Losing Belly Fat With Weight Loss Drugs
Meridia, Phentermine, and Xenical are the most commonly used FDA-approved drugs for treating obesity. They are used for people with a BMI of 30 and above, or those who have a BMI of 27 and other obesity-related medical conditions. Both drugs are considered "moderately effective" in weight loss, with an average of 5 to 22 pounds over a one-year period.
Meridia works by increasing brain chemicals like serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine so people feel full sooner after they eat. Xenical binds to fat cells in the gastrointestinal tract to prevent them from being absorbed, so the body eliminates about 30% of fat that is consumed.
"Xenical and Meridia tend to help for about [the] first six months on average," says Eisenson. "Then their main benefit is as a weight loss maintenance aide, which is not a trivial thing. That's how Xenical and Meridia work best... helping people keep the weight off."
The drugs work best when combined with lifestyle changes, research suggests. In one study, obese men and women lost far more weight by changing eating and exercise habits -- and taking Meridia -- compared to those who relied on either lifestyle modification or medication alone.
Fat-Belly Foods
There are certain foods that can help your body burn fat, and there are certain foods that make the body store belly fat.
To get the best results, commit to at least thirty days of removing and adding the foods listed in this blogpost. Once you reach your goal and eliminate excess belly fat, having the fat-belly foods on occasion won’t be too detrimental. It’s when we eat these fat-belly foods on a regular basis that we end up with the persistent belly fat.
White Sugar
White refined sugar is found in cakes, pies, fruit juices, candy, and so many other things that we crave every day. Many people are addicted to white sugar and don’t even know it. I believe this addiction is the main reason people get belly fat.
Many people don’t think they eat a lot of sugar because they don’t eat a lot of sweets like cookies or candy, but the problem is that sugar is hidden in many foods, including bread, muffins, and even dried fruit. I believe sugar is toxic. It has no nutritional value, it’s highly addictive, and it makes you sick and fat. Are you having a panic attack right now just thinking about giving up sugar? You have to look at kicking the sugar habit as though you are ending an addiction.
The key is to understand where your sugar is coming from and then find alternatives to eating so much sugar in your foods. Sugar is measured in grams, and 4 grams of sugar equals one teaspoon. So if your soda has 40 grams of sugar, that’s about 10 teaspoons of sugar in just one soda. You can see how so many people end up ingesting so much sugar every day. I used to think I was eating a healthy breakfast by eating oatmeal. However, it wasn’t regular oatmeal but the sweetened, flavored, instant oatmeal, like apple-cinnamon oatmeal, and it had about 20 grams of sugar per serving (5 teaspoons!), which is way too much. As a guideline, the best way to minimize the amount of sugar in your diet is to choose foods that have 5 grams or less per serving. When the drink or food item has 5 grams or less of sugar per serving size, the body doesn’t overreact to the sugar. This means your pancreas will not have to release too much insulin. (It’s excess insulin that causes belly fat in the body.)
To sweeten foods, it is always better to use stevia or some equivalent herbal sweetener rather than sugar. Stevia is a natural sweetener made from a plant native to South America and Central America. Other countries have been using stevia as a sugar substitute for several decades because it is virtually calorie-free and does not affect blood glucose, which makes it a great natural alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners. Sugar will cause belly fat and make you feel irritable, moody, and tired. It can cause numerous health problems, so commit to breaking your sugar addiction today!
Refined Carbohydrates
Because the fiber in refined carbohydrates has been stripped away, they are digested rapidly, causing insulin spikes, which results in fat storage. The foods to avoid are anything made of white flour, including white bread and white pasta. (Furthermore, white flour is bleached nearly the same way you bleach your clothing. When you eat white flour, you’re eating some of those bleaching agents, which increases the toxic overload in the body.)
Other examples of refined carbs to avoid are bagels, biscuits, donuts, croutons, pancakes, and waffles. When reading a list of ingredients on a label, don’t let the words “wheat flour” or “enriched wheat flour” fool you.
It is essentially the same as white flour. You want to look for the label to explicitly say “whole wheat” or “whole grain” when you are buying pastas, breads, and snacks for healthier alternatives. One healthy, whole wheat/whole grain bread alternative is Ezekiel 4:9 brand breads. So understand what refined carbs are and then avoid them.
