Preventing a beer belly: What rules you should follow to avoid getting a gut later
Created: 11/16/2022, 8:30 p.m
By: Juliane Gutmann
Not only men can develop a beer belly.
Women are also affected.
You can not only prevent the unsightly stomach by abstaining from alcohol.
A beer belly is usually not exclusively due to beer consumption.
Too much high-calorie food combined with too little exercise is the main reason for fat accumulation around the abdomen.
Too little sleep and too much stress are also factors that promote obesity and a beer belly, according to health insurance company
AOK
.
How excess weight is distributed in the body is a matter of type.
Where some store fat mainly on the stomach, for others it is the legs and buttocks that become more voluminous.
It's not just men who are prone to fat deposits on their stomachs.
Many women are also affected.
Barmer
Krankenkasse
informs that age and genes influence whether and how quickly someone develops visceral abdominal fat.
The main causes, however, are an unbalanced diet and too little exercise.
Visceral fat is the fat that covers the internal organs.
This type of fat storage is considered to be particularly harmful to health because it promotes the development of fatty liver, heart problems, stroke, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and even dementia, according to the
Barmer
health insurance company.
If the shirt doesn't fit anymore, too much beer could be the cause behind it.
© Imago
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Alcohol increases feelings of hunger
The term “beer belly” is no coincidence: beer and other alcoholic beverages contain many calories and the ethanol they contain slows down fat loss.
As the
AOK
informs, in addition to many calories, beer also contains bitter substances that increase appetite and can promote obesity in this way.
In addition to water, alcohol also removes minerals from the body, the loss of which the organism tries to compensate for, according to the
AOK
.
The desire for hearty and salty dishes increases.
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How to stop a beer belly from growing
The following tips will help prevent a beer belly from developing:
Consider the basal metabolic rate
: Only consume as much energy as you actually need.
The basal metabolic formula tells you how many calories you need every day.
Less Alcohol
: Beer, wine, and spirits are high in calories and sluggish your metabolism, which promotes the storage of belly fat.
Get as much exercise as possible
: muscle mass increases the basal metabolic rate and burns more calories than other tissues.
This prevents obesity.
Targeted abdominal training also allows muscles to grow in places where fat deposits otherwise form during inactivity.
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Get enough sleep
: If you don't get enough sleep, you tend to store fat in your abdomen, the
editorial network Germany
quotes from a study.
Reduce stress
: Nutritionist Hardy Walle is convinced that stress is partly responsible for a stubborn fat belt around the stomach.
He told the news portal
Focus
that stress and the associated, permanently high cortisol levels slow down fat loss on the stomach.