Top 10 LIES About Belly Fat People Still Believe
Hello Health Champions Today we're going to talk about the top 10 lies about belly fat that
people still believe and why is it so critically important that we understand this because belly
fat isn't just a nuisance it can even be a matter of life and death and with all the myths and lies
and misconceptions floating around how are you going to solve the problem if you don't understand
how it works how who are you going to trust if you don't know how it works and first of all there's
two kinds of belly fat there's subcutaneous and there's visceral and there's a difference in terms
of health aspect here so we have a muscle first of all and then we have outside of the muscle we
have some fat and then outside of the fat we have some skin so subcutaneous simply means under the
skin so it's between the skin and the muscle but then the one we're really concerned with is the
intraabdominal that's inside the muscle and it's also known as visceral fat and why do we care more
about visceral fat because it is associated with metabolic disease it's caused by metabolic disease
and we're finding out more and more that virtually all chronic degenerative disease such as type 2
diabetes and cardiovascular disease and stroke and even cancer is caused by metabolic disease
which means that if you have a bunch of this belly fat the intraabdominal or visceral belly fat then
you may be a candidate you may be at higher risk so belly fat is not the only thing that causes
cancer and heart disease and so forth but it is a common factor and the the first lie is that
thin people are safe we believe as a culture that if you're skinny you got nothing to worry about
thin is healthy and yes very often thin people are healthier than overweight people but it's not that
clearcut so even thin people can be relatively fat there's something called skinny fat so when
you're wearing clothes and on the outside you look relatively lean but you still have quite a bit of
body fat and even if you have a fair amount of muscle you still could have something called
nonalcoholic fatty liver disease which means that you are starting to get metabolic disease you have
fatty infiltration of the liver and it used to be that the only thing that could cause that was
alcohol but today by far the most common cause is sugar and specifically fructose and a lot of lot
of these people will have type 2 diabetes or be on their way to type 2 diabetes even though they look
relatively thin they might have just the tiniest little pot belly beginning that you don't even
really think about when they're wearing clothes but this would not be a healthy person line number
two is that belly fat is inevitable with age that once you reach a certain age 50 or 60 then
you just have to have it and maybe you've been told by a doctor or by a well-meaning relative
that hey don't worry about it you've just reached that age there's nothing you can do about it well
inevitable is not the same as that it tends to increase with age it's just much more common and
therefore we believe that that's the way it has to be but it's not so all that means is that the
bad stuff people do to get belly fat the older you get the more time you've had had to do bad stuff
and then eventually your barriers sort of break down you have body has a certain resistance and
a certain capacity to handle things but if you do something long enough finally the Dam breaks and
I have a part two be on this also because a lot of people also believe that when you do have the
belly fat and you're older then it's impossible to turn it around it's irreversible you're stuck with
it and again that's a myth that's a lie because everything is an adaptation you've done certain
things for a long time and the body adapt to it but if you reverse the things that you did and
you take certain action then you can reverse that adaptation as well line number three is a calorie
is a calorie and if you believe that then you also believe that all belly fat and all weight
gain is just overeating that it's just that simple you just have to eat less and exercise more and
you're going to take care of the problem and these people really have no understanding about what's
happening in the body when they say things like that so let's just compare if you eat 500 calories
of jelly beans versus if you eat 500 calories of chicken wings and just look at some of the very
very basic mechanisms here so this is your blood sugar and your body needs to maintain a certain
level of blood sugar for you to feel good to fuel the brain and certain metabolic processes and if
it gets too high or if it gets too low that's very dangerous you can get into a coma if it's high or
low so the body really wants to keep it in there but what happens if you eat 500 calories of jelly
beans now your blood sugar is going to do that and then your body is going to to release some insulin
to bring it back down that's a hormone that takes care of blood sugar and because you release so
much insulin to respond to that huge blood sugar Spike it's going to come down crashing very very
quickly and very often it's going to overshoot a little bit so now you have what's called
hypoglycemia and when you have hypoglycemia it's really important for the body to bring it back up
so first of all your body releases cortisol which is a stress hormone to raise blood sugar so this
is very stressful and unnatural to the body first of all but then what happens you ate 500 calories
and it can't stay in the bloodstream so the body has to take care of it very very quickly so it
