The Fat You Can’t Pinch Is the Most Dangerous — Here’s the Fix

The belly fat you can’t pinch may matter more than the number on your scale. In this episode, Dr. Axe explores visceral fat—the fat surrounding your internal organs—and seven foods studied for their potential to help reduce it. He breaks down an 18-month trial that measured a 14.1% reduction in visceral fat versus 4.2% with general healthy eating, plus research on fermented milk, eggs, green tea, and more. You’ll also hear his recommended daily plate, with practical portions to help you get started. Download my FREE Guide for Your 7-Day Plate: https://guide.thehealthinstitute.com/l-413

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Josh Axe?

  If I only had seven days to eliminate visceral fat, I'm going to share with you right now what I would eat every single day. And listen to this, there was a study done where over 18 months, they did MRI scans. And there was one way of eating specifically that cut visceral fat by 14%. And by the end of this episode, you'll know exactly what to put on your plate to reduce visceral fat fast. Now, before we dive in, do me a big favor, hit the subscribe button. It's the number one thing that you can do so the episodes in the future don't get lost. Also, you are now entered into giveaways. This year, we'll be giving away an infrared sauna from Sunlighten, an infrared light mask.

• 0:44Josh Axe?

  We're also going to be giving away signed book copies, free blood work, and so much more. You're entered in to win these incredible prizes when you're subscribed to the show. Welcome to the Dr. Axe Show.

• 1:09Josh Axe?

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• 1:54Josh Axe?

  Hey, before we dive in, I want to let you know that I put together this exact protocol and plan in the show notes. So if you want it laid out for you exactly what to eat every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I have a protocol so you can reduce visceral fat fast, just go to the show notes and download the guide I have right in there for you. Okay, so let's dive in. So the fat that you can't pinch, right? So you can sit there, you can pinch the fat around your belly and your love handles around your waist. You can pinch that fat. That's not visceral fat, that's general body fat. Visceral really means organs. So visceral fat is different. It packs in around your organs and it pumps out inflammatory signals.

• 2:37Josh Axe?

  Now, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see this here, that orange visceral fat that sits in between your intestines, in packed between those organs. Those literally are causing constant inflammation and aging of every organ, cell, and tissue in your body. So if you're going to lose any type of body fat, losing visceral fat is the most important for reversing chronic illness. And so now I want to dive in and walk you through those top seven foods that can help you reduce visceral fat fast. Number one, according to studies, is kefir and fermented dairy. And this is one, by the way, that surprised me. A daily fermented milk moved visceral fat on CT scans. The trial used one strain, lactobacillus gasserai.

• 3:22Josh Axe?

  And this is something found predominantly in kefir. And so you could go to the grocery store today and buy something like goat's milk kefir or A2 cow's milk kefir, but getting kefir, so fermenting dairy creates these probiotics. And these probiotics reduce inflammation in the gut, which then thereby reduces visceral fat. Now, one of the other great things about kefir is it's very low in sugar because the sugar has been turned into good bacteria. So kefir tends to be higher in fiber, kefir tends to be high in protein, high in good fat, and also very high in probiotics. And yogurt would work in the same way, or even cottage cheese can be beneficial if it's a high probiotic cottage cheese. But overall, kefir is fantastic.

• 4:03Josh Axe?

  By the way, kefir is one of those foods that one of my closest friends, Jordan Rubin, reversed Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis with. My mom also did kefir mixed with flax meal as part of her anti-cancer protocol. And so again, there are loads and loads of immune boosting benefits and anti-inflammatory benefits when we talk about the probiotics found in real kefir. In fact, in this study, daily fermented milk like kefir and yogurt reduced visceral fat by 8.5%. I mean, that's dramatic. This was a study done in 210 adults with large areas of visceral fat over a 12-week period. So just in 12 weeks, they were able to reduce visceral fat by 8.5%.

• 4:48Josh Axe?

