There’s not a single person who would not agree on this fact that belly fat is the toughest to lose. But do you know the easiest place for the body to store fat is around the waist! A diet high in unhealthy fats is not the sole reason behind an expanding waist, there are certain unhealthy habits that contribute majorly to visceral fat and as soon as we can get those habits straightened up, the circumference of the waist would also come down. In this post, we would look at some unhealthy habits that are bad for your waistline, and why you should drop them right now!

1. Erratic Meal Timings: It’s extremely important to stick to regular meal and snack timings when trying to lose weight and for good health in general, and that’s because, it is believed that every cell in the body has an internal clock that works systematically and in sync with each other. But when you eat at erratic timings, the sync between the cells can get disrupted and may affect metabolism and normal functioning of the liver and digestive system, adding more bulk to the waist. Regularizing meal timings helps the whole weight loss process a great deal. That’s why, the weight loss diets on Rati Beauty app help you chalk out a perfect meal plan that can help you slim down from the waist.

2. Eating too Fast: It’s a fact that people who tend to eat quickly without chewing their food properly gain around their midsection compared to people who take their sweet time chewing. It is essential to chew the food thoroughly and avoid gulping it down. When you eat quickly, you are unknowingly eating more food whereas those who take a good amount of time to chew their food, will always eat less quantity because they reach satiation point during the eating process because the brain takes about 20 minutes to register that you have eaten food and by slowing down, you can actually reach satiation point during the eating process itself and stop yourself from piling on extra pounds. When you eat too fast, your brain doesn’t get the signal to stop once you are full. This means that you often eat more than you actually require, and it gets stored as belly fat in all probability.

3. Eating in front of the TV: Have you noticed how you eat for longer while watching TV? And you may unknowingly going in for second and third servings! Eating while watching TV can prevent you from practicing mindful eating and portion control, both leading to calorie surplus and weight gain.

4. Empty Plates leads to Larger Waists: While wasting food is not acceptable, and clearing up one’s plate before getting up from the table should be appreciated, both these habits can cause obesity when you have not practiced portion control. Make sure you are not adding a lot of food on your plate that you are forced to finish, eventually leading to larger waists.

5. Stress Eating: Stress eating or emotional eating is a situation where one eats to feel good and pleasant, to cope up with trauma, to relieve stress, rather than to satisfy hunger. The food that emotional eaters choose are usually high-fat, high sugar, calorie-rich food full of transfat and other toxic ingredients, extremely unhealthy for the human body. When someone depends on food to cope with certain situations or to relieve stress, preoccupation with food takes over that person’s life and before he/she realizes, and they would end being obese with a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Most comfort foods have loads of calories, sugar, unhealthy fat, and simple carbohydrates, leading to buildup of belly fat.  In short, people who resort to emotional eating tend to gain weight and belly fat pretty rapidly.

6. You have Got a Sweet Tooth: When you see the waist circumference increasing, the first thing you should eliminate is sugar. Insulin, which gets released whenever we have food (mainly carbs and sugar-based stuff), regulates blood sugar levels, but it’s also a fat-storage hormone which pushes the body to store more and more visceral fat around the waist area for later use.

7. Replacing Refined Sugar with Artificial Sweeteners: There’s a pretty big misconception that artificial sweeteners do not lead to weight gain, in fact, they are equally bad for weight loss as refined sugar. If you absolutely must have sugar, here are 8 Healthy Alternatives to White Sugar.

8. Frequent Snacking: Frequent snacking raises insulin levels in the body and too many insulin spikes through the day will result in creation of new fat cells. Restrict snacking to just twice a day, without indulging in high-calorie food. Opt for healthy snacks like apple and nuts such as almonds, walnuts, or even peanuts. Here are some other healthy snacking options.

9. Having Dinner Late into the Night: Our bodies tend to slow down towards the end of the day, and metabolism gets extremely low at this point. When metabolism is low, the body tends to store all the extra calories as fat around the belly area, and that’s why health and weight loss experts advice people to eat dinner before 7 pm. When we eat late, all that extra glucose circulates in the blood for longer, they get stored as glycogen in the liver and as fat in the adipose tissue, and as visceral fat around the waist area. Having dinner by 7 pm is ideal and can prevent unwanted weight gain.

10. Sleeping Late at Night and Lack of Good Quality Sleep: Inadequate sleep, of less than 7 hours, raises inflammation levels, raise the hunger hormone “ghrelin,” increase the level of stress hormone “cortisol,” and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. When sleeping late night becomes a habit, the body develops resistance to insulin, and as a result, more fat cells are created, particularly leading to bigger waist circumference.

11. Eating Out too Often: Eating out too often and ordering food from outside on a daily basis can put you at a risk of obesity because most of the eateries prepare food using unhealthy fats and oils, monosodium glutamate, transfat, cholesterol, sodium, sugar, etc. Prepare your own meals and if it seems like a task, check out the healthy diet meals on Rati Beauty app because they are quick to make and delicious to eat, and help you shed weight too.

12. Crash Dieting can Give you Belly Fat: Severe calorie restriction can disrupt metabolic functions in the body which leads to thinning of muscles and increase in belly fat. Crash dieting also increases hormones that cause the body to retain water and salt. When the body is deprived of food, it goes into a starvation mode and tends to hoard calories and store fat around the belly area whenever you come out of such a restrictive diet. That’s why it’s extremely important to follow a healthy diet such as on the Rati Beauty app to lose weight.

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