Fat going to your abdomen area is worse than when it goes to your hips, legs or butt like it does more often in women.
We’ve been misguided with dietary recommendations. The food pyramid was the exact wrong thing to do. Today, we would follow the inverse of it.
We started getting fat as a country when we gave the recommendation to follow a low fat diet.
Science with medicine is continually evolving. It changes. A lot of what we know to be true today was wrong just 5 years ago.
Belly Fat In Men
I can speak to this personally. As you get older, the fat you accumulate is going to go to your midsection.
I’ve always been a skinny guy, but recently I started noticing that my size 31 pants were fitting snug. I weighed the same as I always have, so what’s going on?
Belly fat. This was a sign that I needed to change the way I did things.
I was what we would call “skinny fat”.
This is actually worse than being a “fat fat” man because of metabolism. People who are obese with belly fat are more acclimated to it.
So what was I doing that was causing some of this belly fat?
I wasn’t lifting weights as much. I was stressed and wasn’t sleeping well. My cortisol levels were high, which is the stress hormone. This puts weight on you. It’s like taking prednisone. The body tries to preserve fat so you can survive.
I also wasn’t looking at my carbs as much. I was comfort eating and stress eating. For me, this looks like having cookies or donuts every once in a while.
I was always able to get away with it.
At some point in your life things begin to change. Some people deal with this their whole life. As I’ve said before when it comes to weight loss, life isn’t fair.
So you have to work within your own parameters.
How To Get Rid Of Belly Fat
There’s lots of ways. The main thing we have to understand is that it’s a metabolic problem.
It’s not laziness. It’s not simply overeating and not exercising enough. It’s really a metabolic thing.
When I first started practicing I looked at people differently. I used to think that a 300 pound patient was lazy and eating wrong. But it’s not that at all.
This is a metabolic problem, and it’s a tough problem to solve.
Belly fat is the worst kind of fat. It’s visceral fat, which leads to metabolic syndromes:
- High cholesterol
- High blood pressure
- Diabetes
This kind of fat accumulates on your organs on the inside. You may not be able to see it on the outside, but it creates an inflammatory extra organ.
Think of belly fat as an extra organ that promotes inflammation.
Remember – Inflammation is the root cause of all disease including heart disease and cancer.
Fat on legs, hips, or butt doesn’t act like that.
It’s about how your body directs fat. Energy or fat storage?
The reason it can go from one to the other is hormones, and how much and the type of carbohydrate you’re eating.
- Insulin
- Cortisol
- Lipase
- Testosterone
- Estrogen
That’s what makes it harder the older you get.
Think of testosterone as an anabolic steroid. It builds muscle, which burns fat. Same thing for estrogen in women.
Cortisol has the opposite effect. It tells your body to store fat, which sucks the energy up from you.
Insulin Resistance
The main thing I talk about with people is insulin. Type 2 diabetes is when you’re insulin resistant. You see this more in obese people, particularly those with belly fat.
The first thing to look at is what you eat. You have to go low carb. Cut out simple carbs like sugar and fructose.
Side Note: Fructose is actually a lot worse than glucose. When you think of fructose you think of fruit, which has a lot of positives. It can make people fat though.
High Fructose Corn Syrup comes from it. They put this in everything so watch out for it.
Carbs are where it’s at because it leads to insulin resistance. This is when insulin won’t work for you. Insulin is a fat storing hormone. It makes you hungry.
You have to look at these numbers. We always look at insulin levels. We’re more interested in those than sugar levels.
There are some medications that help with insulin resistance that we love.
- Metformin
- GLP-1 medications: Saxenda, Ozempic, Victoza etc.
Berberine is a supplement we love for insulin resistance.
These can help you overcome insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.
Plan To Get Rid Of Belly Fat
You have to formulate a plan. All these things work together.
One other thing I did that helped was learn to do some fasting. You can do intermittent fasting. Every couple of weeks or so, consider doing a 24 hour fast. It’s not nearly as hard as I thought it was.
I noticed my metabolic parameters were rising, so I had to start looking at them and taking them seriously.
Check your hormones. Do the right type of exercise, which to me essentially means more resistance training as well as some HIIT type workouts for cardio. Watch your carbohydrate intake. Fast. Make sure you’re getting good sleep and keeping stress levels down.
I hope this helps! You CAN get rid of belly fat. You just have to have a plan and execute on it.