Belly Fat Breakthrough: Understand What It Is and Lose It Fast

Contents

INTRODUCTION

1. Understanding Belly Fat

2. The Effect of Exercise on Belly Fat and Health

3. The Interval Sprinting Belly Fat Loss Program

4. Dieting, Nutrients, and Belly Fat

5. Reducing Daily Stress and Enhancing Sleep Quality

6. A Six-Week Belly Fat Loss Program

APPENDIX A:

The Cooper Twelve-Minute Walk/Run Fitness Test

APPENDIX B:

Submaximal Aerobic Fitness Test

APPENDIX C:

Monitoring Heart-Rate Change Using the Submaximal Fitness Test

APPENDIX D:

Rating of Perceived Exertion

APPENDIX E:

Body Composition Recording Form

APPENDIX F:

Interval Sprinting Recording Form

APPENDIX G:

Weekly Progress Form

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT DR. STEPHEN BOUTCHER

RESOURCES

ENDNOTES

INDEX

Introduction

The human body is programmed to store fat for a number of reasons, but the places it stores fat have different effects on our health. Fat under the skin on our legs and arms is considered a healthy fat and helps to prevent diseases such as type 2 diabetes. In contrast, visceral fat, or belly fat, clusters around our internal organs and has been found to contribute to the development of diabetes and cardiovascular and other inflammatory diseases. This is because the fat in the belly is released to the liver, which affects the way our body reacts to insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas. Insulin carries the sugar in the blood to the cells of the body, for use as energy. Excessive belly fat eventually brings about decreased insulin sensitivity, potentially causing type 2 diabetes and leading to other serious diseases.

Factors such as age, gender, genes, and lifestyle all influence the amount of fat that is deposited around the organs in your belly. For example, women who are past childbearing age, or postmenopausal, typically have greater belly fat stores than younger women. Similarly, older men tend to have more belly fat than young men do. It has also been discovered that people of Asian descent who experience increases in belly fat have a greater incidence of cardiovascular problems than non-Asians. People who are under stress and those who sleep poorly also tend to have more belly fat. And, of course, individuals who consume a lot of junk food and excessive alcohol and do little exercise typically possess greater belly fat stores.

Our research in the School of Medical Sciences at the University of New South Wales has found that an interval sprinting program, combined with a healthy Mediterranean eating plan, is the most effective way to reduce dangerous belly fat. Interval sprinting involves short bursts of intensive exercise followed by a brief period of light exercise, repeated continuously for twenty minutes. The program we developed has been scientifically shown to improve overall health in much less time than conventional exercise programs such as jogging and weight training. Our interval sprinting program recommends exercising for twenty minutes a session, three times per week—a total of about one hour of exercise a week. By exercising for only one hour a week, you can reduce your belly and body fat, as well as increase the muscle mass in your legs and abdomen, which is important for preventing type 2 diabetes. Interval sprinting has also been proved to significantly reduce insulin resistance—the key for long-term health—and improve cardiovascular health within just six weeks.

Combining the interval sprinting program with a healthy Mediterranean eating plan can extend the health benefits of interval sprinting. Of course, if you begin an exercise program but continue to eat in an unhealthy manner, you’ll be undermining the positive effects of the exercise.

Eating healthy foods and participating in a well-structured interval sprinting program can significantly reduce your belly fat and improve your health. This book will show you how.

How to Use This Book

This book contains:

• the interval sprinting program to help you lose belly fat, increase aerobic fitness and muscle mass, and reduce insulin resistance;

• information about healthy eating and which nutrients to ingest before and after sprinting exercise for the best results; and

• a guide to reducing the effect of daily stressors and enhancing sleep quality to prevent an increase in belly fat.

Chapter 1 explains why belly fat is so dangerous to ongoing good health, how it accumulates, and how to determine whether you are carrying a dangerous amount of belly fat. Chapter 2 describes the biological mechanisms by which interval sprinting can help reduce belly fat and increase your overall health. Chapter 3 covers the types of exercises suited to interval sprinting and the program itself. Chapters 4 and 5 show you how to apply the exercise, healthy eating, and stress-management programs to your life. Finally, chapter 6 offers a sample plan for incorporating the Belly Fat Breakthrough into your life.