White Salt
Sodium, commonly referred to simply as “salt,” is another major factor in excess belly fat. Simply put, excess salt causes water retention and bloating. You’re going to want to avoid the salt shaker and salt-based seasonings. Better alternatives are sea salt, black pepper, or cayenne pepper, which actually boost your metabolism. So why does salt cause bloating and heaviness in our belly? Well, water is attracted to sodium, so when you take in high amounts of salt, you retain more fluid—which causes that heavy, puffy appearance and that extra water weight.
Foods high in sodium include salty foods like peanuts, French fries, potato chips, and pickles. Look at nutritional labels before you buy any processed foods. Most of us need only 500 to 1,000 milligrams of sodium per day, but too many of us are consuming about six times that much, resulting in large amounts of excess belly fat and bloating. When you slip up by eating too much of salty foods, drink large amounts of water to flush it out.
Artificial Sweeteners
You know them as those little yellow, pink, and blue packages that are generally marketed as “sugar substitutes.” Most people don’t realize that even though artificial sweeteners generally have zero calories, they can still contribute to fat gain. These artificial sweeteners increase appetite by sending false signals to the brain that sweet food is on the way.
The brain subsequently becomes confused when sweet food never arrives, and so it never gives the signal that you are satisfied. This causes you to crave sugar throughout the day and develop a sweet tooth, sometimes causing you to eat more sugar. Yes, artificial sweeteners can cause you to crave sugar! Let’s look at aspartame, in particular. One study done a few years ago showed that the two main ingredients in aspartame—phenylalanine and aspartic acid—stimulate the release of insulin and leptin, hormones that instruct our bodies to store fat.
The best choice for a calorie-free sweetener is stevia, an herb that grows naturally in parts of Paraguay and Brazil and is now widely available in the United States. You don’t need much of it—it’s about thirty times sweeter than sugar. Yet it does not raise blood sugar levels or cause rapid-onset cravings the way simple sugars do.
A study published in the Journal of Ethno-Pharmacology found that stevia dilates the blood vessels and helps to prevent high blood pressure. It also helps to regulate the digestive system, encourages the growth of friendly bacteria, and helps detoxify the body and excrete more urine naturally.
Trans Fats (Fried Foods)
One of my favorite foods to eat has been my Uncle Spencer’s fried fish. It is simply the best. However, I’ve had to cut back significantly because of the dangers of fried foods. Most fried foods are cooked with partially hydrogenated oils, which contain trans fats.
Fried foods become saturated with the hydrogenated oils we use to cook them, and these fat-filled oils cause belly fat. And even worse, you definitely don’t want to reuse the oils in which you fry food. Some fast food restaurants do this. Just reusing the cooking oil one time will increase the risk of heart disease. Some of the foods high in trans fats that can cause belly fat are margarine, commercial baked goods, French fries, onion rings, fried chicken, corn dogs, and funnel cakes, just to name a few. Just say no to trans fats/fried foods!
As an alternative, baked, broiled, or grilled chicken or fish can be just as tasty as their fried versions. Eating trans fats is like eating plastic and it is very bad for one’s health. Trans fats disrupt metabolism, cause weight gain, and increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease, inflammation, and cancer.
One Harvard study found that getting just 3 percent of daily calories from trans fats (about 7 to 8 grams of trans fat) increases your risk of heart disease by 50 percent. And given that the average person has about 4 to 10 grams of trans fats in his or her diet each day, it is no wonder heart disease is such a major killer in modern times.
Sodas and Fruit Juices
Let me be as direct as possible regarding this one: sodas and store-bought fruit juices are high in white sugar and/or high-fructose corn syrup and thus cause belly fat. If you are still drinking regular sodas and fruit juices, then just removing those will make a huge difference in getting rid of belly fat! As a first step, begin substituting diet soda for regular soda.
Then gradually decrease the number of diet sodas you drink as well. Although diet sodas are better than regular sodas because they have no sugar, diet sodas still cause some health and weight issues. Diet sodas have been found to make you crave sugar and fattening foods because of the artificial sweeteners in them. Don’t replace them with store-bought juices because those contain a lot of sugar and additives that cause weight gain.
