Ways to lose belly fat and inches off your waist....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 6-26-2012

So far, I’ve not been able to get enough leverage to do this myself very well.  At one point, I weighed 191 pounds and lost down to 161.  But I only went from 40 to 38 inches on my waist.

Then after gaining a bit more than half of that back to weighing 178 pounds, I lost down to 158 and again lost from 40 to 38 inches on my waist.  And then I gained back to 172 & 40 inches on my waist. 

I have prevented myself from gaining above 40 inches on my waist and am still 19 pounds, 10%, less than my worst weight.  So it’s clearly been worth the extra effort to do.

My goal is to lose back to 161 but lose 6 inches off my waist – AND to make both more permanent changes.  So that then becomes my new normal and stays the same.

As you can see, losing belly fat and inches from my waist is something that vitally interests me!

Clearly I’ve had and still have three challenges:

1. Both my job and my favorite recreations except for exercise are done sitting down.  And I’ve close to maxed out the time I have to exercise already.

*Walking and active recreations, when done enough each week, tend to remove excess fat and tend to remove belly fat.  <<<<<

I’ve found that during the times I’ve had to do brisk walking of a mile or more each day to take transit almost every day, my waist and belly fat go down.  My wife sees the difference when that happens and comments on it.

One time I had a week where I walked over 20 miles – some of it quite briskly and could see my waist was smaller from just that week of extra walking.

Also, one woman began to eat right and stop eating badly and ate just a bit less.  She lost 20 pounds.  Then she decided to take transit to work.  In her case, she had to walk briskly for 2 miles to and another two miles from work each day to do this.  That’s 20 miles a week.  She ate the same AND lost another 30 pounds.  So she lost 50 pounds and a good bit on her waist too, though my source did not say how many inches more the walking took off.

(I close this post with a potential way to do this without taking any work time to do it.)

2.  I spent most of the last 30 years stressed by lack of money most of the time.

I recently became much less stressed financially due to a new and reliable source of income.   And, I am adding another new source of income that will stop my financial stress completely if I add it fast enough.  (I’m doing the work successfully to launch this and the people who have done the same work a bit longer than I are making five times the income I am now.)

*Removing excess stress and lowering the excessive cortisol it delivers to your system are known to remove belly fat.  <<<<<

*And, doing things that lower excess cortisol directly also tends to remove belly fat.  <<<<<

>I already get vigorous exercise on most days of every week.  That boosts cortisol briefly as you exercise but lowers it the rest of the time.

>One doctor wrote that ingesting 2,000 grams or more a day of omega 3 oils lowers excess cortisol.  I already get more than 2,000 grams of fish sourced omega 3 oil between almost half that from omega 3 supplements and more than half that from eating canned wild caught salmon.  So I do that.

>The same doctor said that taking the supplement Rhodiola also helps lower excess cortisol.  That I’ve not yet tried.  But I may try it since it also lowers stress and improves mood and boosts mental energy.

>The same woman doctor says that activities like yoga, tai chi, and meditation lower cortisol levels.  My reading suggests that meditation is the least effective of these but that it does work well for some people.  I hope to learn tai chi and a form of active yoga and do 10 minutes a day of one or both.  But I’ll need more time to fit it in that I don’t yet have.  And I don’t yet have access to the funds or time to learn that form of yoga or tai chi.  I plan to do both eventually.

The people who do that form of active yoga all seem to lose fat.  And, doing tai chi lowers high blood pressure by lowering physical stress and likely also sharply cuts excess cortisol.

3.  I’m 68 years old and have clearly lost at least 10 pounds or more of muscle from my legs and butt.  I plan to add some heavier exercises to build that back but can’t yet fit them into my schedule.  But when I do, I expect to lose some fat and inches from my waist.

*Muscle does burn more calories than fat.  And, people who strength train enough to add significant muscle do lose belly fat every time.  <<<<<

*Other things that lose belly fat:   <<<<<

>The book, the Flat Belly Diet presents evidence that cutting out omega six oils and all hydrogenated oils and most fat from animals fed grain and eating monosaturated fats such as extra virgin olive oil, nuts, and avocados instead helps lose belly fat when added to an effective fat loss plan.  This strategy cuts belly fat better for some than others.  But some people have found it effective.  And, best of all, EVERYONE who does this will be healthier according to abundant research on the Mediterranean Diet which is one way to eat this way.  <<<<<

* Losing enough total fat to get down to 10% fat in your body for men and 15% for women does it.  If you go from 40 % fat to 20% fat, you will look better and feel better and will be dramatically healthier.  But to lose belly fat, you have to do more.  (The strength training enough to build muscle and the big boost in walking or comparable moderate activity work to do this.)  So does eating more consistently for fat loss -- from lots of vegetables and very little sugar and no junky foods or soft drinks to drinking a bit less alcohol.  <<<<<

(Tim Ferris’s book, 4 Hour Body has pictures that reveal this clearly.)

*Three supplements recently have shown the possibility of losing enough extra fat to lose belly fat and two of them tested as directly losing belly fat, one of them for sure and one of them very likely due to its other effects.  <<<<<

Two supplements that have been in the news lately that may turn out to add to fat loss safely as their early reports suggest are ursolic acid and green coffee bean extract.  The initial ursolic acid results show added muscle and faster metabolism and fat loss.  The initial results on green coffee bean extract show some metabolism boost and fat loss.

So far, most such supplements with early positive reported results tend to work only for people who eat better and exercise more because they believe it’s worth it due to the supplements that they believe in but in larger more careful trials showed very little effect from the supplement itself. 

These two newer supplements do look more promising so far.  Besides the small amount of caffeine, green coffee bean extract has high amounts of antioxidants and may well have other stimulants and metabolism boosters.  Though the changes from ursolic acid were found while testing rats and such animal testing doesn’t always get the same results in people, the details of the high level analysis of the biological changes suggest strongly that the same results will happen for people.

The bad news is that both supplements are quite pricey now.

*For people who are exercising regularly and eating right enough – and for those people only

-- there is evidence that for those people eating a good bit of wakame seaweed or taking the supplement  fucoxanthin derived from wakame seaweed lost more fat than matched people who don’t.  Better yet, more of the extra fat they have lost has been belly fat.  <<<<<

That too is a bit pricey as a supplement now.

So far, for me, most of these things are still a bit too much money or take too much time.

Though in each case, I plan to change that.

Each of these things is doable now with one exception.  Once I have more money and a bit more time, I plan to do them all.  Hopefully many of you can do them now.

However, neither now nor in the future will I have enough time to walk 20 miles a week added to my schedule each day on weekdays.  (That comes to between an hour to an hour and twenty minutes each day before the extra time for changing clothes or showering or both.)

The good news is that there is a potentially cost effective way to do that much moderate exercise at my desk while I work. 

Since I need not work fewer hours to use it, it takes very close to ZERO extra time.  In fact this kind of exercise has been found to improve mental energy and ability each day it’s done and on that day!

So I’m beginning to work to see if I can induce a company to make it. (The basic design already exists and is proven to work.) Using one takes more hours a week but is less intense per hour so it’s less overheating.  So no extra shower or clothes changes are needed.  And since it does not stop you from working or from working at your desk, it takes close to zero extra time to do.

If you might want one when they are available, email me at davideller7@yahoo.com .