How to Lose Belly Fat Quickly and Consistently

The benefits of fats in your diet are often misunderstood when searching for a way to lose belly fat quickly and consistently. Most often we adopt a diet that is extremely low in fat and calories as we try and reduce our belly fat. With new research on dieting and fitness though, we are starting to learn that fat in our diets can be extremely beneficial to losing weight as well as maintaining fat loss. According to recent research, ketogenic diets, or low carbohydrate diets, are even more successful in burning belly fat consistently over a long period of time.1

Dangers of Belly Fat

Although it is easy to assume that visible belly fat is the most dangerous to our health, this is not the truth. Subcutaneous fat is the noticeable jiggle of fat that causes dimples in the skin and even cellulite, but it is not nearly as dangerous as visceral fat. According to research published by the Harvard Medical School2, the abdominal fat that is deep under the skin and around the organs is the most dangerous type of belly fat. This layer of fat is referred to as visceral fat and is located around the middle section of your body. Visceral fat plays a key role in keeping your organs safe but in excess, it can increase blood pressure, heart disease, make it more difficult for your organs to function and may cause other medical issues.3

Diet Basics

Visceral fat is targeted quickly by diet and exercise changes and as the amount of visceral fat decreases so do many of the health risks as well according to the details in the Harvard article. Losing belly fat takes more than just watching your diet and exercising though, it may require making changes to the way you eat.

Alternatives to low-fat and low-calorie diets have been around for years but recently more research is being conducted to prove which of these diets are most successful in targeting belly fat. In The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism researchers studied and compared very low carbohydrate diets with calorie-restricted low-fat diets to assess weight loss and cardiovascular health.4

Researchers, in the low carbohydrate study, found that individuals on the low carbohydrate diet who had become keto-adapted were able to increase their overall fat burning rate on a day-to-day basis. Even more specifically the study found that obese women lost weight more effectively over a 6-month time frame when using the very low carbohydrate diet without restricting calories.

Losing Belly Fat Quickly

In the low carbohydrate study, not only were the women able to lose more fat, but they also had an unsuspecting side effect; they found that they consumed less and less food throughout the course of the six months. This led researchers to believe the low carb diet may have been more satiating to the dieters. The increase in fat consumption associated with a low carbohydrate diet was the primary reason for the satiation. It was also noted that study subjects had lower levels of blood pressure, plasma lipids, and glucose than the average American adult.

The mechanics of weight loss have long been associated with the specific number of calories consumed. Health and fitness articles often tote the need to reduce fats and minimize the total number of calories you take in if you want to lose weight. Learning to lose belly fat quickly and consistently starts with doing research and that research supports a low carbohydrate, high fat (ketogenic) diet. There is clear, strong evidence that reducing carbohydrates and increasing fat consumption will help you lose belly fat quickly and consistently.