Belly Fat: 6 Reasons You’re Not Losing Belly Fat

Most people decide they need to get rid of belly fat for beauty’s sake or to have a finely shaped body but it is more important than vanity’s sake. Too much belly fat, especially the one known as visceral fat is more dangerous.

Visceral fat is deep abdominal fat that surrounds your body organs and puffs up your stomach to make it become “beer gut”. This is a predictor of insulin resistance, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

According to Josh Houghton, the author of Flat Belly Detox guide, if you have tried everything else; diet and exercise, and you have not been able to reduce your pooch, then you will be a good idea to check in on your genetic factors, hormones and age factors. Any of these might be the reason why you are not getting your desired results.

Knowing them will help you re-strategize your plans and reduce your frustration from lack of result and your frequency at best the fitness centres.

1. You drink a lot of alcohol

The calories in alcohol aren’t something the body can save up to be used later.  Booze has much more calories. You get 153 from a beer, 125 for a cup of red wine and 500 calories from just nine ounces of Pina Colada.

This makes your metabolism to focus first on alcohol in the body. This makes it become ineffective at its task of getting rid of body fat and the ability to burn fat drops drastically in the belly.

However, there is a fact that you can drink responsibly for weight loss. Women who drink red wine moderately in the right amount per week tends to gain less weight when compared with those who don’t.

This could be because the ones who drink  moderate wine are probably more physically active and keep other healthy behaviours as well.

2. You’re getting older

As you age, there will be changes in the way your body loses and gain weight. Aging is often associated with decreased metabolic rate and reduction in the right amount of caloiries that are needed by the body.

Apart from the issues above, women also have menopause to worry about.  According to a professor of medicine in the Mayo Clinic’s endocrinology division, Michael Jensen, M.D., most women gain fat in their middle section after menopause.

There is also a reduction in the production of the progesterone and estrogen hormones. The same thing also happens to your testosterone. This hormonal event result in women having more weight in their belly.

3. You’re stressed

Everybody seems to be stressed these days and its becoming a normal part of our daily activities. Stress can come  from  raising kids, bills, and making an effort to meet tight work deadlines.

However, whatever your source of stress is, being too much stressed may make it difficult for you to shed unwanted body weight, especially where your middle is involved.

This is not only because being stress increases your cravings for high calorie, high-fat food. It is also because the stress hormone cortisol, may cause your body to hold on to more fat and further enlarge the fat cells in your body as well.

Also, higher amount of the stress hormone cortisol in the body is linked to an increase in visceral fat.

4. You’re skimping on sleep

Are you among the 30% of people who usually don’t have enough sleep at night? Well, there is another simple way to lose belly fat; get more sleep.

According to a 16-year study was about 70,000 women participated, it was discovered that people who slept less than 6 hours per night were more likely to gain more than 30 pounds of fat by 30% than the people who slept more.

It is highly recommended by the National Institutes of Health that adults sleep up to seven to eight hours at night.

5. You’re Unmotivated

What is your motivation? Are you really committed to the kind of work that is needed when it comes to losing belly fat? Reducing fat in your belly requires you to combine different approaches of a low-calorie diet that is low in carbohydrates and sugar and high in high in fiber.

Not only that, all these are also to be combined along with weight training and cardiovascular. If you are ready and willing to do what is necessary, you will be able to move past genetics and get rid of it.

6. You’re apple-shaped

Being apple-shaped makes you vulnerable to packing the pounds around your waist instead of your thighs and hips. What this means genetically is that it will be quite difficult for you to get rid of this belly fat. But, it is not impossible.