Anyone who’s ever tried to lose weight knows how difficult and challenging this task is. You need to start paying close attention to your diet, cut back on pizzas and soda drinks, eliminate chocolate and ice-cream from your daily menu, drink lots of water, sleep more and get a gym membership as soon as possible. In short, you have to do a lot and you still won’t be sure whether it’s all going to work or not. If you’re serious about losing weight and don’t want to fail, you have to spend a considerable amount of time planning your weight loss process, taking to dieticians and personal trainers, making projections and thinking ahead more than you think. But, unless you know what you’re dealing with and what your current situation is, you’ll never succeed. You must investigate your body first, get to know it and only then move onto exploring reliable weight-losing strategies. Not everyone’s fat belly is the same and not everyone’s experience can be replicated by other people, which is why individuality is the key to this problem. So, if you’ve ever wondered how to lose weight effectively and quickly, here’s a quick guide to different types of belly fat and the importance of this knowledge in your struggle against excessive weight.
Meno-pot
This is one of the most common types of belly fat and one some of us, unfortunately, can’t avoid. It occurs after menopause and, no matter whether you’ve had a lean or rounded figure in your youth, you’re quite likely to develop more belly fat than you’ve expected. Menopause has been known to slow down your metabolism and basically destroy your muscles, which is why food is harder to process and, consequently, why new belly fat occurs. Moreover, this period of life disrupts sleep pattern of some women, causing stress and piling up fat.
Luckily, there are ways to minimize the effects of menopause and all you need to do is stay off carbs, switch to nutritious food, drink less alcohol and discover effective cardio exercises. Three or four weekly visits to the gym will go wonders for your belly fat piled up after menopause, but, if you can’t find time to ride stationary bike, jog or swim, you can add more intensity to your everyday chores. After just a month or two, you’ll see how much weight you can lose just by climbing stairs, running after grandchildren and beating carpets more furiously than before.
Stress Belly
Due to the hectic pace of modern life, this is one of the most common belly fat type out there. We all work too much, don’t get enough sleep, rely on fast food because we have no time to prepare proper meals and, in short, aren’t as healthy as we could be. Additionally, as we gain more weight, we become more stressed out and all the work-related stress is therefore intensified by our own inner stress rising to the surface every time we look in the mirror. If you’re a workaholic, be prepared for the so-called stress belly that’s so typical for our time and age.
This type of belly is hard to deal with because it’s been piling up for years and finding an instant solution is virtually impossible. Centered on your belly button, this physical manifestation of your stress can only be dealt with by taking some time off and relaxing for a while. Drinking less coffee and staying away from energy drinks can benefit you quite a lot, while getting into yoga can lower your level of anxiety and, therefore, prove to be great help when trying to lose weight. Resistance training is the final step of this process, but keep in mind that it will take some time and that you will definitely need to relax and lower your stress level first.
Bloated Belly
Do you eat properly and work out, yet still suffer from a bloated belly? If so, you might want to rethink the reasons: maybe it isn’t the food or lack of sleep, but water retention that causes a bloated belly, gases and puffiness? The problem with bloatedness is that you can’t discover it that easily because there are so many causes of this condition: from food allergies and genetics to irritable bowel syndrome and other chronic diseases such as preeclampsia, kidney or heart failure. Moreover, if you’re sitting or standing all day long, you’re quite likely to develop water retention and other problems that will make your belly look huge. In the end, cortisol has a major influence on inflammation, too, especially in highly stressful situations, and it can be a decisive factor of weight loss and gain for lots of people. Hence, you need to control it with a help of your physician and your endocrinologist.
Fortunately, there are a few trustworthy ways to deal with these issues and most of the tactics are quite easy and require little or no hard work. You can start by drinking more water, switching to a gluten-free diet and investigating natural and reliable health supplements that will calm your digestive system down and prevent further bloatedness. This also goes for paleo diet that will control inflammation and assist during your weight-loss process thanks to all the nutritive ingredients it includes.
Post-Pregnancy Belly
Pregnancy is the most special time in a woman’s life, but it also causes great stress to her body. Being pregnant and delivering the baby takes a great toll on her and some of these changes can be seen not just in the immediate future, but also after a number of years. No matter how flexible, ripped and prepared your body was, the chances of retaining a post-pregnancy belly are always quite high, especially with difficult pregnancies that exhaust you mentally and physically. And one of the most obvious consequences of delivering a child is the post-pregnancy belly that is soft and full of remaining belly fat you’ve been accumulating in the past nine months.
Some of the things that might help you are yoga, meditation and breathing exercises that will relax your mind and allow your body to return to its former shape. However, what are the chances that your child sleeps long enough for you to meditate or do some yoga? If this isn’t an option, you might want to change your diet and drink more liquids that will get your body back on track in just a couple of weeks! Nevertheless, it’s important not to get too stressed over belly fat after the delivery – taking care of your child, feeding them properly and getting as much rest as possible should become your top priority. And after a while, when you feel ready, hit the gym until that post-pregnancy belly is a thing of the past.
Other Types of Belly Fat
Some of the other types of bellies are known as “classic apple,” “spare tire,” “pooch,” and “liver belly” and you’re probably sporting one of these bellies even if you’re not suffering from obesity. So, before, deciding to lose weight, you should find out which type you belong to and address your belly fat appropriately. Finally, remember that relying on healthy food and proper exercising that will keep you young is the key to success.