  All right, so if that first one is new to you, hit the subscribe button. That's just one of the seven. And number seven is the plate that I would eat every single day, which we'll get into in a minute. All right, number two, eggs and grass-fed beef. Protein is the most filling thing you can put in your mouth. And the great thing about it is it keeps you fuller longer, you eat less later. And it's very hard and rare for your body to take protein or muscle and turn that into body fat. And it also supports mitochondria and metabolic health. So there's all kinds of benefits with that that causes visceral fat to melt off your body. Now, here's what they found in a study done on 160 overweight adults who ate two eggs a day instead of a bagel for eight weeks.

• 5:33Josh Axe?

  So they had two groups, the bagel group and the two egg group. By the way, this bagel in these two eggs had the same amount of calories. And eggs won big time, 65% more weight loss and 83% more fat loss around the waist. So more visceral fat loss was seen with eating two eggs instead of a bagel in this medical study. So if you're sitting there thinking about what the best breakfast is, listen, think about all the lies we were told growing up. I'm thinking about all of the Special K cereal, right? All of the bagels and cream cheese. I mean, these were the things promoted as being healthy growing up is whole grains, whole grains, whole grains. Eat more bread, right?

• 6:18Josh Axe?

  And we saw RFK come in and like flip that pyramid upside down when we're talking about the food pyramid. So the reality is this, when you're thinking about what you should eat for breakfast, you should focus on protein. Like my girls, every morning when they wake up, we give them eggs and fruit, eggs and fruit, eggs and fruit. I mean, this is what they're getting almost every single morning. And for me, for breakfast, I tend to do about 40 grams of a plant-based protein, another 20 grams of like a bone broth collagen-based protein. And then I'll do typically, I mix it up, berries or sweet potato. Sometimes I'll do something like an oatmeal or cream of rice. But for the most part, I'm doing protein first in the morning. The other thing I do a lot of are eggs in the morning as well.

• 7:03Josh Axe?

  And so that's what you should focus on. And if you're thinking about, hey, what would be a great breakfast? Do two eggs, do a bowl of yogurt, and add on some blueberry or pomegranate. It's like that would be a great breakfast, high in protein, high in fiber, that's going to help you burn visceral fat. Number three, and this one is really surprising when it comes to burning visceral fat, apple cider vinegar. Apple cider vinegar contains a compound called acetic acid. And in both animal studies and lab studies, it switches on genes that burn fat and they turn down genes that build fat. And that's lab data. And this is done primarily with animal studies. And I would call this the power of sour, that acetic acid, that thing that gives,

• 7:48Josh Axe?

  yogurt as well, by the way, that has this sort of acid, that's what makes it sour. But foods that are sour, especially if they're fermented for a period of time, we're talking about vinegar here, but apple cider vinegar, that sourness, that acetic acid, actually acts as kind of like a postbiotic as well, supporting the growth of good bacteria. And so this acetic acid in apple cider vinegar acts as kind of a prebiotic, supporting the growth of good bacteria as well. And listen to the results in this study out of Japan. There was a study done on 155 obese Japanese adults. And they consumed around 15 to 30 milliliters of vinegar a day for just 12 weeks. And they lowered visceral fat, their waist size, and lowered their triglyceride levels on blood work.

• 8:32Josh Axe?

  So when they measured visceral fat, waistline, body weight, BMI triglycerides, every single one of them lowered. And so what you basically want to do is take one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, put it in a small glass of water, and drink that just about five minutes before you eat a meal. That's what you want to do with apple cider vinegar. And it's sort of also preps your digestive system, getting more acid in there to better break down the food you're about to eat.

• 8:59Josh Axe?

  I have a very exciting announcement. We just found out that Heal Yourself is officially a New York Times bestseller. And that's entirely because of you. I just want to say thank you for showing up. Thank you for sharing this work and thank you for believing in the power of cellular health. If you haven't grabbed your copy yet, you can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite book retailer. Also, if you've already ordered but haven't claimed your bonuses yet, make sure to go to healyourselves.com and enter your email and your order number and we'll send you hundreds of dollars in free content. Again, that's healyourselves.com. By the way, that free content includes a peptide guide, natural healing recipes, a masterclass, and loads of other free content.