forces it into the cell but the cell says hey I've got all I can handle I'm already full from
your previous meal now what's going to happen is this gets converted to fat that's the second job
of insulin and so you eat 500 calories you use a little bit maybe 100 calories during this time
period but 400 or so gets stored and or turned into fat and what happens then is now you're
super hungry because your blood sugar is low and you have stored away everything as fat and with
high insulin you can't get to it so first of all the jelly beans causes these calories to
be stored and converted as fat secondly they make you more hungry so let's compare that and contrast
with what would happen if you ate 500 calories of chicken wings chicken wings have no sugar
they have mostly fat and protein they don't raise blood sugar they don't Tre trigger insulin so now
instead you are going to have an extremely slow and moderate rise in blood sugar and then it's
going to come down and it's not going to crash down and overshoot so one more thing that happens
here is here you're going to have the spike very very early on with the chicken wings it's going to
be not a spice it's just going to be like a slight elevation and it's going to come much later so
when you eat the chicken wings or if it's a meat Patty with some lettuce or whether it's sardines
or something that just doesn't have a bunch of sugar but it's higher in fat and protein now it's
broken down and absorb so much slower that you're not going to store hardly any of it because you're
going to use it at the same slow pace that it's being released and absorbed so when people say a
calorie is a calorie they really don't know what they're talking about and in addition to what we
just talked about there's also differences there are genetic factors there are stress and lack of
sleep lack of sleep as a form of stress and all of these things will affect your hormones and hormon
hormes will change your behavior hormones will change what happens to the food it will change
your behavior in terms of hunger and when you go and eat next and the fourth lie is that
eating fat leads to belly fat people believe that whatever you see on the body must have come from
that same thing so there's the saying you are what you eat right I'm sure you've heard that
and it's one of those that if you hear it enough times then then it becomes true just because it's
a saying and we've heard it so many times then there is no disputing it but I have a little bit
of problem with that so then if you are what you eat then how can this grass turn into that when a
cow how can a cow eat grass and turn something into something that is full of saturated fat
and cholesterol because there's no cholesterol in grass and there's virtually no fat so what happens
is that it's the bacteria in the cow's gut in the rumin that can break these down and turn them into
fatty acids and amino acids that become the tissue of the cow and that becomes the steak so the point
being if the cow has a bunch of saturated fat and it didn't come from saturated fat then maybe
the fat on your body doesn't come from fat either and that's exactly how it works it's a conversion
it's a biotransformation and again it's the insulin that we just talked about the insulin
is the thing that converts things to fat and that stores the fat another interesting thing that most
people don't realize is that there is about 50% saturated fatty acids in beef fat but there is
over 40% about 42% of monounsaturated fatty acids and that's the good stuff that's the one everyone
agrees that the monounsaturated also known as OIC acid or olive oil is super healthy that's
like the best fat and almost half of the fat in the steak is actually the same fat as an olive
oil which interestingly is a higher percentage than most vegetable oils sold so soybean oil for
example is only like 20 30% monounsaturated fatty acids and also very interestingly is that humans
store approximately the same ratio not exactly the same it's going to vary a little bit but pretty
much along those lines is the type of fat that we have in the body as well and guess what it doesn't
matter if you're a vegan or if you're a carnivore or if you're a frugivore who only eat fruit the
fat on your body and you all have some is going to be approximately something along those ratios and
that's just the way that mammals store fat it's just the most convenient and the most efficient
way to store extra energy on the body so next time someone tells you that eating fat causes belly
fat remember that it's the insulin that causes the storage of fat and insulin is triggered by
things that raise blood sugar and dietary fat does not raise blood sugar it's negligible if any and
therefore the insulin response is also negligible on the flip side of that is the lie that the best
way to get rid of belly fat is to eat low fat and no fat foods and I don't have a problem with
things like lettuce and non starchy vegetables which are very low in carbohydrate they virtually
no impact on blood sugar but they're also very low fats those are still perfectly fine what
I'm talking about are foods that are normally high in fat but we have produced lowfat versions we're
talking about lowfat milk lowfat cheese and cream cheese Alternatives lowfat yogurt lowfat sour
cream lowfat salad dressings lowfat peanut butter because here's what you have to think about if
these things normally have a lot of fat and that's why we like them by the way that's why they're
so delicious and so creamy and so yummy and satisfying and now they take out the main thing
