How to remove fat from our body it is one of the big questions, we have all raised at a given time. First, we must be aware that a certain amount of fat is essential to maintain body functions: the percentage of minimum or essential fat is 10% in men and 13% in women (4% and 6% respectively in the case of athletes).
We recently spoke about the percentage of body fat, their importance in front of the weight of our body and how we can measure it with a bioimpedance. However, not all fat we have in our body is the same. We are discussing the types of fat that can be found and how we can keep them in a suitable percentage.
The types of fat depending on where they are
“I is that I accumulate a lot of belly fat”, “for me is I usually go to the area of the thighs and buttocks”. And it is that not everyone accumulates fat in the same way. Just take a look at men and women we can see that there is a noticeable difference in gender, and the culprit is genetics: men tend to accumulate a lot of belly fat, while women tend to maintain a most in the hip area.
Depending on where this fat is found to accumulate in the body can distinguish between:
- Visceral fat: is the one that accumulate in the abdomen and is placed between the organs.
- Peripheral fat: is the one that accumulate in the extremities (arms and legs).
- Intermuscular fat: is located between the muscle fibers in a much less than the amount of the other two.
Of the first two, the more we are concerned, the most dangerous of them is visceral fat , which is much more common in men than in women (although we have the same risk from age 60), and is also the more difficult to remove.
What is visceral fat and why is it important?
Visceral fat is that which accumulates, as the name suggests, between the viscera in the abdomen, and can detect it by a bioimpedance or by measuring skinfold caliper made with by a professional. Other methods that can be used to meet our index of visceral fat are waist / hip and waist / height ratio index.
Visceral fat values are measured from 1-59: if bioimpedance, which is the method most commonly used to detect, giving us a value between 1 and 6 will have a normal rate of visceral fat. If the value is between 7 and 11 is a high value, while from 12 up and is a very high value.
Visceral fat is responsible for central obesity and is directly related to the risk of metabolic diseases such as hypertension or diabetes. It is also related to the risk of cardiovascular disease and other diseases such as respiratory problems, bone or joint. We must not think only of how visceral fat affects us now, but we must also consider how we can affect in the future.
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How these types of fat are removed?
The peripheral fat or subcutaneous usually the easiest to remove because it is in a surface region. It is the first fat that usually disappears when we started looking after eating properly and exercising. The visceral fat is usually tougher, so it is more difficult to remove.
Let’s see what we can do to keep these types of fat at bay:
- Strength training: strength training, either with external loads or our own body weight will help us, together with adequate food, to increase or maintain our muscle mass, fat burning is the best there is. If I want to lose fat in the legs I must focus only on leg exercises? No, and this is a common misconception. The fat is removed from the body in general, and it is not possible to eliminate localized fat with noninvasive procedures such as exercise. If you can see your muscles more toned if you do squat lower body, but localized fat does not go away with exercise.
- High intensity cardio training: the HIIT that you come naming a while. Science tells us that this type of training in which we combine short but very intense efforts a little longer breaks or recovery helps maintain muscle mass and increase metabolism even when we finished exercising. Combine 2 or 3 weekly sessions with strength training is ideal to get fit and to help remove body fat.
- Taking care of our food: added sugars and alcohol are the great enemies of fat in general and especially visceral fat. Our diet should be based on food, not processed products: increase consumption of fruits and vegetables (and, therefore, consumption of fiber), use healthy cooking methods (limit fried foods and opt for steaming, to grilled, en papillote …) and eliminate sugar and alcohol are good measures to take if we want to reduce our fat percentage.
- Change our lifestyle: this may be the most important. Of little use to run an hour in the gym if the day is spent sitting and not moving the least. Nor it is helpful to diet for two months a year if the rest of the time as inappropriately. Changing our habits to other more active and healthy eating, and make these part of our everyday lives forever is what we must do to see changes in our body.
