How To Lose Belly Fat Naturally Without Exercise

how to lose belly fat naturally without exercise whether your goal is just to

get a little bit flatter belly for the beach or if you want to lose some of

that intra-abdominal belly fat that's associated with metabolic syndrome and a

whole range of different degenerative diseases we're going to talk about the

mechanisms how it works what won't work so that you understand how to do it

right so you can get healthy and reach your goal coming right up

I'm doctor Ekberg I'm a holistic doctor and a former Olympic decathlete and if

you want to truly master health by understanding how the body really works

make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you don't

miss anything so I wanted to do this video because I saw some other videos

that were just so full of nonsense that suggested that or we'll just do these

exercises for seven days and you will have a flat belly and they showed all

these ridiculous before-and-after pictures so it gets people into the

wrong idea of what's required and what works so when I say that you can do it

without exercise that doesn't mean that you want to do it without exercise it

just means that the exercise that most people suggest is not going to get you a

flatter belly and it is not going to get you healthier it's not going to reverse

the underlying mechanisms some people are looking for that six-pack look or

they just want to tone look and other people are looking to get rid of that

Apple shape where they don't have a waist where most of the weight sits in

the mid section which is a very unhealthy place because that

intra-abdominal fat is the result of insulin resistance and because of that

it is driving you toward metabolic syndrome with high blood pressure high

cholesterol obesity diabetes etc so that's what we want to avoid now first

let's just look a little bit at the anatomy

this so some people suggest that all will just do some sit-ups let's that's

how you get that sit six-pack first you have your abdominal cavity with your

vital organs with your intestines and then you can have the intra-abdominal

fat which is the visceral fat it's fat intermingle it's filling out the spaces

between the abdominal organs and it's supposed to be there but it's not

supposed to grow huge it's not we're not supposed to have a lot of fat there and

then you have your subcutaneous fat that's the outer layer and in order for

you to have a six-pack that needs to be really really thin so that the muscle

can show through and then the muscle itself

it's called rectus abdominis that's the flat belly that that's the six-pack look

that muscle is only about 3/8 of an inch thick so if it's not showing you're not

going to be able to exercise that muscle and make it show it's not about the

muscle you're not going to be able to do sit-ups or core strength and have that

show through an inch and a half of belly fat so even if you were to double that 3

and 1/8 inches or about 10 millimeters it's not going to make a whole lot of

difference I'm sure there's some bodybuilders that have more than the 3/8

of an inch but the key is that exercising the muscle is not gonna make

it show through the fat and it's not gonna burn fat specifically there it's

not like the the nutrients for that muscle comes from that fat that's just

not the way it works energy is processed systemically and

you're not going to burn more in one place just because you exercise that

area so I just want to dispel some of that and some of those myths so it

doesn't mean that exercise is bad I think you should do core strength I just

think you should exercise I think you should go for walks because it's good

for your brain it's good for circulation it's good for hormones just get out

the mindset that you can get a six-pack by doing crunches and exercise if you

are a bodybuilder and you already have very very low belly fat and subcutaneous

fat then obviously getting a little bit more tone in that muscle can make the

6-pack show a little more but for most people that's not where it's at so for

most people it's not about crunches it's about reversing the underlying mechanism

of what put that fat there in the first place I want to bring to your attention

something about body shape that's gonna make a lot of sense to you

there's something called Cushing's disease or Cushing's syndrome also known

as hypercortisolism and this is where they have a pathology it's usually a

pituitary tumor the pituitary is a hormonal gland and it produces hormones

to stimulate a bunch of other glands and one of the glands they stimulate are the