that gives these Foods their character what's left well not very much so first they process them and
ruin them and take out the valuable thing but now the food is incredibly boring and they have
to add something to make it tasty and have the right mouth feel and so forth so now you start
with a worthless food and then you add things like sugar and artificial flavor and thickening
agents and emulsifiers and mono and diglycerides and polydextrose and MSG so what you're getting
really is a chemical concoction that is mixed in with this destroyed food and now it's going to
happen because it's not satisfying at all the way the original food was full of fat and had
very very satiating effect now it doesn't satisfy but instead they've added a bunch of sugar so now
you spike your blood sugar and it makes you eat more of this useless tasteless food so do yourself
a favor and just eat the original version the way nature intended it but then we can take this carb
thing too far also and I've done a lot of videos where I talk about how carbohydrates are not
essential you can live perfectly fine without them there's no such thing as an essential carbohydrate
but it also doesn't mean that carbohydrates are evil in every form and that zero is always better
than a little bit but it also doesn't mean that we want to trust the mainstream recommendations
and eat 65% of our calories as carbohydrates primarily from grain fruits and vegetables we
need to understand what the difference is between these because they're all carbohydrates so what is
the difference and what makes a bad carbohydrate well bad carbohydrates they Spike blood sugar they
change how you feel they have druglike effects they make you hungrier they're Comfort foods
you eat them for the purpose of changing how you feel many of them contain sugar which has fructose
they're heavily processed and as a result these foods make you hungry these are bad carbohydrates
so which ones of these will do that well grains is definitely going to spike blood sugar most
bread sold also has sugar added which means it contains fructose and therefore both sugar and
wheat actually has the capacity to change how you feel they can fit into opiate receptors in
the brain and create drug-like effects so there are differences there are breads that are not as
bad as others but overall we want to avoid grains if you have belly fat and you're trying to get
rid of it then grain is not your friend and then we have fruits and I put a question mark on that
because it's going to depend on the person and it's going to depend on what type of fruit so if
you have belly fat or diabetes and you're trying to get rid of it then I would avoid all fruit
except some berries black berries blueberries raspberries strawberries are fine a little bit
here and there if you are happy with your amount of belly fat then you can probably have a couple
of fruits per day and it's not going to mess any anything up but don't buy into the slogan
of eating more fruits and vegetables more fruits and vegetables as if more was always better it's
better than some junk food but it doesn't mean that you get healthier the more fruit you eat you
can tolerate some but everything that you want to get from fruits all those plant factors you
can get from vegetables and the good vegetables are things like non-starchy vegetables and leaf
leafy greens non-starchy would be things like broccoli cauliflower brussel sprouts asparagus
Etc and those vegetables get a big green check mark because they don't do any of the things that
the bad carbs do and I know that there are some carnivores who feel that zero carbohydrate is
better than a few grams but it doesn't work like that because protein will stimulate more insulin
and more blood sugar than these non-starchy vegetables will do in fact they might have
one or two or three grams of sugar but it is so tightly embedded into the cellular structure that
you probably won't even ever get to absorb it you probably chew it and swallow and it goes through
your digestive tract and it's get picked up uh along the way you absorb some but a lot of it gets
left for your gut bacteria and that's the biggest reason why you want to eat some vegetables that
they have stuff that your gut bacteria need line number seven is that if you want to lose belly fat
then you're going to have to get used to eating a lot of really boring Foods so a lot of diets have
things like rice cakes and sawdust muffins if you ever had one of those where you take a bite
and your mouth gets so dry that you need a whole pitcher of water just to choke the darn thing down
and afterwards you wonder why you even ate it in the first place because it tasted so boring and
then we have things like skinless chicken breast with dry rice but you can relax because not only
do you not have to eat that type of food that type of food is not even really that good to lose
belly fat because a lot of it has carbohydrates so instead you want to eat real food you want to eat
things like Steak and Fish and chicken you want to eat full fat eggs cheese and sour cream you want
to eat the yolk with the eggs and you can eat as much non-starchy vegetables as you like you can
put some butter on them you can steam them you can put them bake them in the oven you can eat nuts
and seeds and you can have natural whole fats like butter olive oil and coconut oil which are mostly
saturated or mono saturated and therefore are very shelf stable and they won't cause oxidative stress
or inflammation in your body and then you can make Rich creamy sauces and eat that with your
steak and your vegetables and it's going to take a little while before you get used to this type
of food but it is so delicious and so rewarding every meal becomes a gourmet meal after a while
and what you find is because these food are more concentrated and because you don't spike your
blood sugar you will not get as hungry you will not eat as many meal once you start eating this
way you'll find that eating once or twice a day becomes much more natural than eating a little bit
all the time and number eight is that if you want to lose belly fat then the vegan diet would be the
best because a lot of people have had success with that but believe it or not there is the opposite
of vegan which is the carnivore diet which has also helped a tremendous number of people so what
we need to understand is it depends on the person and it's not really about which Camp you decide to
be in it's about can you eat under these diets and eat satiating food and yes you absolutely can can
you eat Foods in a way that stabilize your blood sugar yes absolutely can and can you eat these
types of foods and eat whole food as opposed to processed foods yes definitely so there are good
reasons why you might want to try a vegan or a carnivore but I believe that it is better in the
long run to eat a variety of foods and one reason to not eat vegan forever would be that a lot of
vegan not all of them but a lot of them develop various deficiencies over time and one reason
that you wouldn't want to do carnivore forever is that a lot of Health has been associated with gut
bacteria they've found that the healthiest people have the widest diversity of gut bacteria and when
you eat carnivore you're not really feeding those gut bacteria much at all so like I said I think
there good reasons to try either one but I don't believe you should be on it forever so try it for
30 to 90 days notice what the effects are see how you feel but even if you feel the best you've ever
felt which a lot of people will report both on vegan and carnivore I don't think that you want to
stay on it forever I think that you should try to introduce a range of foods after that time period
and then we get to the exercise lies and number nine says that if you want to lose belly fat then
you have to do a lot of crunches you have to do a lot of abdominal exercises and I'm sure you've
seen that there's a lot of videos on belly fat and about half of them are on diet and the other half
are on doing crunches pretty much but if you think that crunches is going to do the job if that's the
main way then you also believe in a religion called spot reduction and that religion says
that if you exercise a muscle then you will also burn the fat on top of that muscle and that is
completely false there is no vascular connection there is no way for that muscle to affect that
fat or for that fat to burn because you're using that muscle it just doesn't work like that and the
other type of exercise that's often promoted is cardio that you need to do long long sessions of
cardio whether it's running or whether it's doing spin classes or aerobics or something like that
but let's look at what exercise actually does is it of any benefit an exercise can assist a
little bit but it's not the main thing so it can work to the extent that it uses up some glucose
and if you use up the glucose the muscles will basically suck up the glucose without needing
insulin or without needing as much insulin and then because there's less insulin released there's
going to be less tendency for fat storage you're assisting your body toward insulin sensitivity as
smidgen but that intense exercise also needs to not increase hunger and what happens to a
lot of people when they exercise intensely their body starts craving carbohydrate because because
they used it all up because it was such high level and now they get more cravings and more appetite
and they kind of shoot themselves in the foot so what you instead want to do is you want to realize
that simple things like walking will actually burn fat directly you still have an energy expenditure
that you can sustain for a longer period of time without causing stress hormones or ink increasing
carbohydrate or sugar Cravings another great thing to do is weightlifting because if you push
yourself a little bit with weightlifting then you will make a whole lot more growth hormone
both to make muscle but also to burn fat probably also not increasing appetite as much as you would
with cardio and another form of training is hit or high-intensity interval trainings again some
people confuse cardio and hit and they think you can do cardio for 45 minutes and call it hit if
you have intense periods in there that's not hit hit is very very short term high intensity you
can do something for 30 seconds to a minute and you can repeat that three four five times but
the whole point is just to get your heart rate up really really high or you can do hit with
weightlifting if you do a few sets to maximum capacity where you basically fail during that
set during that weightlift attempt now you're also pushing the body to make extra growth
hormone and don't get me wrong I'm a huge fan of exercise exercise is absolutely necessary it's
not optional it will improve the function of every physiological process in your body you cannot have
Optimal Health you cannot express optim physiology without exercise but it's not going to be the main
thing to help you lose belly fat if you enjoyed this video you're going to love that one and if
you truly want to master Health by understanding how the body really works make sure you subscribe
hit that Bell and turn on all the notifications so you never miss a life-saving video