Belly Fat – A Silent Killer

He's so past "pinch an inch"... but what can he do?

Without question, the most common type of regional fat storage is belly fat. If this isn’t you, it’s someone you know.

Abdominal fat storage obviously has a lot to do with your diet and overall body fat level; that should be obvious but it never hurts to touch on it.

Outside of that, it’s hormones baby, hormones.

The one we’re talking about here is cortisol. This hormone has been in the media a lot the past few years, and I’ve talked about it a bit, so by now you know that cortisol is sometimes called a “stress” hormone.

That moniker is more appropriate than you know.

Basically, that means your body will produce cortisol (and encourage belly fat storage) under conditions of nearly any type of stress-both emotional and physical. So to combat cortisol, it’s not enough to just get more sleep or stop drunk dialing your ex-girlfriend. (Although that helps, I’ve heard.)

Instead, it is of far greater effect to combat cortisol through resistance training.

Now, if you’re observant, you may have noticed what seems to be a contradiction.

As I said, cortisol is also produced through physical stress. In fact, training is actually one of the primary means through which your body will produce this sneaky little hormone. Additionally, because cortisol has been linked to overtraining and has a catabolic (muscle wasting) effect, producing too much of it through training is certainly counterproductive.

It’s important to note, however, that long duration cardio and extended lifting sessions are what produce the most cortisol, and I always recommend against those.

Instead, short, intense training sessions using a particular type of training modality will help to counteract the effects of cortisol; both the muscle-wasting effect, and the cortisol related belly fat storage.

I’ll share that with you tomorrow.

In fact, tomorrow I’ll be sharing another entire article with you. In that article, I’ll teach you how to fight hormones with hormones. I’ll show you how to use specific types of training to combat the nefarious three hormonal nemeses by producing hormones that offset the effects of estrogen, insulin and cortisol.

Be on the look-out for “How to Conquer Your Hormonal Nemeses” tomorrow.

The below article is being reprinted with permission of John Romaniello and Final Phase Fat Loss