Reach down and grab your stomach fat (I’ll do it too)…
If it’s soft and flabby you have subcutaneous fat. This is the fat that’s directly underneath the skin. Granted, excess body fat is never healthy, but subcutaneous fat is not as threatening as visceral fat.
How do you know what type of fat you have around your stomach?
“Pinch an Inch”
Reach down and try to pinch your belly fat. If you can’t get a good hold of the fat around your stomach because it is hard, you have visceral fat.
Have you ever come across one of those Buddah statues with the big belly you’re supposed to rub for good luck? Let me tell you right now, if your belly protrudes from your body that much, and the fat around your abdominal region is hard as opposed to soft flabby fat, you don’t need luck, you need a lifestyle change immediately!
Visceral fat is also known as “organ fat,” meaning, there is fat all around your organs and even a little snaking it’s way into your muscles. In fact, think of a snake who wraps around it’s prey squeezing the life out of it before he swallows it whole. This is the equivalent of visceral fat wrapped around your organs, putting a tremendous amount of stress on them, forcing the liver, pancreas, and worst of all, your heart to work extra hard to function throughout the day but inevitably prevents them from performing up to their fullest capabilities.
Drinking like a fish, eating like a wild boar, never exercising… This is how you end up with a life threatening Buddah belly.
You are more likely to have clogged arteries, tumor growth, hypertension, and heart attacks if you have visceral fat.
Deprived of maximal cardiac output, not getting the most efficient muscle contractions you can get for strength training, irregular and obstructive sleep patterns… It’s like you are living life in a choke hold!
Back in my Jiu Jitsu days my Sensie would always say “The best way to defend against a choke hold is to never let your opponent get in a position to choke you in the first place! But, since this is a private $ession, I’ll show you a little trick!”
So, these are the tips to help you out of the choke hold…
All those saturated fats that are found in red meat, cheese, whole milk, and crap like bacon should be substituted with vegetables, whole grains, and fruit. Eat as raw as you can!
DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL! If there was ever such a thing to help clog your arteries and stress your heart out it’s alcohol. Wait till you are out of a heart attack’s cross hairs to pop open a brew.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… EAT LESS & MOVE MORE!
Get your metabolism churning, get blood flowing throughout your entire body, burn calories, and shred that unnecessary, unwanted body fat! Exercise lowers your resting heart rate, it lowers your blood pressure, it lowers your cholesterol, and it gets rid of fatty deposits in your body that can impede in your every day activities!
Whole grains, fruits, and vegetables will help produce some great glucose and insulin responses to carbs which will start to mobilize fat stores easier than just eating something like steak. Quinoa, spinach, brown rice, apples… These foods will definitely speed up the process of saving you from an early grave! Eat the colors of the RAINBOW!
