How to Lose Visceral Fat (also called belly fat, beer belly, pot-belly, etc)
In my recent posts I have shed light on my discovery of visceral fat, and how I believe this visceral fat could have been a factor making my cholinergic urticaria (hives) worse. So to test this hypothesis, I needed to find a way to burn and lose all of this visceral fat. So my research began…
I read and researched many articles online, and nearly all of the “credible” information I could find said basically the same thing: If you want to lose visceral fat, you are going to need to master these 2 basic things:
- A healthy diet (with an emphasis on proper caloric intake numbers), and
- An appropriate exercise program to burn that fat right off.
That’s it. Sounds simple, right? Well, it may sound easy in theory, but it can be tremendously difficult in implementation. After all, if it were that easy the whole world wouldn’t be facing an obesity problem. And when you factor in the added problem of itching half to death in the process, it makes it even more difficult for people with cholinergic urticaria to exercise.
But here’s the important thing: If you want to burn this fat off as quickly as possible, you really need to do them both. Sure, you can see results with just diet (although they probably won’t last long), and you can see results with just exercise too (assuming you aren’t eating far above your caloric needs). But if you want the absolute BEST results, you need to stick to both of them.
This basic idea reminded me of what the late fitness guru Jack LaLanne once said:
Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you’ve got a kingdom.
–Jack LaLanne
I like that quote! And Jack LaLanne was certainly a man who practiced what he preached. He was still exercising and eating healthy right up until his recent death at age 96.
The Good News and Bad News About Visceral Fat
The good news about visceral fat is that it DOES respond to diet and exercise fairly well. After all, it is fat– and the body will use fat when it needs it. All you have to do is create the conditions for the body to burn the fat off, right? And many studies online by leading universities back up the fact that you can eliminate and burn visceral fat via diet and exercise.
The bad news about visceral fat is that it is also somewhat stubborn in some ways. Since some people (like me) tend to have higher amounts of visceral fat than subcutaneous fat, it can take time to burn it up. Some articles suggested that it is the first place fat begins accumulating for many people, and the last place it is burned up. This is largely determined by your own genetics, and my genetics really nailed me on this one.
The fact that visceral fat can be there in large quantities can be very frustrating, and even deceptive. For example, I read a few threads on a bodybuilding forum about guys asking how to lose this. They were complaining that even though their ab muscles were defined, their stomachs still poked out when relaxed. Most of the replies said to just stick with diet and exercise for a bit longer and it should go away.
What’s also interesting is the large variability of how people store fat in different proportions. One study found that by scanning a large sumo wrestler with an MRI scan, he had almost no visceral fat. All of that huge amount of fat was nearly all subcutaneous. In contrast, some people have very little subcutaneous fat (and can even appear healthy or muscular on the outside), yet they can be harboring liters of visceral fat.
Getting Serious About Diet & Exercise: My Battle Plan
So after realizing my visceral fat problem, and reading about how to eliminate it, I knew I had to make a plan. So I read up on a lot of articles regarding diet, calories, and more. I also read up on the best exercises.
What I found out about diet was pretty shocking to me. What it showed me was that the times I thought I was eating healthy (such as last summer when my hives got worse and I “cut back”), it really wasn’t healthy at all. I also learned a couple of things I was doing terribly wrong in my diet. Finding out those couple of things will probably extend my life by years (all other things being equal).
With regards to exercise, I also realized I had done several things wrong in the past. I also had to become inventive and had to really learn ways to burn every extra calorie I could. I already knew it wouldn’t be easy to exercise (and boy was I right). But I was able to put together a system of diet and exercise which started to slowly burn the fat.
Since I have so much to say about each topic (diet and exercise), I am going to break them up into their own posts. Stay tuned to learn exactly how I was able to get on my path of the proper diet and exercise, and what eventually happened with this story (and is still happening even today). I’ll also explain exactly how I was able to exercise even though I had very severe and aggressive cholinergic urticaria.
NEXT POST–How to Lose Visceral Fat Via Diet
This is yet another post in my recent series of posts how my cholinergic urticaria went from being very severe to tremendously better. If you have not yet read my previous posts, you may want to read them first: