Visceral fat: Experts recommend front-loading meals to burn belly fat – what is that?

Dr Zoe Williams discusses visceral fat on This Morning

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Compared to ‘normal’ fat, visceral fat is stored deeper in the skin. Visceral fat, or belly fat, is wrapped around major organs like the liver, pancreas and your kidney. Visceral fat ensures that there is some distance between each organ. Too much visceral fat creates can lead to inflammation and high blood pressure, which increases the risk of serious health problems. There is a way to “trick” the body in feeling fuller which will reduce overeating and help to burn away the dangerous belly fat.

Health experts advise having a front-loaded meal to help fill you up to reduce overeating.

Front-loading means starting a meal, especially the largest meal, with seasoned vegetables, be it vegetable soup or the vegetables on your entree plate.

It’s important to remember that vegetables should always comprise of at least half of your plate and be a mix of starchy (like potatoes) and non-starchy ones (your leafy greens, broccoli, etc.).

Eating the vegetables first will leave less room for other foods that aren’t as healthy, because vegetable fibre is extremely filling.

Having more fibre in the diet can have a significant effect on belly fat reduction.

This is because fibre binds water and form a thick gel that “sits” in your gut.

This gel can dramatically slow the movement of food through the digestive system.

It can also slow down the digestion and absorption of nutrients with the end result being a prolonged feeling of fullness and reduced appetite helping to burn belly fat.

One review study found that an additional 14 grams of fibre per day were linked to a 10 percent decrease in calorie intake and weight loss of around 4.5 pounds (2 kg) over four months.

Vegetables can help to shrink belly fat and promote weight loss in many ways.

One of the greatest benefits of vegetables when you’re trying to lose weight is that they provide you with a great amount of volume and satiety with few calories.

Vegetables have a lot of fibre and are full of nutrition like essential minerals and vitamins that may help the body to improve metabolism and burn your belly fat.

Local, seasonal vegetables are also a good source of antioxidants, minerals and vitamins that are essential for a healthy lifestyle.

In addition to helping a person to feel full with few calories, vegetables also help promote weight loss by being rich in many powerful antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and phyotochemicals.

Some of these nutrients, such as catechins and anthocyanins, by themselves can help increase your body’s ability to burn fat.

But, antioxidants help to decrease oxidative stress in your body.

Oxidative stress is essentially the stress placed on your body from the free radicals produced during digestion and metabolism as well as the environmental toxins the body is exposed to.

This increases the levels of inflammation in the body increasing a person to serious health diseases but also making burning belly fat more difficult.

When it comes to the best vegetables to front-load your meal, these include:

• Asparagus
• Pumpkin
• Spinach
• Cucumbers
• Mushrooms
• Beans
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Carrots

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