You may think that all fat is fat, but the truth is not that simple. There are actually at least two different types of fat, and the type of fat in your stomach is different than the fat found in many other parts of your body.
Most of the unwanted, excess fat people notice on their bodies is subcutaneous fat sitting directly below the skin. Of all the fat in the human body, 90% is subcutaneous fat.
Belly fat, however, is among the remaining 10% that is visceral fat. Unlike subcutaneous fat, visceral fat doesn’t sit directly below the skin but rather deep down in the abdominal cavity where it surrounds the organs.
Why is Excess Belly Fat Harmful to Your Health?
Excess belly fat doesn’t only affect your physical appearance. It also affects your physical health. A certain amount of visceral fat around the organs is necessary to provide them a safe cushion against impact from your bones, muscles and other organs.
Too much visceral fat around the organs, however, can raise your risks of getting heart disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers like colorectal and breast cancer.
The Science of Fat Loss
Unfortunately, the science of fat loss remains a relative mystery to researchers, who have yet to determine quite how it functions. That said, they have made many useful strides in our current understanding of fat loss.
We know that we eat primarily for nourishment and energy. Nutrients like vitamins and minerals keep the bones, muscles, organs and other parts of the body healthy and strong.
The calories in food are used to produce the energy the body needs each day to function at its best. Specifically, the body “burns” the calories in food to convert them into energy.
We also know that there are an estimated 3,500 calories in each pound of fat. Based on that figure alone, it should ostensibly take 3,500 calories more than your body needs to burn for energy to add an extra pound of body weight and, by the same token, 3,500 calories less than your body needs to burn for energy to shed an excess pound of body weight.
That means you should simply be able to calculate a set calorie deficit for your diet each week to produce your desired fat loss.
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. For starters, there are a wealth of factors besides caloric intake that also influence fat loss, including:
- Hormones
- Genetics
- Medical conditions
- Medications
That said, a calorie deficit is nevertheless a key component in losing fat in general and belly fat in particular. More on calorie deficits will be discussed below, but first, let’s tighten our focus from losing fat in general to losing belly fat in particular.
How to Lose Belly Fat
Visceral fat such as is found in the stomach responds wonderfully to diet and exercise. That’s good news.
The bad news is that you can’t target belly fat in particular. What that means is, the more you diet and exercise properly, the more you’ll see yourself starting to lose weight in other parts of your body. Keep that up long enough, and eventually, you’ll start to notice that stomach of yours getting flatter.
The reason for this is simple: your body generally sheds subcutaneous fat before it sheds visceral fat, and more particularly, belly fat. That’s because the human body places greater value on visceral fat, and particularly belly fat than subcutaneous fat, as it has evolved over centuries to protect itself from famine.
Moreover, different body types hold onto fat more in particular areas than others and lose fat from different areas first.
People with a pear-shaped body type, for example, tend to hold onto fat around the hips and thighs, while people with an apple-shaped body type tend to hold onto fat more around their waists and bellies. That means people with apple-shaped bodies may well take longer to lose belly fat and get a flat stomach than people with pear-shaped bodies, all else being equal.
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