• 9:43Josh Axe?

  I'm so excited for you to read this content. I hope it's going to change your life.

• 9:49Josh Axe?

  Now, before we jump into number four on our way to number seven, which is the big one, I want to share with you, there's a study done on kids. By the way, this is proof of how fast you can reduce visceral fat. So you might be thinking, oh, this is going to take forever. It's going to take a year to lose that extra 20 pounds or 50 pounds or whatever it is. There was a study done on kids in nine days. And these are kids with obesity and they changed just one thing. They changed their diet for nine days. Okay. And by the way, they consumed the same amount of calories. And in nine days, their liver fat dropped 7.2% to 3.8%. So they were able to cut down their visceral fat radically in just nine days.

• 10:34Josh Axe?

  So when I say you can reduce visceral fat in one week and seven days, the truth is you can, and it's proven today with medical studies. All right. Number four thing you can start to do to lose visceral fat is eat more beans and lentils. Soyable fiber turns into a gel in your gut, which slows digestion, feeds good bacteria in your gut, and keeps your blood sugar steady. And 10 grams a day is honestly easier than you think. Basically, here's what this would look like to get 10 grams of soyable fiber. You can do two apples a day, one cup of green peas, and a half a cup of something like pinto beans. Now, listen, that's just soyable fiber. That's not including insoluble fiber.

• 11:17Josh Axe?

  And this would get you probably halfway or more to your total daily fiber count. Or it might look something like this. You do one serving or so of fruit for breakfast and then you can add in another source of fiber, maybe flax or chio or something like that. And then for lunch, you can get a serving of vegetables and beans. And for dinner, you can just do a serving of double vegetables. And that will get you to that 30 to 40 grams of fiber a day that you need for optimal visceral fat loss. And there are many studies that show that the more fiber you eat, the more weight loss you have. By the way, this is really important for GLP-1. If you want to naturally support boosting GLP-1 in the body, you know what you'd eat? More fiber and more probiotic rich foods like kefir.

• 12:03Josh Axe?

  Those are shown in studies to boost GLP-1. Same thing, very similar with protein. And this drives me absolutely crazy that people are going and getting GLP-1 without also following the right diet. Listen, I have no problem with a lower dose, what I call microdose of GLP-1. But you should be doing that in combination with this diet that I'm talking about that also causes you to lose visceral fat. All right, number five food group that is going to cause you to lose visceral fat are wild-caught salmon and sardines specifically. Now, it's these two fish in particular because they are the highest in omega-3 fatty acids. Now, here's something that's going to shock you. Okay, listen to this. When they compared people that took fish oil supplements, like those capsules,

• 12:48Josh Axe?

  versus eating just more fish, like salmon and sardines, the people in the studies who took the fish oil did not lose visceral fat. The people who ate wild salmon or sardines over a 12-week study lost a tremendous amount of visceral fat. You know, sometimes supplements just don't have the same effect as the actual food. And when you're looking at sockeye salmon, for instance, you're getting these omega-3 fatty acids in a form that's not denatured. And so you're getting them in a form that are going to be the most impactful for reducing inflammation and those fats have not changed. You're also getting astaxanthin, this amazing antioxidant.

• 13:32Josh Axe?

  You're also getting vitamin D. You're getting a lot of protein. And a lot of these nutrients, they work synergistically. And when they, when they're trying to work by themselves, they don't work as well. Now, the other thing I want to say is, in this study, they were probably using cheap fish oil capsules. A lot of fish oil today is not in the right form. It's highly processed. If you're getting like fish burps, if you've ever taken fish oil capsules, that is a poor quality fish oil. You're not absorbing it and it's not doing you any good. If you are going to buy an omega-3 supplement, you want to buy, you typically get what you pay for. You want to buy some that's higher quality triglyceride form, like a good cod liver oil or a good fish oil or a good algae oil that you tend to have to take more capsules of those.

