calories and fat burning calories to keep your metabolism and fat burning hormones working at peak efficiency. This allows you to lose belly fat while taking in fewer calories. Your body will only use your stored fat cells after using up the calories you are taking in, meaning that reducing your calorie intake is vital to losing belly fat.

Once you understand belly fat, it is easy to lose those excess pounds. You just need to eat a varied diet at frequent intervals to keep your metabolism burning off fat; the Fat Loss 4 Idiots diet does just that and is highly recommended at the link below. - 14130

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