How to get rid of visceral fat: The best drink to avoid to help get rid of the belly fat
VISCERAL fat is the type of harmful belly fat that increases your risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer. It's not the excess bits of skin you can pinch though, it's hidden around internal organs.
Dr Zoe Williams discusses visceral fat on This Morning
One way to know if you're carrying too much visceral fat – whether you're slim or not – is to measure your waist circumference. Take a flexible tape measure and place it around your midriff, horizontal to your belly button. The British Heart Foundation (BHF) specified that the tape measure should be placed at the "midpoint between the bottom of [the] ribs and top of [the] hips".
Do I have too much visceral fat?
Females with a waist circumference of 31.5 inches or more are at higher risk of health complications.
Meanwhile, males with a waist circumference of 37 inches or more are at higher risk of health complications.
How to get rid of visceral fat
One of the best ways to reduce visceral fat levels is to avoid alcoholic beverages.
Several studies they cited had shown that alcohol suppresses fat burning within the body.
READ MORE: How to get rid of visceral fat: The 80/20 diet is easier to follow - burn belly fat
Furthermore, the excess calories gained from drinking alcohol are partly stored as belly fat.
This can probably explain the term "beer belly", so it might be best to avoid a beer completely if you want to get rid of visceral fat.
There were 8,603 participants involved in their experiment aged between 30 years of age to 87.
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All participants had their waist circumference measured, with abdominal obesity classified as:
- More than 90cm (around 35 inches) for men
- More than 85cm (around 33 inches) for women
Each participant also had their alcohol intake classified into one of four groups:
- Non-drinkers
- 1-10g of alcohol daily
- 11-20g of alcohol daily
- Over 20g of alcohol daily
"A high alcohol intake was associated with high waist circumference in both genders," the researchers noted.
The group consuming more than 20g of alcohol daily – irregardless of sex – had larger waist circumferences compared to non-drinkers.
How many calories are there in alcohol?
The charity Drinkaware have a useful tool where you can see how many calories you're consuming depending on what you drink and how much.
For example, one medium (175ml) of 13 percent ABV wine can equate to 159 calories.
A four percent ABV pint of beer (568ml) is equivalent to about 182 calories.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) warned: "Alcohol can lead to weight gain."
The calories within alcohol are known as "empty calories" because they contain "no nutritional value".
The HSE confirmed that drinking alcohol "slows down your metabolic rate and reduces the amount of fat your body burns for energy".
In addition, alcohol can trigger the part of the brain that makes you feel hungry, so you're more likely to eat more.