Saturday, November 29, 2008

Reduce Belly Fat For Your Health

By Jennifer King

Three popular and alarming health benefits of burning off unwanted stomach fat are the prevention of serious illnesses such as heart disease, breast cancer and diabetes. It doesn't matter how you get the fat around your stomach either. Whether it's another health problem, or just eating too much food it will effect your good health at some point in your life.

It's not just how a bulging mid section looks that people are now attempting to lose their extra weight, but it's also because of the health risks that carrying too much weight has on the internal organs. The good news is there are simple steps you can take in order to reduce the amount of fat that's covering your stomach.

A strategy that is gaining more attention is food choices. No longer do we live in the times when the dietitians were encouraging you just to eat less. We now know that eating less doesn't work in the long term, and can in fact make you fatter.

Now everyone realizes that getting a healthy balance of all foods is the key to burning fat. This includes eating carbohydrates and fat which nearly all dietitians will encourage you to avoid or cut down on. Not all fats are bad, fats such as omega 3's are an important part of a healthy diet, and they can aid your body in breaking down bad fats.

Carbohydrates are another food that a lot of dietitians now tell you to eliminate. Carbohydrates are essential like any other food. They supply you with energy and stop your muscles from shrinking. When your muscles start shrinking your metabolism slows down, and then you'll start putting on weight.

Apart from consuming a a diet filled with the right foods, exercise is imperative for losing weight, and reducing stomach fat. Cardio should be performed at least 4 times a week for at least half an hour. Depending on your size and your work rate an hour of quality cardio can burn an extra 1000 calories. If you can achieve that 4 times a week that's an extra 4000 calories burnt off. That could be almost 2 days worth of calorie intake being burned off in just a few hours.

If it's possible you can also do some resistance training that requires lifting weights. If you can increase your muscle mass you can raise the speed of your metabolism. Once you raise the speed of your metabolism your body will burn more calories even when you are sleeping which will help your stomach get flatter.

Exercise has many other uses such as making you fitter, stronger and it also strengthens your heart.

Just enjoying a healthy diet and adding some exercise to your weekly routine will get you a trimmer stomach and add years to your life. - 15995

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