Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Eliminate Unhealthy Belly Fat With Diet and Exercise!

By Gail M. Davis

Experts agree that excess belly fat, due to menopause, too much beer, or overindulging at the dinner table, is significantly unhealthier than fat stored in other areas of your body! The most dangerous thing about this abdominal fat isn't the part that you can grab, but the deep fat inside that is surrounding your organs. Breast cancer, heart disease, and diabetes are just three of the many health concerns attributed to too much belly fat. There are simple steps that you can take to help eliminate unsightly belly fat. The process isn't a quick one, but with diligence and consistency, success can be achieved. We'll discuss a few of the steps here.

One of the most significant remedies for this problem is to eat healthy on a regular basis. This would require learning about the food pyramid recommendations, learning to read and understand nutrition fact labels, and learning proper portion sizes. Together, these three things provide all that you need for a healthy diet.

Eliminating sweets from your diet is another important step. This would especially include sweet drinks and drinks containing artificial sweeteners. Water should be your main beverage of choice. Skim milk and unsweetened tea are acceptable as well. At the same time, severely limit sweet foods. They provide nothing of value to the diet.

It is impossible to downplay the significance of exercise in the fight against belly fat. A minimum of thirty minutes of cardio should be competed each day, with activities such as power walking, running, biking, swimming laps, racquetball, skating, basketball, biking, jumping rope, and dancing. In addition, weight training and target exercises should be included in the daily workout.

Severely limit stress! The hormone cortisol is released during stress, and researchers believe that it stimulates the storage of fat around the abdomen and belly. Men of all ages and older women are most prone to this condition. So sign up for a yoga class, dust off your fishing rod, or spend more time with your dog, but whatever you do, don't stress!

By following these steps, belly fat can be eliminated or greatly reduced. Patience is imperative as it takes several months for the body to show off the benefits of a new program. There are other easy steps that can be taken to deal with this condition, but these are by far the most important ones.

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