Getting rid of fat around your belly

20/07/2009 by admin.

An unhealthy lifestyle can contribute to higher levels of fat around the body.  Such factors as smoking, drinking, lack of sleep and lots of stress are all problem areas.

The worst kind of fat is visceral fat, which stores on the abdominal area, carries the biggest health risks such as heart disease and diabetes.  However, on the plus side, you can do something about it because this type of fat is metabolically active so responds to a change in lifestyle.

How to find out if you need to do something about your belly fat:

You probably know already if you have too much belly fat but a simple test is to measure your waist.  For men, a waist of over 40″ and for women a waist of 35″ would cause a risk to your health and is of serious concern. 

Now, it’s all very well doing abdominal exercises which will strength and tone the muscles in your abdominal area but you won’t feel the benefit if you don’t rid yourself of that fat.  So, along with your abdominal crunches, do some cardiovascular exercise, something which gets your slightly out of breath, power walking or running, or perhaps cycling.  Aim to do this 3 times a week for at least 20 minutes.  As you get fitter you can build on this but don’t get too carried away in the early weeks and get injured.

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