How To Get Rid Of Visceral Fat Simple And Safe In 2024?

Most of us? We’re more than familiar with the belly fat plaguing our bodies. What about the fat that we can’t see, though? 

Visceral fat should not be confused with subcutaneous fat; while the latter is right underneath the skin and perfectly pinchable, the former goes just a bit deeper. Visceral fat is the fat that wraps around our internal organs, and carrying more visceral fat might be putting your health at risk. 

How to Lose Visceral Fat

The number one, fool-proof way to lose visceral fat? Exercise, exercise, and exercise some more. When it comes to weight control and calorie burn, supplements are all well and good. When dealing with visceral fat, however, the action of the exercise and the movement of the body is much more important than burning the fat stores on a metabolic, cellular level.

Visceral fat responds very well to aerobic exercise^[1], especially visceral fat hanging around the midsection. Engaging the abdominal muscles stimulates the neuromuscular process^[2] responsible for an increase in the electrical activity of the cells in question, prompting them to build muscle and to burn fat, visceral fat included. Other mild forms of daily exercises, such as brisk walking, will help you reduce both visceral body fat and subcutaneous fat.

The more you’re able to work out these problem areas, the more well-trained your body will be when it comes to maintaining fat storage and reducing and managing the activity of cytokines.

Experts have proven that, once you’re able to reduce visceral fat through exercise, the weight loss is much more likely to be permanent. With the continuation of a healthy habits, future fat stored is much less likely to be stored as visceral fat to begin with. The less visceral fat that you carry, the better off you’re going to be.

While it might confer some benefits to diabetics seeking greater insulin sensitivity^[3], surgical visceral fat removal is not recommended in a general sense. Unlike the removal of subcutaneous fat, surgical visceral fat loss does not eliminate the negative effects of visceral fat aside from a reduction in waist measurement.

What Is Visceral Fat?

Have you ever seen a photo or an illustration of the human liver? Fatty liver disease is more than just a name; these fat deposits are visceral fat, and you might have other organs sporting it, too.

Visceral fat is found definitively in the abdominal cavity, enveloping your major organs as opposed to accumulating in the arms, legs, buttocks, or breasts. 

You’ll find visceral fat storage^[4] on the outside of the intestines and stomach, the outside of the pancreas, and, as mentioned previously, on the human liver, as well. Fat on the abdominal organs might not look as unattractive as fat more prominently visible, but these internal body stores might actually be much more dangerous to your health long-term.

Yes, that’s right: the distribution of the fat cells in your body actually matters more than the origin of the fat and the total amount of all the fat itself. 

Too much fat is associated with a myriad of health problems beyond simple obesity. Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) cloying the work of the organs is associated with higher mortality, many types of cancer, and cardiovascular dysfunction, as well.

Why Is Visceral Fat Harmful?

Long associated with insulin resistance, the complications that come along with excess visceral fat go beyond being a simple matter of metabolism^[5].

Harvard Health Publishing emphasizes the fact that visceral fat cells are indeed active fat cells. Clinicians believe that too much visceral fat is actually an issue of the endocrine system, intimately involved in stress hormone secretion, free fatty acids, and cytokine production. 

These free-floating cytokines inflame the body and the internal organs. The longer that this fat is stored, the more time that these active fat cells have to produce harmful compounds and wreak havoc.

Aside from an undesirable body shape, visceral fat may leave you at a greater risk of some other serious health risks:

• Heart disease
• Type II Diabetes
• Stroke
• Dementia
• Colorectal cancer (And other types of cancer, as well, such as breast cancer)

Cardiovascular disease has been of particular interest in this domain; blood pressure has been used experimentally as an indicator^[6] of more serious, underlying trouble and an increased risk of chronic disease.

Of course, only a real doctor can provide medical advice. Diagnosis of visceral fat should happen at the doctor’s office – on our own, it’s easy to make assumptions and jump to conclusions.

How Much Visceral Fat Do I Have?

As mentioned previously, if it’s fat that you can pinch, you’re dealing with subcutaneous fat, not visceral fat. Instead, you’ll need to rely on the circumference of the waist and hips as they compare to one another.

There are many types of measurement^[7] that can be used to assess the amount of visceral fat that you carry:

• Body Mass Index (BMI)
• Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WTH)
• Waist Circumference (WC)
• Waist-to-Height Ratio (WTH)

If you’re seeking formal advice, diagnosis, or treatment, a CT scan might reveal unseen stores of visceral fat. If your concerns are less dire, you can use a tape measure to find the circumference of your waist and hips in order to do the math on your own. The tape measure should be suspended between each hip bone, no higher or lower.

What Causes Visceral Fat?

The general consensus is that visceral fat makes it into our bodies the same way that ordinary, garden-variety fat does: when we store fat after eating too much. The way that the body stores fat is still something of a mystery, although the problem does appear to be hormonal to some extent. One of the health risks associated with low testosterone in men is the storage of more visceral fat, for some context.

This study^[1] found that visceral adiposity may increase with age, due to an increased likelihood for weight gain as a person gets older, along with age-related muscle loss. It also mentions that, with age, we become even more predisposed to many of the health problems associated with too much visceral fat. It’s a vicious cycle. 

Bulimics and former bulimics appear to be more inclined toward storing body fat as visceral fat, more evidence of the issue being related to adrenal function. The hormonal change that some women experience during pregnancy (Alongside an increase in insulin resistance^[1] during this time) and after menopause might cause their bodies to begin allocating fat differently, as well.

Another risk factor might be your lifestyle. Excessive alcohol intake correlates positively^[8] with an increase in visceral fat, belly fat in particular. The same goes for people who eat too many trans fats. 

Not only do both of these lifestyle choices leave you at greater risk of heart disease and other cancerous metabolic alterations; your visceral fat increases statistically as your usage of either substance increases.

How to Prevent Visceral Fat 

No matter who you ask, preventing abdominal obesity before it becomes a problem boils down to one simple truth: if you’re able to maintain a healthy weight, your body is much more likely to reduce visceral fat storage^[1] altogether.

Minimizing your body mass index (BMI) between age thirty and age seventy is especially important when dealing with visceral fat. Visceral fat may also set in as the muscles atrophy during this span of time, as one’s life becomes less active. 

Strength training at home with small weights is an excellent preventative measure if you’re unable to exercise vigorously for one reason or another. Maintaining muscle mass as we age is just as important as preventing fat from accumulating through overindulgence and inactivity.

In summary, you can make reducing visceral fat a part of your lifestyle by doing the following:

• Maintaining a healthy diet, one that avoids processed foods and other sources of trans fats. When in doubt and inactive, fewer calories are the way to go. Avoid alcohol whenever possible, and try to establish a healthy morning routine.
• Participating in aerobic exercises, such as brisk walking and aerobic exercise, on a daily basis. Thirty minutes per day is a good baseline.
• Keeping tabs on your body, measuring your waist circumference regularly, and making note of any changes that you notice in your blood pressure, your levels of energy, and any other health problems that you deal with normally. 
• If you do notice an unusual increase in belly fat or body fat in general, seeking the counsel of a trained medical professional as soon as possible is highly advisable. The sooner the problem is found, the sooner it can be addressed.

Conclusion

The term “hidden fat” makes VAT sound so much scarier than it actually is. Just because you can’t see the inside of your body doesn’t mean that you have no way of cleaning up the house. 

Just like with, say, the health of your gut, the health of your abdominal viscera has a lot to do with what you do with your body, and what you’re putting into it, as well. The good news is that many of these factors are well under your control. If you watch what you eat and make an effort to move your body daily, visceral fat has no chance. You’ll be in the clear for as long as you live.

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