adrenals so if you have a tumor then that gland can put out an excessive

amount a pathological amount of adrenal stimulating hormone so now the adrenals

just go to work and they're cranking out cortisol around the clock and as a

result the body type gets a very particular very characteristic shape so

these people are gonna have a lot of belly fat the cortisol creates belly fat

and they're gonna have a lot of intra-abdominal fat and they're gonna

have a lot of subcutaneous fat but it mostly it just starts growing in the

midsection they're also going to have thin legs the muscles are gonna be eaten

away from their legs so they got thin skinny legs they're gonna have a flat

butt they're gonna have stretch marks they're gonna have easy bruising and

also in addition to the belly they're going to put fat in one more place and

that's at the top of the back of the upper back called the Buffalo Hump all

of these are very characteristic marks of Cushing's disease but if

you think and if you look around and you think about how many people do I know

that kind of sort of looks like this that they may not have a full-blown

Cushing's but they look a lot like that and the reason they look a lot like that

is that they have a very high level of cortisol they have a very high level of

insulin so even though it's not a disease it's not a pathology

they have just through lifestyle through stress and sugar they have driven their

body like halfway to Cushing's and if you think about it this probably

describes a lot of people like maybe half the population over 50 here is

what's happening this is why they're gonna get that particular body shape

cortisol is a stress hormone whenever you have stress whenever you put an

increased demand on your body when your body has to defend itself it's going to

produce additional blood sugar if the cortisol is there to increase blood

sugar but it's not for the blood sugar itself it's to provide additional fuel

for the cell so cortisol puts the sugar into the blood and it's the liver

typically that makes that blood sugar it starts making it from glycogen that's

stored in the liver and then when it runs out of glycogen it's going to start

breaking down muscle or even before it runs out of glycogen because if there's

enough cortisol the body is just gonna pull glucose resources from anywhere it

can so it breaks down glycogen from the liver it breaks down muscle protein to

make glucose the glucose goes into the blood glucose the blood sugar increases

and now we have more blood sugar to go to the muscles to handle the stress to

wherever the body needs the resources whether it's real or imagined but now we

also need insulin to get that sugar out of the bloodstream and into the cell to

deliver it to its target the other thing that cortisol does is it

inflammation so there's a drug there's a synthetic version of cortisol called

cortisone or prednisone and people can get this as a medication and now they

give it to reduce systemic inflammation so people with rheumatoid arthritis or

inflammatory diseases of various kinds they get prednisone if they have pain

from inflammation they get cortisone or prednisone if people have swollen

inflamed joints they get cortisone injections and what that does of course

it reduces inflammation why does it do that why does cortisol stop inflammation

because when you're in a fight flight your body is concerned with survival in

this moment and inflammation is part of the healing process that takes place

after your back to safety so right now we're trying to survive tomorrow we're

gonna worry about inflammation and healing when we're safe so in the acute

stage cortisol shuts down inflammation and that's why this is used as an

anti-inflammatory drug but of course what this drug does it increases blood

sugar it increases insulin it makes people gain weight in the midsection and

make people swell up it makes people pre-diabetic and so forth we also said

that cortisol breaks down protein it's destructive to protein so this is why

these people are gonna get thin legs because it breaks down the large muscle

groups first they're gonna get a flat butt because that's another large muscle

group the skin also has protein in the collagen so when we break down that

protein now we get stretch marks because the skin is not as strong and elastic as

it used to be we bruise easily because the tissue is very fragile so any little

bump we get we're going to break the tissue and get a bruise because cortisol

broke down the protein so all of these body type characteristics and and the

bruising and the stretch marks is because of cortisol

so if we have a lifestyle where we start looking like this then chances are

really really high that we have excess cortisol so when I saw all these videos

to talk about a flat stomach and nine exercises to a flat stomach in seven

days and so forth it really is frustrating because they

give people the wrong idea they give people false hope

they give people the idea that if they don't end up with a flat stomach then

they're just not trying hard enough and then they get guilty but there is no

quick fix you're not going to turn this around in nine days or three weeks or

overnight like these videos suggest so do we want to do exercise yes and we've

talked about that in other videos or sit-ups gonna do it no our sit-ups good

yes do some core strength do some sit-ups do some crunches because it's

good to have a strong core that fires up and strengthens the brain so what kind

of exercise do you want to do well aerobics are good except and please

understand this the thing we call aerobics is not aerobic exercise when

you go to a spin class when you go to an aerobics class with an instructor with

an upbeat music tempo that encourages you that motivates you to go faster and

faster and sweat and huff and puff and that is not aerobic exercise that's an

aerobic exercise and again we've talked about these in other videos that if you

huff and puff now you're making cortisol you are making this worse so exercise is

good but if you exercise and you trigger additional cortisol now you are

depositing additional body fat you are triggering cortisol to raise blood sugar

that will trigger insulin and the insulin and the cortisol are going to

put the weight right back where you started from so if you have anything

like this body type or if you have anything like adrenal fatigue

then do not do any exercise where you huff and puff and the only exception is

high-intensity interval training which you can do a little bit and watch those

videos to understand that part so if we have intra-abdominal fat or if

we have a large amount of subcutaneous fat that's a result of hormones and the

exercise cannot be in such a way as to stimulate those two hormones because

then you're gonna make it worse at best you'll be able to burn off a few

extra calories you will feel good because you sweated and you made some

hormones and so forth but now you just pushed your body back into carbohydrate

metabolism and you're gonna get cravings and you might be able to withstand those

