Be Clean…Be Lean…

Our body is made up of 2 types of fat. I spoke of visceral fat before but really did not touch on the type that is subcutaneous. This fat is the one found just under the skin and it’s the culprit that causes dimpling and god forbid, cellulite. You may know that visceral fat on the other hand is the one that surrounds your vital organs and is prominent mainly in the abdomen.

For diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and stroke, visceral fat is a strong player. It is often times called a “beer belly” but being thin does not exonerate you from its effects.

Fat cells are an active and intelligent part of your body. Say what? Fat is intelligent?

Fat cells are responsible for producing hormones that impact your brain, liver, immune system and even your ability to reproduce.

What’s more, the hormones your fat cells produce impact how much you eat and how much fat you burn.

It’s leptin that sends signals to reduce hunger, increases fat burning and reduces fat storage. But this works only if every cell’s cell phone line is communicating properly with speaker on to hear the message.

Now eating a diet high in sugar and grains will increase inflammation in your body because as the sugar gets metabolized in fat cells, fat releases surges in leptin. This state is not good because over time, if your body is exposed to too much leptin, it will become resistant to it just as your body can become resistant to insulin.

When you become leptin-resistant, your body can no longer hear the messages telling it to stop eating and burn fat — so it remains hungry and stores more fat.

Leptin-resistance also causes an increase in visceral fat, sending you on a vicious cycle of hunger, fat storage and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and more.

Belly Fat and Inflammation are Caused by the Same Things

Now reducing the risk of heart disease, and a host of other chronic diseases is one key to keeping your inflammation levels low, and avoiding gaining visceral fat in your body.

So how do you do this?

First of all drugs are not the answer. More simply, avoid eating pro-inflammatory foods such as sugar, soda, alcohol, bread (grains) and trans fats. Foods that will reduce inflammation are fruits and vegetables, omega-3 fats and certain spices like ginger.

The next piece critical to your reducing inflammation is exercise. Exercise is also one of the best weapons to fight visceral fat.

Remember, you can be thin, underweight even, and still have dangerous visceral fat around your organs. If you are thin, but rarely exercise, you will have visceral fat around the organs. And if you have a beer belly or a lot of fat around your midsection, you can also bet on the fact that you’re holding onto visceral fat.

The good news is that exercise can drastically reduce any visceral fat, and quickly too.

But there is also another weapon that you can add to your arsenal of fat fighting which is not often talked about by researchers and doctors and that is to cleanse. Cleansing has been proven to allow the body to release the fat cells which are holding on to the toxins. So, get rid of toxins and bye, bye fat cells.

Staying healthy does not have to be a hard thing to do. And it can all start with cleansing.

I did and still do and each month I see improvements, especially where fat deposits used to make a big bulge hanging over my jeans at the waist. Now that’s gone. Yeah!