Gaining weight is not difficult, but to gain weight specifically in the abdominal region requires a bit of strategy. By understanding a few things about your body's metabolism, you can minimize the growth of overall body fat while maximizing the growth of abdominal fat.
Step 1
Increase your caloric intake. Eat calorie-dense foods that are loaded with fat and sugar. Besides having more calories, a study, published Nov. 16, 2009, in "The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal" shows that a diet like this triggers an opioid receptor that makes the body store even more of the calories as fat.
Step 2
Get stressed. In the Jan. 15, 2007, edition of the "San Francisco Chronicle," it was reported that recent studies showed that cortisol, an anti-inflammatory catabolic steroid, leads to an increase of fat, specifically in the abdominal area, around the viscera. A catabolic steroid does the opposite of an anabolic steroid, meaning it makes your body burn muscle and store fat, and this one puts it in your belly.
Step 3
Keep an inconsistent sleep schedule. A study published in the 2003 "International Journal of Obesity" showed that shift workers working irregular hours had a higher "waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) (i.e., more central fat) than day workers, independently of body mass index (BMI)." That means that these sleep-deprived workers had more belly fat than their day-working counterparts, even when their overall body fat percentage was not higher.
Step 4
Be sedentary. Everyone knows that exercise burns calories, but staying stationary will help you gain abdominal fat in several ways. Sitting for long periods slows the body's metabolism, putting it into a hibernation mode. Also, exercise is a great stress reliever, and you need high cortisol levels to increase belly fat. By not exercising your core, your abdominal muscles will slacken, allowing your internal organs and visceral fat to protrude further.
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