The High Performance Journal Written By Dan Go - September 22nd, 2026

Visceral fat is the most dangerous type of fat on the body.

It's easy to spot just by looking at someone's waistline, but people who look relatively "healthy" can still have high levels without knowing it.

So you can imagine my sigh of relief when I did my DEXA scan and found that, at 46 years old, I had close to ZERO levels of visceral fat on my body:

Said in my Borat Voice: Very Nice!

It wasn't always like this, though. In my 20s, I had a horrible start, and even though they didn't offer gold-standard body fat scans back then, I'm certain I was dealing with pretty high levels.

Since then, I've focused on my health and helped countless others achieve healthy levels of visceral fat thanks to a few rules.

Most people don't want to hear this, but the pic on the left is a body dealing with high levels of insulin resistance and visceral fat. You don't need to get as lean as the right picture, but you do want to heed the warning signs.

Today, I want to share those rules so you can get healthier and lose the belly once and for all.

Let's get into it.

Why Should You Care About Visceral Fat?

You can't pinch visceral fat on your stomach. It actually wraps around your organs and acts as an inflammatory engine. It releases proteins called cytokines into your bloodstream, which quietly drive inflammation across your entire body.

In the short term, this shows up as poor energy, brain fog, and reduced recovery. In the long term, it increases your risk for heart disease, certain types of cancer, Alzheimer's, and blood sugar issues like insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

Now, I know that I'm a fitness professional, and this is my job, so I should be healthy. So to make this more realistic, I want to share how we helped our client Jay drop 75% of his visceral fat (2.5 to 0.6 lbs) and go from 36% body fat to 16% in 6 months flat using the 7 rules I used on my body.

Very nice!

Visceral Fat Red Flags/Warning Signs

Measurements

• Waist-to-height ratio greater than 50%
• Waist circumference over 40 inches (men) or 35 inches (women)

Blood markers

• High fasting blood sugar or insulin resistance
• High triglycerides
• Low HDL cholesterol
• Elevated inflammatory markers (CRP)

How you feel day to day

• Chronic fatigue even after sleeping
• Brain fog and poor focus
• Bloating and sluggish digestion
• Slow recovery from workouts
• Cravings that won't quit, especially for sugar and refined carbs

Longer-term red flags

• High blood pressure that creeps up over time
• Fatty liver (often shows up on bloodwork before you feel anything)
• Sleep apnea or heavy snoring
• Skin tags, especially around the neck

If you suffer from a number of these, it could be a sign you're quietly dealing with high levels of visceral fat.

Healthy Ranges For Visceral Fat

• Body fat percentage: VAT should be <10% of your total body fat
• Visceral fat rating scale (1-59): A rating between 1-12 is healthy
• Waist circumference: Women: >35 inches (88.9 cm), Men: >40 inches (101.6 cm)
• Waist-to-height ratio: Ideally no greater than 50%

Now let's dive into those 7 powerful rules that work...

1. ZERO Alcohol

This was a huge one. Visceral fat thrives on inflammation, and alcohol is one of the biggest drivers of it, but it goes beyond that.

Your body treats alcohol as a toxin, which means it prioritizes burning it off before anything else. While that's happening, fat burning gets put on hold, and storage around the belly increases.

Part of Jay's business was wine and dining clients for 3 to 5 days a week. We agreed that he didn't have to give up alcohol for life, but during our fat loss sprint, we would eliminate it completely.

I went through my own version of this in my 20s. When I finally cut alcohol out, it was one of the fastest ways I saw my body composition shift.

Trying to drink alcohol while getting rid of visceral fat is like playing a video game on expert mode when you're a complete beginner. You're working against yourself the entire time.

Now that Jay's visceral fat is down, we brought alcohol back in moderate amounts, but getting to zero was what we needed to move the needle.

2. The Nutrition System

We didn't put Jay on a diet. We gave him a system.

The thing you have to understand about visceral fat is that it's not enough to just cut calories. You have to eat the right foods along the way.

First, we set up a time-restricted feeding window. His first meal was eaten 1 hour after waking, and his last meal was finished at least 3 hours before bed. This gave his body more time to process and burn fat instead of storing it.

For his first meal, we used one of my favorite lean body meals called Glop: Greek yogurt, whey protein powder, blueberries, and psyllium husk.

High protein to protect muscle, blueberries for antioxidants, and psyllium husk for fiber that keeps blood sugar steady and feeds healthy gut bacteria. It's a quick breakfast that hits all the right marks.

For most other meals, we followed what I call an Optimized Mediterranean diet: Low in carbs but high in fatty fish, olive oil, and polyphenols. This combination is one of the most effective eating patterns for reducing inflammation and visceral fat specifically.