• 14:16Josh Axe?

  But overall, I do think there's benefits and studies have proven this of taking quality fish oil for reducing inflammation. The problem is, is that I would, I would guess probably, I don't know, 70 to 80% of fish oil capsules are not in the right form. They're not well digested. So if you're going to a drugstore and picking up a lot of these brands of fish oil, they're not working for you. And by, and again, here's the moral of the story. The best thing you can do for reducing visceral fat is eat more salmon, sardines, and wild fatty fish. Now, we're about to hit the next top two. Now, this one is surprising for a lot of you, I bet. And what a big difference it makes. Number six here, we're about to get to number seven, the peak, the biggest thing that reduces visceral fat.

• 15:01Josh Axe?

  But number six here is drink green tea. There are catechins known as EGCD, that's epigalactic catechins. And these have been shown in so many studies to do everything from promote heart health and reduce placking in your arteries, fight cancer, boost energy and mitochondrial health, promote longevity. But also now, in one trial, it's been shown to help you lose visceral fat. And the equivalent of the dosage was drinking about three to four cups of green tea a day. Now, matcha would be even more powerful than this. So you could drink matcha or you could do this as a sentia green tea. But here's what they found in the study.

• 15:43Josh Axe?

  They pooled together seven, seven different studies over 12-week periods. And they found that the people that drank the most green tea cut their visceral fat area by 8.8 centimeters in Japanese adults. This is a major improvement. So you want to aim for about that 500 milligrams a day or about three cups of green tea a day makes a massive, massive difference.

• 16:08Josh Axe?

  If you're only taking one type of collagen, you might be missing some of the benefits. I had somebody recently ask me, Dr. Axe, are you still taking collagen? Of course. You know, most collagen supplements use a single source. Multi-collagen protein, the one I've been using now for nearly 10 years, supports your hair, your skin, your nails, your joints, your digestion. And by the way, it's not just collagen alone that builds collagen. Multi-collagen protein contains vitamin C, which your body actually needs to synthesize collagen, plus 2 billion probiotics that support your body in doing that as well. With 20 grams of hydrogelized collagen peptides per serving, it's easy to absorb, great to use daily.

• 16:49Josh Axe?

  You can add it to coffee, blend it in a smoothie, or use it in any way in your routine. This is such a simple habit that improves everything from skinny elasticity to reduce joint stiffness. Right now, customers can save $10 using my code DRAX10. Make sure to take advantage to take your health to the next level with multi-collagen protein here from Ancient Nutrition.

• 17:14Josh Axe?

  All right, now number seven, here's the big one. All right. And by the way, before I dive into this, I want to remind you, you can get this entire plan. It's worth nearly $100, but I'm giving it to you for free. If you go to the show notes, you can download this visceral fat loss guide where I walk you through the exact supplements, the exact foods, the amount to take. And you could even print this out and put it up on your refrigerator or just keep it in your documents if you're ever saying, hey, I want to lose body fat and visceral fat really fast. And then you have it anytime you need. So again, you can go to the show notes and download the guide for free right now. Okay, here's number seven. It's called the Green Plate. And this is actually based off a study on what combination of things would create the greatest amount of visceral fat loss. And here's what they did.

• 17:59Josh Axe?

  In this study, they combine Green leafy vegetables with walnuts and then drinking green tea. So those three things together, and they also encourage people to eat less red or processed meat. Everything they were eating with the green leafy vegetables and the walnuts and the green tea are loaded with antioxidants like polyphenols. And so what they did is they did typically about 28 grams of walnuts a day, three to four cups of green tea a day, and about 100 grams of greens a day. So it could be spinach or kale, bok choy, but some sort of greens and no processed fatty meat. And then they did a pre and post MRI. So this is highly accurate of looking at how much visceral fat somebody can lose in a short period of time.

• 18:42Josh Axe?

