As a fair warning to you, today’s news is a little hard hitting regarding weight gain and belly fat. It’s a tough topic, but I think the more you know regarding how belly fat seems to almost suddenly appear as we age, the better you will be prepared to control it. Before you read this, just know that belly fat has much to do with the hormone insulin, and that we have the power to change and to stop weight gain in the mid section.Eventually you become insulin resistant, which leads your body to generate belly fat and hold on to that spare tire for dear life. Fatigue after meals, sugar cravings, blood sugar swings or hypoglycemia, high triglycerides, low HDL, low sex drive, and problems with blood clotting are also common among people who are overweight.
Simply put, less insulin equals less belly fat, since insulin makes you hungry and stores belly fat. The best thing you can do to prevent diabetes and all its problems is to lose weight.
The Number One Thing You Can Do to Reduce Belly Fat
High insulin levels don’t just exist in a vacuum. They influence other hormones like leptin, your satiety hormone. When insulin blocks leptin, your body thinks it is starving even after a big ribeye steak, baked potato and glass of wine. Ever wonder how you can still be hungry right after a big meal? It is the insulin surge and the leptin resistance.
More than any other food, sugar becomes responsible for hijacking your brain chemistry and your metabolism to create insulin resistance and all its repercussions.
Calorie for calorie, sugar is different from other calories that come from protein, fat, or non-starchy carbs such as greens. Sugar scrambles all your normal appetite controls. So you consume more and more, driving your metabolism to convert it into lethal belly fat. We are all overdosed at an average of twenty-two to thirty teaspoons of sugar4 a day per person in America.
Fructose, the most metabolically damaging sugar, just makes things worse. It goes right to your liver, where it starts manufacturing fat, which triggers more insulin resistance and causes chronically elevated blood insulin levels, driving your body to store everything you eat as – you guessed it – dangerous belly fat.
You also get a fatty liver, which generates more inflammation. Chronic inflammation causes more weight gain and diabesity. Anything that causes inflammation will worsen insulin resistance.
Another problem with fructose is that it doesn’t send informational feedback to the brain, signaling that a load of calories just hit the body. Nor does it reduce ghrelin, the appetite hormone that is usually reduced when you eat real food.
We are programmed to store belly fat in response to sugar so that we can survive the winter when food is scarce. Genes do play a role, but they are a minor contributor to what is taking place today.
Shut Down the Insulin Surges
You will stop belly fat storage and cravings. And this is the number one thing you can do to stop belly fat now. More concise- stop eating sugar!
Belly Fat is Not Your Biggest Challenge
The biggest challenge you’re facing with being overweight is not your waistline or your weight. It’s not your belly. It’s your brain. Changing the way you think about food so you get your mind working with your body, not against it, is critical to weight loss and healing.
If you want to lose pounds, you need to first lose the ideas that keep you stuck in an endless cycle of yo-yo dieting. You need to let go of the beliefs and perspectives that sabotage your goal of permanent weight loss and vibrant health. Thinking the way you’ve always thought and doing things you’ve always done will only lead to more of the same.