6 subtle reasons preventing you from losing belly fat

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Let's talk about how non-obvious factors can prevent you from turning a soft, rounded belly into a perfect flat abs.

You train like a beast, sleep at least seven hours a day, and the balance of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in your daily diet is just perfect, but … But a soft obnoxious tummy spoils the whole picture and does not want to part with you. There can be many reasons, and some of them, in our opinion, have nothing to do with this part of the body.

1. The noise of busy streets

If you live on a busy street, the risk of adding a few centimeters at the waist increases by 29%. The likelihood of this increases if you constantly hear the hum of cars, trains or airplanes. This is evidenced by the results of a study published in Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

Other studies have shown that these sounds can lead to increased levels of cortisol, a hormone that is associated with the accumulation of fat in the abdomen.

Scientists advise to fight this cause with the help of special noise-canceling headphones, listening to soothing music (lowers the level of cortisol in the blood). You can also suppress noise by using a different background sound. It is desirable that it be soothing.

2. The habit of drinking diet soda

If you drink one and a half cans (about 500 ml) of diet soda a day, your waist can increase by 10 cm for nine and a half years. And if you drink the usual sweet soda, then the increase will be 2.5 cm. Such data were obtained as a result of research conducted at the Health Science Center at the University of Texas.

This is due to the artificial sweeteners in diet soda. They make it so that our brain does not receive a signal of satiety - the craving for sweets increases. As a result, we eat more sweets and get more extra calories than if we drank regular soda, according to research author Helen Hazuda.

3. Multitasking

Researchers at Brown University found that people who are able to focus on one specific task have an average of 0.5 kg less belly fat than those who are constantly thinking about the tasks ahead.

According to scientists, this is because focused people are able to assess their feelings and sensations more objectively. They are more volitional and can better control their desires. For example, do not eat everything sweet right away, but limit yourself to one piece, even if there is a whole cake in the fridge. And if they allowed themselves something superfluous, then they will definitely work it out in training.

Develop your focus and willpower with yoga and your endurance with long distance running and cycling. Study author Eric Loucks says that such training teaches us to focus on our feelings and thoughts, as a result, we become more attentive and focused.

4. Lack of calcium

Approximately 57% of women do not get their daily calcium intake, and this affects their waist size. However, according to a study published in the journal Nutrients, consuming dairy products that are high in calcium may help alleviate this problem.

In the study, subjects received three servings of milk-based products daily for 12 weeks. As a result, they lost 1 kg more belly fat than those who did not consume that much dairy.

Scientists suggest that foods high in calcium do a better job of suppressing the hormone responsible for storing fat. Your goal is to eat as many of these foods as possible. This is not only milk, cottage cheese and other dairy and fermented milk products. For example, broccoli, kale (kale), and tofu do a good job as well.

5. Long way to work

It turns out that even the time it takes you to get to work can affect the amount of excess belly fat. This is evidenced by the results of a study by the University of Washington, which involved 4,300 workers.

It has been found that the longer it takes you to get to work, the wider your waist can be. The reason is trivial: if the road takes a lot of time, then there is not much time left for the gym.

You cannot change the distance from home to work (unless you find another office or apartment). But you can leave your car in the parking lot a couple of kilometers from the office, or get off a few stops earlier and walk this distance. Another option is to find a gym near your work or take some sportswear with you so that, for example, take a run on the way back.

6. Restless sleep

It's not how much you sleep, but how. Sleep quality greatly influences metabolic and restorative processes in our body. Jose Colon, MD, author of The Sleep Diet, says that in fact, waking up once or twice a night is natural for humans. Problems begin when we cannot sleep afterwards. This irritates us, and as a result, cortisol levels rise (see Reason # 1). Therefore, sometimes 3-4 hours of full sound sleep are much more than a restless eight hours.