belly fat - what's the answer?

[Beany50]

Firstly, I'm new here ........... how can I help "my man" to lose his belly fat - he's been eating "healthily" for approx. 6 months - losing some weight .................. but not his belly fat! ps I am also eating "healthily" and have lost approx 7 lbs (much to his disgust)

[Hidden]

What's working for me is exercise, not target exercise but varied exercise, like swimming, walking, running, attending the gym and fitness classes like boxercise has helped more than any diet has. Good luck. x

[Hidden]

Congratluations on your success! It's hard when one of you is more successful than the other, isn't it? But it's really good that you are doing it together. It's hard to eat well if your partner won't do the same. And it's great that you are supporting one another. What a lovely couple!

I'd say concentrate on keeping his blood sugars level. So avoid sugar, white rice, pasta, white bread, any lowfat foods that substitute the fat removed with sugar. Make sure he eats lean protein with every meal, even breakfast, to replace some of the carbs. It's much better to have treats that have good fats than ones that are sugary. Any plan that is supposed to be good for preventing diabetes should be good for dealing with apple shape. So some people suggest the 5:2 one. Personally I couldnt' do it. I couldn't function on the days when you starve. But it seems to work for many people. Personally I am doing well on a modified version of the South Beach Diet (when I actually stick to it).

[Diana]

Maybe he has fat to lose elsewhere first?

[Hidden]

Hello,

The facts are that your man can't spot reduce. ~To shift belly fat he needs to lose weight overall.He can do some specific tummy exercises which will tone the muscle underneath the blubber, but this will only show as a six-pack if he gets the fat off in the first place, and that has to be done by eating less and moving more.

Strong tummy muscles are a good thing whether you are fat or thin, but the gold standard is to have some muscle and to be able to show it off, so he has everything to go for in trying to get his weight down.

As men don't have babies, they have really no excuse not to be lean in the tummy area, in my opinion!

[Penel]

Perhaps have a read of Michael Mosley's advice? His "Blood Sugar Diet" has some good information on visceral fat, and how to get rid of it.

[Hidden]

Hmm...! I won't be swayed in my disapproval of the overweight male tummy, but I am very forgiving of women's tums, maybe because I've got one myself!

Re your second point, though, I think that previous generations probably were more active than most of us are today, lives allowed for and required greater activity, and I think people probably did eat less on the whole - or a least ate less very calorie dense food.

EG I remember, growing up in the 1960s, my dad cycling several miles to work, a journey which most people would drive nowadays. My sweet intake was one Mars Bar and one Milky Way a week, and possibly a bit of cake if mum made one. I played outside during my spare time. We didn't snack, and having a fizzy drink was a rare treat. Car ownership was less, so people walked more to get places.

My family wasn't particularly virtuous, everyone was like that then. We just didn't have the same number and variety of eating opportunities as people have now.

So it's an unconscious change of behaviour rather than a character flaw, I think. But it's still true to say that if we are too fat and we want to get thinner we have to cut down our intake and move more.

[Hidden]

I agree with you re the way modern diets encourage us to overeat. It's a combination of the food itself being more fattening, more tempting, less filling and just more available than at any time in the past that makes it so difficult for people.

Re the hunter gatherers, I that their diet probably is the "best" diet, as long as you can get enough to eat. However, I don;t think that a typical HG diet can't sustain a large population. I think that historians and archaeologists have discovered that the human population expanded greatly once people settled down and started farming. So, while all that wheat etc was not an ideal diet for each individual, it did mean that the group could overall live longer and reproduce itself more successfully. (Perhaps too successfully, as there are so many of us alive now!)

So I can't see any way in which the world could feed everyone if we all went back to the hunter gatherer diet. I think we have to try and make our starchy diet as good for us as possible. I certainly agree that we are not being helped in this by the food manufacturers.

Any thoughts on this aspect?

[Penel]

Have a look at Hans Rosling's TEDtalk on population. The situation may not be as bad as you think!

[Topster5]

Alcohol is a notorious culprit for laying down belly fat, because once alcohol is ingested the liver will immediately switch from processing food calories to processing and eliminating the alcohol from the body, and it will immediately store those calories as fat because there is no nutritional value in them. It's basically sugar. And as we all know, sugar is our enemy!

Plus any food calories you are consuming in addition can end up being superfluous to what your body requires due to the fact that you are consuming alcohol calories, so are are stored as fat too.

[arialgrande]

Belly fat is one of the hardest part to reduce. If you warn to lose belly fat quickly, you need to have a strict diet. Here are some tips that are helpful and easy to apply at home to burn belly fat:

1. Less Sugar: make sure you have already cut down on sugar and completely avoid sugar-sweetened beverages.

2. Less Carbs: Choose the foods with low carbs content, and completely avoid the refined carbs like pastas, white breads, etc.

3. More Protein: Foods with protein at 25%-30% of calories is what you should add into your daily basis, such as eggs, meats, fish, seafood, dairy products, etc.

4. More Fiber: adding more fiber in your daily meal is necessary to burn belly fat. You can easily find the substances in legumes, vegetables, fruit and some cereals.

5. Pay Attention to What and How Much You Are Eating Per Day: Just pay more attention to what you usually have every day will reveal what you need to change in your current diet.

Source: Authorityremendies - How to Lose Belly Fat