Chapter 1

Understanding Belly Fat

Americans are getting fatter and more obese. Two thirds of adults (66 percent) are currently overweight or obese.¹ A third of adults (36 percent) are currently overweight. This is true in a majority of the developed world, such as Australia and Europe. Australia now has the second highest rate of childhood obesity, while in the United Kingdom, the number of obese adults increased from 16 percent to 24 percent among women and from 13 percent to 22 percent among men between 1993 and 2009. There is also potential for a dramatic increase in obesity rates in India, the Middle East, Asia, and other developing areas, as overweight and obesity rates there have escalated since the 1990s.²

We’re also seeing a rise in dangerous belly fat, as demonstrated by the increase in average waist circumferences around the world. Having a waist circumference less than 31 inches for women and 37 inches for men is recommended for health reasons, but in the United States, the average waist circumference went from 35 inches in 1962 to 39 inches in 2000 in men, and from 30 inches to 37 inches in women.³ Another US study monitored more than one hundred thousand middle-aged men and women over nine years. Results showed that people with large waists—greater than 47 inches for men and 43 inches for women—were twice as likely to die prematurely as those with normal waist sizes.⁴ In the United Kingdom, a 2011 study found that the average waist circumference of young girls, 28 inches, was 5 inches bigger than girls of the same age measured thirty years previously.⁵

As world levels of belly fat increase, so does the incidence of both type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, so it’s important that we understand why we are putting on belly fat and how we can stop this trend.

The Skinny on Fat

We have a layer of fat under the skin called subcutaneous fat. This fat makes up about 80 percent to 90 percent of our total body fat and is typically located on the back of the arms, below the shoulder blades, around the belly, and on the upper legs and hips. The remaining 10 percent to 20 percent of our body fat is termed belly fat, also known as visceral fat, and is located beneath the stomach muscles and around internal organs such as the liver, spleen, intestines, and kidneys. In some people, belly fat can also accumulate in the liver and other organs. Interestingly, people with more fat on their upper thighs have less incidence of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.⁶

Subcutaneous fat serves a number of purposes, such as keeping us warm and acting as a storage site for hormones and energy. Also called adipose tissue, it used to be considered mainly a ready source of energy in times of famine, but fat is now viewed as an endocrine organ that stores and excretes a number of hormones and other chemicals that can have both positive and negative effects on health. Endocrine refers to cells, glands, and tissues that secrete hormones into the bloodstream to control our physiology and behavior. Fat mass secretes over thirty chemical messengers; some of them, such as the hormone leptin, tell the brain that we have had enough to eat, whereas others, like tumor necrosis factor, induce inflammation to help combat bacteria, viruses, and other disease-producing pathogens.

Too much inflammation, however, results in cardiovascular disease and insulin resistance. The latter condition occurs when the muscle and liver cells become unresponsive to insulin in the blood. High levels of insulin and glucose remaining in the circulation increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. People with type 2 diabetes typically have excessive belly fat, chronic high blood pressure, or hypertension, and elevated blood triglyceride levels. Fat cells also secrete a chemical called adiponectin, which has antidiabetic properties. Unfortunately, obese people have less of this beneficial chemical.

We all possess billions of fat cells, but it has been shown that an absolute fat cell number is established during the teenage years, and this remains constant during adulthood. One study that assessed genomic DNA was able to retrospectively measure fat cell numbers in humans.⁷ A genome is a body’s total set of DNA and includes all its genes. Each genome contains all the information needed to create and maintain a human body. Both obese and lean children established their peak fat cell numbers during adolescence, with little change occurring during adulthood. Importantly, those who became obese during adolescence possessed billions more fat cells than their leaner counterparts. As the fat cell lasts about eight to ten years before dying, a natural process known as apoptosis, any extra fat cells that children develop increase their fat-storage capacity, which leads to obesity, and overweight teenagers will therefore have those billions of extra fat cells for the rest of their lives.

