How To Lose DANGEROUS Visceral Fat Over 40
Dec 12, 2025Losing belly fat has always been the main request of my clients over 40.
Recently, you might have seen more attention being paid not just to the pinchable subcutaneous fat, but also to the kind around your organs, the visceral fat.
I'm going to show you how to determine if visceral fat is a problem for you and the evidence based way to lose that fat without restrictive diets or extreme workouts.
Why Visceral Fat Is Dangerous
Let's start by looking at why visceral fat is dangerous.
Visceral fat is not just sitting there pushing your belly out. It is metabolically active and it releases inflammatory molecules that can damage your blood vessels, increase insulin resistance, and raise your risk of heart disease and early death.
Visceral fat is more common in people who are overweight or obese. But studies show that even at a normal body weight, people with excess visceral fat have a higher likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The good news is visceral fat tends to shrink first when you make the right lifestyle changes.
How Nutrition Influences Visceral Fat
Sugar is usually a good place to start.
Most of us are consuming too much sugar. But first, I want to clarify that despite all the fear mongering, sugar is not poison. You can have some sugar in a healthy fat loss plan.
The dose makes the poison and most people just have too much.
Not all sugar is the same either. Many healthy whole foods naturally contain sugar, but it is bundled with fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. But excess added sugars are linked to visceral fat gain.
Fructose and Visceral Fat
For visceral fat, fructose is the one you hear the most about. But it is not as harmful on its own as you may have been led to believe.
In some controlled feeding studies, when calories are matched, replacing starch or glucose with fructose can lead to slightly more fat stored viscerally and in the liver, even without total weight gain.
Fructose is mainly metabolized in the liver where it is converted into triglycerides. If too much of that is happening, it can lead to something called non alcoholic fatty liver disease.
A 2009 study found that people consuming high fructose beverages for 10 weeks gained slightly more visceral and liver fat than those consuming glucose sweetened drinks despite similar calorie intake.
But this was a study of only 32 overweight and obese people and the effect size was relatively small when calories were controlled.
The majority of visceral fat gain from sugar actually comes from excess energy intake.
Sugary foods and particularly drinks make it really easy to consume more calories without feeling full.
Fruit Is Not the Problem
Fruit has fructose, but fructose alone is not inherently harmful.
Fruit contains fiber, water, and lots of micronutrients and it keeps you full on relatively few calories.
The amount of fructose in fruit is small compared to the real troublemakers: sweet drinks like Coke, Pepsi, cola, pop, fizzy drinks, or soda.
A whole cup of strawberries has about 3.8 g of fructose. A can of Coke has about 23.4 g of fructose, more than six times that amount. Strawberries also have fiber and vitamin C and other nutrients.
Fruit is not making you fat and it is not something you need to avoid if you want to lose fat.
Added Sugars vs Natural Sugars
Table sugar, which has both fructose and glucose, and high fructose corn syrup are the real problems for most people because they are the most common in our diets.
Swapping them with honey, cane sugar, maple syrup, or agave syrup is not useful. They are still concentrated sources of sugar that make it harder to keep your calories under control.
Remember that you do not need to eliminate sugar, including added sugar, completely.
With fat loss and health, it is the overall pattern of eating that matters.
Small amounts of sweet foods are not the problem. It is the total amount you consume over the day or week.
The Role of Fats in Visceral Fat Storage
The types of fats you eat may also influence whether your body stores visceral fat. You want to choose monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats over saturated fats.
A controlled clinical trial from Sweden found that when people with abdominal obesity replaced part of their saturated fat intake with polyunsaturated fats for only 10 weeks, they lost visceral and liver fat, even without changing total calories.
Despite all the noise, polyunsaturated fats consistently show health benefits over saturated fat.
Saturated fat tends to promote fat storage in the liver and abdomen, while unsaturated fats improve metabolic health and blood lipids. More saturated fat leads to higher LDL levels, which are now causally linked to cardiovascular disease.
The Protein Advantage
Once your fats and sugars are under control, protein becomes your biggest ally against visceral fat.
Get your FREE Lean & Strong Protein Plan HERE.
Higher protein intake helps reduce visceral fat by controlling appetite, maintaining lean muscle, and slightly increasing daily calorie burn. Research shows that people who increase protein while keeping calories moderate lose more visceral fat than those on low protein diets.
Aim for 0.7 to 1.0 g of protein per pound, 1.6 to 2.2 g per kilo of body weight each day. Focus mainly on lean protein sources to keep calories and saturated fat down.
Easy Nutrition Modifications
Here are some easy modifications you can make to reduce visceral fat with more protein, less saturated fat, and less sugar:
Unsweetened Greek yogurt instead of sweetened yogurt. Lower fat, higher protein milk like Fairlife. Lower fat versions of cheeses like cottage cheese, ricotta, mozzarella, feta, and cheddar more often.
Higher fat varieties like brie and camembert should be smaller servings and less often. Choose leaner cuts of steak like eye of round, top round, and sirloin.
Choose leaner ground meats.
Mustard is a low sugar condiment, although small amounts of barbecue sauce are fine unless it is poured over a large rack of ribs or chicken wings.
Exercise and Visceral Fat Reduction
Fat loss on its own will reduce visceral fat. All types of exercise are good for reducing visceral fat. Some studies show that moderate to high intensity cardio and interval training may slightly improve visceral fat reduction.
One study showed that getting over 75 percent of your maximum heart rate during interval work targeted visceral fat slightly more. But a 2023 review and meta analysis found no difference between HIIT and continuous aerobic training. Consistent physical activity matters more than the specific type.
Strength training also reduces visceral fat. When combined with cardio, the effect is synergistic. Two to four strength sessions a week and a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate cardio or 75 minutes of vigorous cardio a week is ideal.
Age, Stress, and Hormonal Changes
You are more prone to visceral fat as you get older. Bad sleep and too much stress can add to visceral fat, so you want to make those a priority. Hormonal changes can drive visceral fat accumulation starting in your 40s.
For men, decreasing testosterone levels are associated with increased visceral fat. For women, the decline in estrogen during perimenopause and menopause can shift fat storage to the belly area.
How to Know If You Have Too Much Visceral Fat
If you feel a hard area under the belly fat you can pinch, that is visceral fat. A CT scan or MRI is the most accurate way to measure it, but that is not practical. Waist circumference is a useful estimate.
If your waist is over 40 inches, 102 cm for men, or 35 inches, 88 cm for women, that is a sign of too much visceral fat.
A waist to hip ratio over 0.9 for men or 0.85 for women also increases the likelihood of excess visceral fat.
Putting It All Together
By managing your calories, reducing added sugars and saturated fats, and staying active, you can start to get your visceral fat under control.
Remember to pick up the FREE Protein Plan HERE so you know how to plan meals around lean protein to lose belly fat.
Even small improvements in your nutrition and exercise can cause measurable drops in your belly fat within weeks.
If you want the exact system that I use with my clients over 40, watch the video HERE.