Getting Rid of Belly Fat

Getting Rid of Belly Fat

Belly fat.  There must be a way of getting rid of it. Or, at least, reducing it to where it used to be when it wasn’t so like that. Like not so good in jeans. But you already know what they say: exercise. And Diet. That’s the secret to taming belly fat, says everybody.

Except that it is difficult and doesn’t seem to work out at home as well as it does on TV.

Why is belly fat such a hard nut to crack? As the people whose business is making and delivering sumptuous meals right at your doorstep, we should know something about that. The diet part of it, especially.

Belly Fat Is About the Food, Yes

Food is the first reason why it’s so hard to get rid of belly fat.  The flab is often the result of eating certain kinds of foods, particularly sugary snacks, hydrogenated oils and enriched flours. Transfats is what nutritionist call them, and they are in such delicacies as margarine, cookies, crackers and pasta.

Does that make some kinds of food ‘bad food’? No. It’s more like ‘food that is extra good’ for people whose lifestyles do not require lots of physical strain. Think of it this way: the human body, like that of other animals, knows that it is only sensible to store extra food in the system when the going is good just in case the going gets tough. Certain foods happen to have easier fat to store. In a fairer world, those would be called the best food. But if the food just keeps coming, the body keeps storing. Then there is too much fat and the food storage becomes a health hazard.

And then it’s not about the Food

But belly fat is not just about food. A person whose lifestyle or work requires extreme physical strain is less likely to have belly fat, ‘bad’ eating habits notwithstanding.  That’s in fact the logic of exercise as a belly fat control measure. If you burn most of the fat that enters your body, there will be little to store in your belly.

Hormones also get into the mix, particularly for women.   After menopause, the drop in estrogen relieves the body of the physical demands of childbearing, which means the body can relax and store fat in places that might have been unwise during a pregnancy. Like the belly. Other hormonal imbalances in this period may increase the feeling of hunger, leading to higher uptake of food.

Then there is sleep. Not getting enough sleep decreases the level of leptin, a natural appetite suppressant while increasing ghrelin, an appetite stimulant that makes you eat more.

And finally, stress makes you fat, not thin. It increases cortisol, the ‘stress hormone,’ in your system, which triggers your body to store fat in a hurry. There’s belly logic here too: if the body is stressed, things can’t be so good out there, and when things are bad, people starve, so why not store food before it gets real nasty out there?

How to Keep Belly Fat at Bay

Because belly fat is a result of food and non-food reasons, any successful regime to reduce or prevent its occurrence must also combine food and non-food measures.

Good sleeping habits – 7 hours a day is the recommended rate – will help. As will anything that will reduce stress. Like an active social life, relaxation and regular exercise.

But not all exercises affect the belly. It is therefore advisable to seek professional advice on the proper exercise regime if belly fat is the target area. A good place to begin would be to sample the workout videos of MagicKitchen.com’s health advisers Lance and Mary.

Then, of course, good eating will make all the difference to your belly fat containment plan. Here’s the rule book:

• Eat food with ‘good’ fat: The nutritionist term is monounsaturated fats. These are fats that are easily burned by the body and help burn the other ‘not so good’ fat. Common examples are nuts, olive oil, avocado, green tea and whole grains.

• Eat correct portions of ‘normal’ food: A diet of 2000 calorie per day is the scientifically set standards of the food that a normal human body requires in a day. Simply sticking to the right portion ensures your body has no extra fat to store in your belly. At MagicKitchen.com, we have an entire line of Portion Controlled Meal Packs for exactly that purpose.

• Eat foods that have little fat content: Some surprisingly sumptuous meals have very little fat content. Such as fruits, vegetables, lean meats and whole grains. You can get an almost endless choice of such meals at MagicKitchen.com – including meals prepared specifically to meet the dietary needs of seniors as well as low sodium meals, diabetic-friendly diet, renal diet meals and dialysis-friendly meals.