Belly fat is different from subcutaneous fat and is much more dangerous, as it contributes to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases.⁸ As can be seen in figure 1, belly fat lies underneath the tummy muscles. Because belly fat is firmer than subcutaneous fat, it pushes the abdominal muscles outward. These fat cells, residing deep in the abdomen, do not release their free fatty acids into the bloodstream but deliver them straight to the liver. In response, the liver produces other forms of fat, called triglyceride and cholesterol, which are then secreted into the circulation. When fat in a fat cell is broken down and transported into your blood, it is referred to as free fatty acid, whereas triglyceride is also a type of fat found in the blood and is used by the body for energy. High triglyceride and cholesterol levels are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Belly fat cells also have a greater blood supply than subcutaneous fat cells do, and thus can release fatty acids and hormones far more quickly. The good news is that, compared with subcutaneous fat cells, belly fat cells are far more responsive to circulating catecholamines. These are the major hormones for promoting fat release and fat burning, and they can be significantly elevated by interval sprinting exercise, as discussed in chapter 3. This means that belly fat is easier to lose than subcutaneous fat.

How Belly Fat Accumulates

Belly fat accumulation is influenced by a number of factors, such as possessing high levels of fat-storing hormones and low levels of fat-burning hormones; being sedentary; and having a genetic predisposition to developing belly fat. Eating too much processed food is also related to increases in belly fat and is covered in more detail in chapter 4. Other factors affecting belly fat development accumulation include age, ethnicity, and lifestyle.

Figure 1. Abdominal stores of subcutaneous and belly fat (visceral fat)

Fat-Storing Hormones

Cortisol, a hormone that is secreted into the blood by the adrenal gland atop each kidney, is typically elevated during moments of stress. When blood cortisol levels increase, the amount of sugar in the blood also increases, which results in a corresponding rise in insulin. Having elevated levels of cortisol and insulin in the blood encourages fat storage and impedes fat burning. This means that high levels of stress increase the concentrations of the two hormones, leading to reduced fat release and increased belly fat stores. Cortisol may also contribute to leptin resistance, which means that people eat more, since fat cells discharge the satiety hormone to tell the brain we are full.

Fat-Burning Hormones

The catecholamines are epinephrine (or adrenaline) and norepinephrine (or noradrenaline) and are secreted into the blood by the adrenal glands. Norepinephrine is also released at nerve endings. Blood catecholamine levels gradually increase through the night and typically peak around eleven o’clock in the morning. Catecholamine-induced fat mobilization occurs much more in belly fat than in subcutaneous fat.

Unfortunately, this catecholamine-induced release of fat is suppressed in obese individuals. This suppression occurs at a young age, as it is present in obese teenagers and children, whose mobilization of triglyceride stores by epinephrine was decreased by 30 percent during rest. This inability to mobilize lipids increases the amount of fat depots in our bodies and can lead to abdominal obesity. Its cause is undetermined but appears to be influenced by defective fat cell receptors. Receptors are specialized proteins located on the outside of cells that allow communication between the cell and the body. Another fat-burning hormone is growth hormone, which is produced by the brain’s pituitary gland. Insulin slows down growth hormone release, so people with high levels of insulin in their blood typically have lower levels of growth hormone. Having problems with the thyroid gland can also result in increased belly fat accumulation. The thyroid, an endocrine gland located at the base of the neck, releases a hormone called T-3 (thyroid hormone), which elevates our metabolic rate. Metabolic rate is the amount of energy expended daily at rest. In addition, together with catecholamines and growth hormone, it prompts cells to release more fat. Hypothyroidism occurs when the thyroid gland produces too little T-3 or cells’ T-3 receptors become insensitive. Low thyroid levels can contribute to elevated fat deposition and can cause an increase in belly fat stores, and they are often accompanied by elevated low-grade inflammation, as hypothyroid individuals have been shown to possess increased levels of Creactive protein, an inflammatory chemical, in their blood.

Genetic Influences

Over the past three decades, researchers have discovered genetic markers that contribute to increased body weight and waist circumference; however, no single gene has been found to cause obesity. A genetic marker is an altered gene or DNA sequence that indicates an elevated risk of developing a specific disease or health problem. Specific genes related to obesity have been identified; among them are a number of single-gene mutations that play a part in the development of obesity in teenagers and young adults. This means we now know that genes affect belly fat development when influenced by factors such as physical inactivity, nutrient intake, and metabolic status.

Lifestyle Factors That Influence Belly Fat Accumulation

Many lifestyle factors impact belly fat, but perhaps the most important (after diet and exercise) are age, drinking alcohol, ethnicity, smoking, stress, and sleep. Exposure to daily stressors and reduced quality of