Why Your Weight Loss Isn’t Working and How to Fix It: 8 Stomach Fat Causes

8. Drinking Excessive Amounts of Alcohol

Consuming alcohol in small quantities is supposed to be good for you. Studies show how drinking in small amounts can lower a person’s blood pressure, as well as additional health benefits. However, as with most things, it is easy to overdo it. Alcohol in excess can actually cause people to gain weight, especially beer with a high number of calories. Most people know this is where beer guts come from. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), alcohol carries empty calories that metabolic systems prioritize over burning fat. When trying to cut down on liquid calories, consider these simple daily swaps:

7. Consuming Fried Foods

Fried food isn’t always cooked in low-fat oil. Some of the best tasting fried foods are deep fried in a vat full of oil or lard. Too much of this rather tasty food can not only be hard on your heart, but it can also increase your fat intake and cause fat to gather around your stomach area. Heavy oils slow down digestion and are dense in saturated fats, which easily accumulate when not offset by regular activity. If you frequently combine deep-fried items with fast food choices, the cumulative caloric density makes weight management significantly harder.

6. Eating Junk Food

Junk food is usually high in sugar or fat and sometimes both. Plus, the high amount of calories are known as ‘empty calories’ because they don’t provide any beneficial calories for you. For example, you can eat a pastry that contains 230 calories, but this total includes mostly fat, sugar, and sodium, which are only good for your body in small quantities. When you eat too much junk food you aren’t getting all the calories that count. Instead, you are taking in calories that are turned into fat when they enter the body in excess.

5. Taking in More Calories than You Can Use

Besides eating ‘empty calories’ it’s also possible to consume too many calories for the lifestyle you lead. The daily caloric intake for most people is between 1500 and 2500 and this depends on how active they are, their age, sex, and current weight. You only want to consume as many calories as your body can use, otherwise the extra calories are all turned into fat and stored. For reliable details on balancing energy intake, review the Mayo Clinic guidance on calorie balance. Understanding your baseline energy needs helps prevent unintentional weight gain caused by overeating even healthy foods.

4. High Carb Diet

Carbohydrates are another product that is turned to fat when the body can’t burn them all up. A small amount of carbohydrates are a good thing, but too many can be just as bad as eating lots of fat on its own. Refined carbs rapidly digest into glucose, spiking blood sugar levels and promoting insulin release, which signals the body to store excess energy as fat. Pairing complex carbs with lean protein and fiber helps stabilize energy and manage your overall caloric intake effectively.

3. Too Much Sugar

The body only requires a small amount of sugar for energy. Table sugar is different than the type of sugar the human body uses, but it can be changed into a useable form of energy for the body. Just as with carbs and fats, too much sugar will also get stored as fat around the stomach and other body parts. According to National Institutes of Health (NIH) research, added sugars in processed snacks and sodas lead to rapid visceral fat accumulation around internal organs.

2. Lack of Physical Activity

Leading a sedentary lifestyle is one of the top causes for an increase in stomach fat. If you are taking in a certain number of calories, but your body isn’t using them all up, then they get turned into fat cells. Sitting in front of the television or computer all day is going to make it more difficult for you to get good use out of all the calories you’ve taken in during the day. Incorporating moderate movement throughout the day keeps your metabolic rate elevated and prevents excess storage from too much sugar or heavy meals.

Here are three quick ways to increase your physical activity daily:

1. Fast Food

Fast food is often greasy and/or not nutritionally complete. Granted there are a couple of places considered to be fast food joints that do have a healthier menu to choose from than most other fast food restaurants. If you absolutely have to eat out, try to limit the number of times you frequent a fast food place during the week.

Out of these 8 things that cause stomach fat, I can’t think of one that is easier to cut out than others, unless you already don’t engage in doing or consuming it. If you are trying to reduce stomach fat, are you already eliminating anything mentioned on the list above?