Belly fat may be is one of the most concerned areas. Even when you are following diet and exercise but may be struggling to lose inches off the waistline. There are several reasons why we accumulate fat more in our mid-section compared to other parts of the body.
Blood Circulation and Belly Fat
First reason for fat accumulation in abdominal and waist region is poor blood circulation. This can be true for other parts of body such as thighs, calf, and upper back. When you are sitting in front of computer, just like I’m doing now, there isn’t much movement going on around our waist area. Even during the weight training, squat, deadlift, bench press, or pull ups we use our abs but only in isometric format and there isn’t much movement involve improving the blood circulation. So, you can be training hard and have strong core muscles but because of poor blood circulation, you may still have belly fat, love handles and so on.
Although, exercises such as crunches, reverse crunches, windmill does not directly work on reducing belly fat, however, they do improve mobility and blood circulations in those areas. This is also true with calves, thighs, upper back, and jiggly arms.
To improve blood circulation, exercises must be done in higher repetitions. Normally, when trainers say high reps it is usually in the range of 15-20 but for abdominal region or to improve blood circulation, repetitions needs to be higher. Target over 100 repetitions. For me, I get too bored with doing one exercise for 100 reps so I choose 5 exercises and perform 20-30 reps on each.
Diet and Belly Fat
Second reason why we may accumulate belly fat is poor eating habits. Over consumption of sugar and industrial fat, along with medications can overstress your digestive system and can over produce insulin.
High sugar, real or artificial, does trigger brain to release insulin from your pancreas. Both higher sugar and industrial fat (canola, corn, vegetables, etc.) may have impact towards our digestive health.
To correct this issue, you may need to revisit your diet and work on minimizing the consumption of sugar and industrial fat. In addition, you can increase food sources that are high in water soluble fibers such as oat, broccoli, avocado, black beans to name the few. These food sources will become energy source for the gut bacteria and may help improve your gut health. Remember, your gut bacteria are alive and need proper source to keep them healthy.
Cortisol and Belly Fat
Third reason for belly fat accumulation is stress hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is very important hormone that keep us alert or ready for any possible danger that may occur. Cortisol helps increase energy, focus, wakefulness, heartrate, and strength by increasing another hormone called adrenaline.
Increased cortisol will also inhibit our immune system. In normal condition, when cortisol level drops then the immune system start working to protect the body. This is why we see people get sick more frequently when they are chronically under stress.
When cortisol is released in short term, the body is willing to utilize body fat as energy source. However, in long term, it can lower the thyroid function and promotes insulin resistance. Long term cortisol release will slow down the conversion of T4 to T3 which means metabolic rate decreases. While cortisol level is elevated so does the blood sugar level. In short term, this is not an issue. However, chronically, insulin will also be secreted chronically which will eventually leads to insulin resistance then to diabetes. As a result the body choose to retain fat as future energy source instead of using it.
To properly manage your cortisol, you will need to know what are the causes of your stress. Some causes may be work, relationship, medications, poor sleep, too much exercises, poor eating habits and so on. You may not be able to eliminate the causes of stress but you may be able to improve it.
From nutrition vitamin C and phosphatidylserine are known to help manage cortisol. Vitamin C can be found in vegetables and fruits. Phosphatidylserine can be found in soy beans and seafood such as mackerel and tuna. They are both available with supplements.
If you are struggling to lose belly fat, correct your eating habits, manage your stress, and exercise waist area to improve blood circulation. It does take some time and effort to shape up the mid-section, however, when you know what to do you will gradually able to see the results. Things you should not do is rushing and increasing exercise frequency and cutting down calorie too much, which may elevate your stress level.
Kota Shimada
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