How to get rid of visceral fat: How much exercise you should do to lose the belly fat
Excessive visceral fat can show up in an “apple” body shape. This active form of body fat can produce toxic hormones that mess with your health. Here’s how to get rid of it.
HealthDirect advises people to measure their waist in order to recognise whether or not your health is at risk.
Harvard Health notes that the waist measurement, in this circumstance, doesn’t mean measuring the narrowest part of your torso.
Instead, wrap the tape around your body in line with your belly button using a flexible tape measure (the one you’d use for clothing).
Women who have a reading of 35 inches or more are considered to have excess visceral fat – for men, it’s 40 inches.
HealthDirect suggests the best way to reduce visceral fat is through exercise.
“Exercise also stops visceral fat from coming back,” adds the informative organisation.
But how long are you supposed to exercise before you reap the benefits of moving your body?
According to HealthDirect, “exercising for at least 30 minutes every day” is recommended.
And 30 minutes is just the bare minimum, so the more you do the better the results will be.
It’s encouraged that a mixture of aerobic exercise and strength training will do the job.
What’s aerobic exercise?
The Cleveland Clinic listed the various activities one can engage in that would be considered aerobic exercise. This include:
- Swimming
- Cycling
- Using an elliptical trainer
- Walking
- Rowing
- Running
- Jumping Rope
- Step aerobics
The Cleveland Clinic suggests including a warm-up and cool-down for activities.
A warm-up involves a gradual increase in pace and intensity of the exercise, enabling the body to increase blood flow to the muscles.
Typically, a warm-up can last between five to 10 minutes. A cool-down is normally the same, with stretching being a perfectly acceptable cool-down.
To increase aerobic fitness, either increase the speed, resistance or duration.
What’s strength training?
Nuffield Health senior personal trainer Phil Goulding explained what strength training is all about.
Otherwise referred to as resistance training, it’s “any form of exercise where you lift or pull against resistance”.
This could include weights, resistance bands and your own body weight, such as pull-ups or push-ups.
Other strength training activities include ab crunches and machines you’d use in a gym.
Now gyms are back open, joining one (or returning to one) opens up your options for resistance training.
This is where you can perform leg extensions, leg curls, shoulder press and back extensions.
Alternatively, or in addition to, many fitness classes will include resistance training.
For those who are gym shy, dumbbells and resistance bands can be ordered online, where you can perform home workouts with the assistance of apps, websites and video tutorials.
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