How to Reduce Belly Fats

Monday, 03 May, 2021

Many of my friends ask almost daily how they can reduce belly fats. This has made me write this article such that friends with the same problem may also benefit.

Where do the belly fats come from?

From my high school biology, I know that fats stored under the skin mainly comes from excess glucose. What happens is that when there is more glucose than what the body needs, the pancreas secretes insulin that converts the excess sugar into fats. These fats are stored under the skin. Besides, when the body has less sugar to carry out metabolic activities, the pancreas secretes another hormone known as glucagon that converts the stored fats back to sugar which is used in respiration to produce energy.

Should we stop eating to reduce fats?

No, this is not a solution to reduce excess fats in the body. The question we should ask ourselves is where do fats come from? The answer is excess glucose, and where does excess glucose come from? The answer is; from carbohydrates. So, does it mean we should stop eating ugali (maize flour bread), Chapatis, bread and other wheat products? That should not be the case. The following is a list of what you should do to reduce belly fats.

Avoid intake of excess processed carbohydrates
Build structural muscles
Eat more protein
Do physical exercise

Avoid intake of excess processed carbohydrates

Since excess glucose result from excess consumption of carbohydrates, the intake should be reduced. It is also important that we consume unrefined carbohydrates, for instance, cassava from the garden boiled and consumed just like that. Use whole grain wheat and maize flour since they have more waste that will make you feel satisfied but fewer sugars absorbed after digestion

Build structural muscles.

Structural muscles are those around the bones for instance the biceps and triceps of the upper arm. How do big muscles reduce fats? The answer is they need more energy to contract whether awake or asleep. This implies that their cells need more glucose for respiration to provide more energy. One pound of muscle mass burns six (6) calories per day (Scientific Body Type). Well, so how do we build our muscles? This will depend on the resources you have. Either way, we can still build our muscles with the limited resources. Consider things like pushups, weight lifting among many others.

If you still don’t have belly fats yet then this is the best time to work on building your muscles such that when you get to live a more sedentary life at old age, the structural muscles alone will be enough to keep belly fats at bay.

Eat more protein

Proteins help in building structural muscles and do not result in belly fats.

Do physical exercise and strenuous activities

Strenuous activities and physical exercise use more energy, which means that even more fats stored in the body will be converted to glucose to supply energy. As a result belly fats will be eliminated.

In summary, we should consider all the above four ways ago if we want to lose belly fats rapidly.

Photo: By rosmary - Flickr: balance, CC BY 2.0