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Vicious Viseral Fat and How To Vanquish It

By David Herber

Vicious Visceral Fat - And How To Vanquish It!

Most of us know what visceral fat is, kind of. Have you ever seen someone from the back looks like they might be in good shape, well defined arms and legs, broad shoulders and then when they turn around WHAM! there's a huge overly pronounced abdomen, beer-belly city! That extended abdomen is most likely caused by visceral fat.

Visceral fat is the intra-abdominal fat that surrounds your organs deep in the center of your midsection. It is labeled as the most dangerous type of fat to accumulate on your body, and is indicative of increased heart disease risk, type 2 diabetes, and other metabolic conditions.

One of my clients was so confused about visceral fat, he thought that by building and strengthening his abs, he was making his gut stick out worse, because he was building muscle over the fat! While it's true that you cannot spot reduce the fat in your abs by doing thousands and thousands of sit ups, becoming physically active and working out is one of the best things you can do to reduce visceral fat. If you remain inactive and continue to eat an excess of calories your visceral fat grows beneath your abdominal muscles and will increase your chances of suffering from the maladies listed above.

Why does your body store visceral fat in the midsection? The most common theory is that it wouldn't make sense for your body to store excess fat in your extremities and appendages as there is not a whole lot of "free space" for storage. The body maximizes energy efficiency by creating, storing and using body fat from the body's center where there is plenty of space.

Also, the body stores fat where there are an abundance of fat cells. What happens if we remove those fat cells, ala liposuction? Well you will get slimmer in the areas that the fat cells are removed. But be warned, if you continue to lead an unhealthy lifestyle, eat an excess of calories and not exercise, your body will store fat in the fat cells that remain which may be in areas that are equally as undesirable. Would you have fat cells removed from your thighs and tummy only to have it accumulate on say your chin, elbows and calves?

From an evolutionary standpoint, the body stores fat in those areas to make the physique more appealing to the opposite sex. Women with wide hips, large thighs and big breasts indicated high fertility and thus our primitive man would seek out these traits in a mate in the hope of bearing many offspring. Not such a true instinct today, as the body shape that today's man and women desire have changed in the past 30 to 50 years, to a slimmer more muscular preference. But those 30 to 50 years is a mere blip on the evolutionary time line, hardly enough time to rewire our evolutionary predisposition or influence our fat cell distribution.

So in the battle of the bulge, what can we do to vanquish vicious visceral fat?

  1. Become Calorie Conscious. You cannot change what you do not know. So you must become aware of how many calories you are ingesting each day and how many calories your body requires. If you've been consuming too many calories, you will have to reduce the amount of calories you consume by 10 or 15 percent. Don't take the "cookie cutter" approach and reduce your daily calorie consumption by a large number like 500 or 1000 calories. Cutting 500 to 1000 calories out of your day on a dime may slow your metabolism down and make it more difficult to vanquish visceral fat. It is difficult to get an accurate assessment of how many calories you need each day quickly as your age, height, weight, sex, and activity level factor into your caloric requirements. A quick and easy way to ESTIMATE your daily caloric needs is listed below:

    Women
    Multiply your weight (in pounds) by 12

    Men
    Multiply your weight (in pounds) by 14

    When you get your estimate subtract 10% or 15% to get your reduced calorie daily requirement. It is important to maintain a food log or meal journal that tracks the time you eat, the amount of food you're eating and how many calories the food contains. (Read labels, don't estimate). If you forget to read the label and have access to the internet look up your food on www.calorieking.com or www.calorie-count.com.

  2. Become More Active. As stated earlier in this article, INACTIVITY has been proven to increase your visceral fat. So increasing the amount of physical activity you do each day will help in the fight. You don't need any fancy equipment or to join a gym, just start moving more. Take the stairs at work instead of the elevator, park far away from a stores entrance and walk the parking lot, take a brisk walk around your neighborhood or around your local high school track. As you get in better shape, start practicing TABATA intervals or interval training. Aim for a cumulative effort of 60 minutes of extra activity a day. It doesn't have to be done all at one time; breaking it up into 10 minute bouts of activity is fine. Just increase the amount of activity you are doing now.

  3. Become Muscle Motivated. Along with becoming more active, you must be motivated to increase your muscle mass. Unlike visceral fat, muscle is active tissue that burns calories, even when you are at rest. Again you don't have to join a gym or get fancy equipment. There are plenty of exercises you can do with just your body weight that will help build muscle.

  4. Practice Patience. Like all body fat, it comes off gradually, and unfortunately no exercise, pill, powder, or special diet will cause fat from your midsection to disappear at a faster rate. Creating a caloric deficit, increasing your physical activity, and building more muscle mass is the sure fire way to vanquish your visceral fat!

About the Author:

David Herber is a personal trainer located in New Castle, PA. His website is www.Exercise2U.com