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It's true: Belly fat is the worst kind of fat -- and not just because of the way it looks in beach pictures. Deep belly fat (the kind that makes for a classic beer belly) actually churns out proteins and hormones that make all kinds of bad things worse, including LDL (lousy) cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, and triglycerides. It's also a player in insulin resistance and red-alert-causing inflammation. Makes that fat on your thighs seem downright charming, no?
The type of food you eat affects whether belly fat stays or goes. In a study, two groups of people ate the same number of calories. One group got their carbs from refined grains, the other from beans and whole grains. The latter group lost more belly fat. You can, too! Replace two servings a day of refined grains (e.g., white bread, white pasta) with a couple servings of satisfying lentils, chickpeas, or kidney beans.
In a study in which obese people consumed either 1 to 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar or a placebo each day, the apple cider vinegar group shed more body and belly fat than people who took the placebo -- even though everyone was on the same diet and did the same workout.
Belly fat prefers when you sit, so if you want to make the bad stuff around your waist scram, it's time to get up and move. Just 3 hours a week of aerobic exercise (e.g., walking, jogging, cycling, elliptical training) can bust belly fat. You just need to do it at an up tempo, not at window-shopping speed.
Crunches can firm up the muscles under your fat and keep your core strong, and that's important for many reasons. But they won't make that fat magically vanish on their own. For fat erasing, you need regular aerobic exercise, such as walking.
Exercisers who drink green tea all day lose more belly fat than exercisers who don't. It could be that catechins, a compound in green tea, may boost your body's calorie- and fat-burning mechanisms. It takes about 7 cups a day, but that's not as much as it sounds. A large glass of iced tea often contains about 3 cups of liquid.
Chase away belly fat by pushing the "off" button on your TV remote. People who cut their TV time in half consume 100 fewer calories a day without even trying. That's a pound every 35 days without even trying!
Ditch the scale in favor of a tape measure. This is a better way to monitor belly fat because everybody's weight tends to fluctuate a little from day to day.
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