cravings for a few days or a few weeks but because you're shifting your body to

a carb metabolism because you're not addressing the underlying issue you will

not be able to sustain it and then you feel guilty because you couldn't keep it

up so just don't go there we have to get over the idea of no pain no gain all

right pain is stress stress triggers cortisol and it will put us right back

in this situation the only time that there's some benefit to some pain with

exercise is if you're trying to get fit if you try to be at peak performance for

a specific event if you're gonna do Ironman or if you're doing something in

in track and field where you need to produce a lot of lactic acid in a short

period of time like 400 meters or 1500 meters then you're gonna have to go

through some pain to get really fit but if you're looking to be healthy there is

no need for that so how do we reverse the underlying mechanism we do the

things that will reduce insulin that will reduce cortisol step number one eat

less sugar go to a low carb high fat diet and even a ketogenic diet

on how insulin resistance you are depending on how long it's been there

most people will benefit from being in ketosis a good amount of the time some

people don't necessarily need to go there all the time but I think it's a

great place to see how it works for you and then maybe alternate between keto

and and low carb you want to combine it with intermittent fasting because sugar

and carbohydrate are the root cause that drive the insulin and eating

carbohydrates and sugar many times a day will stimulate sugar storage fat storage

many times a day so intermittent fasting is where you eat less carb in fact you

eat zero carbs when you're fasting and you're eating fewer meals so you're

stimulating this process fewer times you're giving it a chance to reverse

itself so these are tools that you can use low carb keto and intermittent

fasting they're increasing power in that order so low carb is powerful keto is

more powerful intermittent fasting is most powerful then you want to add some

low intensity exercise meaning truly aerobic exercise when you are not

huffing and puffing if you go for a walk if you go for an easy bike ride or if

you're rollerblading if you're not huffing and puffing you are keeping up

your breathing slowly that's aerobic with air and when you're aerobic when

you're providing oxygen at a rate that you can metabolize fuel your body burns

primarily fat especially if your fat adapted then the vast majority of fuel

is going to come from fat and that's what you want you want to lose the belly

fat as soon as you start huffing and puffing you switch from burning fat to

burning carbohydrates and it's not like you're burning a hundred percent of one

and zero of the other and vice versa but it's the dominance so in aerobic

exercise you burn predominantly fat in huffing and puffing and aerobic exercise

you predominantly carbohydrate and sugar so

low intensity exercise is the key and that's where you want to spend a lot of

time you can do that 30 minutes a day if you have time and you feel like it

then you can do it 60 or 90 or 120 minutes a day

it is not fatiguing it's not exhausting because you're operating within your

threshold within your capacity for aerobic training so you have infinite

fuel you have all the oxygen in the world and you have all the fat on your

body to provide fuel for that you're not gonna run out of fuel then you want to

add a little bit of hit high-intensity interval training and here we're talking

very very high intensity so there's a little bit of pain maybe but you're

doing it for such a short time it's just fun to push yourself a little bit we're

talking seconds you do 15 20 30 seconds at a time

you relax rest for a few seconds and then you hit it again and you only do

that four or five times to get your heart rate up close to your maximum and

then you're done the whole workout is like five minutes and what that does it

does produce cortisol but it does it for such a short period of time that it

doesn't affect your overall situation and the benefits is that you increase

your growth hormone by three to four hundred percent and growth hormone is

muscle sparing and it is fat burning all right so if you can make three to four

times more growth hormone then you're gonna accomplish both of those goals you

kind of do the opposite of what the court is all does so yes you're gonna

produce cortisol during the hit but the cortisol is for a few minutes the growth

hormone lasts for days and the other thing that's going to produce a lot of

growth hormone is fasting so doing these two together is going to put you in the

best place possible for growth hormone number 5 cortisol is produced in

response to stress so we could have stress from exercise

and aerobic huffing and puffing exercise but we can also have it from emotional

stress anytime that you feel frustrated tense upset angry etc overwhelmed you

are in stress your body makes cortisol your blood sugar goes up and this blood

sugar is there for you to be able to deal with fight and flight for you to be

able to increase your energy energy expenditure to get out of a dangerous

situation but if you have emotional stress from your lifestyle situation

when you're sitting in traffic if you have too many deadlines if the kids are

screaming and you feel stressed now you're making cortisol which raises

blood sugar but you're not going to do any additional exercise in that moment

to use up the glucose so now that excess glucose gets into the cell by insulin

and you're not going to use it so it gets turned back into fat so cortisol

turns sugar into fat cortisol turns protein into fat and where does it

gather up where does it deposit in the midsection that's what cortisol does

stress management is enormous Lea important and for some people that might

be as important as doing all the other stuff together so we want to understand

that there are can be multiple components and for different people they

could be the primary the key one could be different for different people so we

want to optimize our chances we do all of them of course that's just how it

works if something makes you healthier then do all of those things so how do

you get rid of belly fat by reversing the underlying mechanism and can you do

it without exercise yes would you want to know because exercise is not optional

but you want to do it without the wrong kind of exercise because the wrong kind

of exercise will perpetuate the problem if you enjoyed this video you're going

to love this video thank you so much for watching and I'll see

you next time