A great alternative is green tea (hot or cold), which is a fat burner and helps you lose more weight while still allowing you to get your caffeine fix for the day. You could also try plain water. If that does not sound appealing, try adding a bit of fresh lemon to flavor it. So, sodas/diet sodas/fruit juices all cause belly fat! Gradually ease off of them. I used to drink three diet sodas a day, now, thankfully, I drink about one to two diet sodas per week.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Start to make better food choices one day at a time. It’s about progress not perfection!
7 FOODS FLAT-BELLY
The following seven flat-belly foods help you burn fat in two ways: by speeding up your metabolism, reducing insulin levels, and by increasing muscle mass (muscle cells burn more calories than fat). Your goal is to add more of these 7 flat-belly foods into your diet to help burn belly fat.
Lean Fish, Chicken, and Turkey
Lean fish, chicken, and turkey are all good sources of lean protein. The more protein you eat, the harder your body has to work to digest it, resulting in more calories burned during the eating process. The healthiest lean proteins are fish (particularly wild salmon), chicken, and turkey.
Avoid the skin on chicken and turkey, as that is where all the saturated fat is found. And of course, we’re not going to fry the fish, chicken, or turkey because of the fatty oils (trans fats), but rather bake, broil, grill, or lightly sauté them.
Vegetables
The biggest advantage to eating veggies, particularly the green leafy veggies, is that you can eat them in abundance and still lose weight.
The best veggies to eat to burn belly fat are spinach, broccoli, asparagus, kale, collards, turnip greens, mustard greens, beet greens, wheatgrass, carrots, eggplant, celery, peppers, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and radishes. Try a veggie stir-fry in olive oil with a little cayenne pepper to make a delicious fatburning meal.
Nuts and Seeds
Nuts and seeds are healthy fats that raise the body’s metabolism and help you burn fat. Nuts and seeds are a great
healthy snack option. However, a word of caution: If you
want to lose belly fat, or any fat on your body, you should
limit your intake of nuts and seeds to one serving (one ounce)
per day because they are so calorie-rich; they are a healthy
fat, but a fat nonetheless.
As long as you don’t overeat nuts
and seeds, and preferably eat them raw, they promote weight
loss and appetite suppression, not weight gain.
So how many nuts make up an ounce? Think “a handful”—what
you can hold in your palm. As a tip, I tell my
clients to fill up an empty Altoids box with nuts or seeds so
you can travel with your handy snack at all times. You don’t
want to sit in front of the TV watching and eat an entire
bag of nuts. Healthy eating means we don’t eat out of boredom
or for recreation. You want to be disciplined about
how you eat and snack!
Berries
Berries are loaded with antioxidants and keep your
metabolism going strong. Eat them fresh or frozen. Try
blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries. In
the summer months, they are just marvelous to eat because
of how sweet they are. They are a great healthy snack, or
you can add them to a protein shake in the morning to
replace a heavy breakfast or have them as a snack later in
the day.
If fresh berries are unavailable or too expensive, buy
frozen ones, puree them in a blender, and drink them as a
fruit shake. Easy and delicious!
Green Tea
Studies have shown that green tea is one of the best metabolism boosters you can drink.
Green tea also slows the aging process—it’s twenty times more effective in slowing the aging process than vitamin E because of its strong antioxidant capacity, according to some research. There are many wonderful benefits of drinking green tea, but as far as weight loss goes, it simply helps the body burn fat faster and more efficiently. If you’ve read any of my other books, you know that green tea is one of my most highly recommended beverages to drink to burn fat.My favorite brand is Wu-long Premium Chinese Slimming Tea.
Cayenne Pepper
Cayenne pepper is known as a fat burner because it fires up your metabolism.
It heats up the body, and the body burns calories when it tries to cool itself down. So spice it up for sure! It’s so effective, some people actually buy cayenne pepper capsules to burn fat.
Protein Shakes
Protein shakes will help you build muscle, and the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn each day.
Protein will also help stabilize blood sugar levels and prevents insulin spikes that result in fat storage. There are several different types of protein powders available. Whey protein is popular. It is a complete highquality protein that speeds up metabolism. But it comes from cow’s milk, so if you are allergic to dairy, whey protein will cause gas, bloating, and indigestion. My favorite alternatives are rice, soy, and hemp protein powders. If you are a vegetarian, you can use rice protein or a plant-based protein powder to accomplish the same thing.