  This was a study done on 294 people. This is a randomized trial for 18 months. And the MRI showed that the green Mediterranean group is what it was called, lost 14.1% of its visceral fat versus 6% or 4.2% on other diets. Now, again, here's what I want to remind you of. There were other people following other healthy diets, okay? And they lost some visceral fat, but the group that lost by far the most were eating this green plate every day. And what I would encourage you to do, and this is what I've put in that plan for you that you can download. But basically is this, here's what the diet should look like. You want to focus on getting more protein. You also want to get a lot of green leafy vegetables.

• 19:25Josh Axe?

  You want to do a lot of walnuts. You want to do extra virgin olive oil. You want to drink a lot of green tea. You want to eat a lot of salmon and also some fermented dairy like kefir. And if you would combine those things together and create the ideal plan, you could reverse chronic illness. Now, I want to say this visceral fat is most connected to excess body fat, heart disease and conditions like prediabetes and diabetes. But it would also contribute to menopausal symptoms, low testosterone in men, cancer, and basically premature aging and looking and feeling younger, your joints not feeling well either. And so I put together this plan for you of exactly what it should look like of a seven day plate. So again, every day try and do some greens and an ounce of walnuts.

• 20:08Josh Axe?

  And then drink that three cups of green tea, one cup of kefir. You know, get maybe one serving of beans every few days, eggs or a high protein breakfast at some point. One tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and water, and then salmon and sardines every other day. And if you follow a plan like that for seven days, just see how you feel. I guarantee that you are going to feel so much younger. You'll wake up in the morning and not believe how amazing your joints feel. And the changes will be incredible. So here's a few rules as well. Listen, no liquid sugar or added sugar. That's going to ruin your results. Now you might ask, well, hey, if I do my green tea in the morning, what can I do to sweeten it? A little bit of honey. Okay, that's what you could do. That would be best is some local or raw honey in there.

• 20:52Josh Axe?

  But again, outside of that, no sugar and then no excess carbs and fats together. If you're doing a lot of fat and a lot of carbs, that can slow your weight loss. Think more protein, fiber, protein, fiber, protein, fiber. And if you do that in seven to nine days, you will lose a tremendous amount of visceral fat. You'll look younger, you'll feel younger if you do that. I'm gonna say way to go. You stayed for all seven. I just want to say thank you for investing in your health. And if this helped you, hit the subscribe button so you don't miss the next one. All right, here's three things you can do to take your health to the next level. Number one, grab your seven day plate, this visceral fat guide. It's in the show notes. Go and download it now. Number two, subscribe and send this to one person who needs it.

• 21:35Josh Axe?

  And number three, if you need help with your health, if you're saying to yourself, man, I really need to work with a practitioner to get my body as healthy as possible. Well, listen, you can do this virtually from anywhere in the country. The Health Institute, which is the clinic that I work through, so does Dr. Will Cole and Dr. Austin Lake. You can meet with a health advisor and they'll walk you through exactly what to do to help transform your health and see incredible results in about a 12 to 16 week program. Or if you're local to Tennessee or Nashville, you could visit the longevity clinic.com and check out that clinic for in-person functional medicine as well. But I would encourage you to check out the longevity clinic or the Health Institute if you need help from a practitioner. And so remember this, you're not stuck with that belly fat.

• 22:17Josh Axe?

  Seven days, one plate, you can start to see a massive shift. And by the way, if you want to continue to learn more about how to heal naturally using food-based medicine, visit DrAx.com. That's D R A X C dot com. We've got some amazing quizzes and resources and everything you can imagine on there. By the way, there's a new AI tool. You've got to check it out. I challenge you to do this. Go to DrAx.com right now and type in any question. And the tool I've trained will answer anything you might ask. What are the top five supplements I could take for hypothyroidism? Or, or what's the number one thing I can do to boost my testosterone naturally? You can do that there on DrAx.com. And I also want to encourage you to check out the next video.

• 22:59Josh Axe?

  This is where I lay out the five things that have dropped inflammation in just 12 weeks. I think you'll really enjoy this episode as well. Also want to say thanks so much for subscribing. I can't wait to see you on the next episode.