When Jay did eat carbs, we focused on foods high in resistant starch like potatoes. Resistant starch digests slowly, keeps you full, and doesn't spike blood sugar the way processed carbs do.

We kept his total carbs around 100 to 120 grams a day. Not no carb, but low carb. When you're trying to lose visceral fat, keeping carbs lower improves your body's ability to process insulin, which is one of the main drivers of fat storage around the belly.

3. The 2X Training Method

Before Jay started working with us, he was the king of cardio. Every day, he’d hit his bike for a grueling 30-minute workout.

The problem is that this type of training can work against you when it comes to removing visceral fat.

Chronic endurance cardio can raise cortisol levels over time, which can retain fat around the belly. When you do this too much, you can burn through muscle and slow the metabolism.

So we switched Jay's workout to focus on strength training using the 2X method:

• 3 full body sessions a week
• 2 sets per exercise taken to failure
• Hitting each major muscle group 2x a week
• Each time we hit the gym, we added more weight or reps to the exercises.

Between each session, we had 1 day of rest because rest is actually where you build muscle, not when you're working out. When someone is losing fat, they're going to be taking in less energy.

We find that a low-volume program that can hit each major muscle group twice per week is enough to help them retain, if not build, some muscle while they're leaning out.

The result? He dropped 54 lbs of pure fat while gaining some muscle.

This is also how I've trained for the past decade. High intensity, low volume, and progressive overload. It's how I've kept visceral fat at near zero without spending hours in the gym.

4. Sleep Like Your Life Depends On It

Getting one night of bad sleep is rough. Having chronically bad sleep over the course of years is a different problem entirely.

Research shows it can reduce your insulin sensitivity. When that becomes a pattern, your body gets worse at processing blood sugar, inflammation goes up, and visceral fat starts accumulating.

Chronic sleep deprivation is what sets the table for every disease you're trying to avoid, and most people don't realize it makes them hungrier and less satisfied from their meals.

With Jay, we focused on 2 things:

First, consistency. Waking up and going to bed at the same times every day. This sounds basic, but it's one of the most powerful things you can do for your metabolism.

Second, quantity. We took him from sleeping 5-6 hours a night to 7. In his words, this was "life-changing".

Jay had the sleep habits of a teenage gamer, so this was the hardest part of the whole process. We focused first on just getting enough hours, then month by month applied various tools to improve his sleep scores.

I'm the same way. Sleep was the last thing I dialed in, and it made the biggest difference in how my body held onto or let go of fat.

The result: Jay went from a terrible sleeper to an okay one. It's not perfect, but it's good enough to move the needle.

5. Manage Your Stress Levels

Stress increases cortisol, which increases belly fat and visceral fat. It’s not that stress is bad; too much stress for too long becomes inflammatory.

For Jay, we...

1. Eliminated stress-inducing exercises like long-endurance cardio
2. Employed a 5-minute morning and nighttime ritual using NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest)

Was he perfect? No. But he did it enough to see its value in his life.

For a 5-minute follow-along NSDR practice, here's one I like to use:

6. Do These 2 Types Of Cardio

Instead of long, grueling cardio sessions, we switched Jay to:

1. Walking: We aimed for 8-10k steps a day. This was hard, so we got a treadmill for his standing desk and loved it.
2. High-Intensity Cardio (every 7-10 days): Vigorous cardio like ​sprinting​ and circuits to increase fat oxidation around the belly.

This is the same cardio approach I use. Walking as a daily baseline, with a short burst of high-intensity work every week or so.

This cardio combo plus weights is the best exercise approach to eliminate visceral fat.

7. What You Measure Is What You Manage

The final piece is measurement. We measured his weight each day, his waistline each week, and his pictures each month. We also took DEXA scans every 12 weeks and his bloodwork every 6 months.

Not measuring your results is like trying to reach a far-off destination without a GPS or map.

My own DEXA results didn't happen by accident. They happened because I've tracked consistently for years and adjusted based on what the numbers told me.

If you're not tracking, you're not improving.

It Goes Deeper Than Getting Healthy

When Jay started using the rules above to eliminate his visceral fat, something funny happened.

First, he started to make more money. Having too much belly fat can damage the parts of your brain responsible for decision-making and emotional control.

He said, "It was like a fog lifted from my brain."

Next, his wife started to give him that "look" again, his words, not mine.

Finally, his energy and confidence shot through the roof. This happens when you're not getting held down by 50+ lbs of fat on the body.

Not saying this will happen to you when you get rid of the fat, but I'm not saying it won't either.

Want to drop the belly and get healthy? You've got some rules to follow.

Onwards and upwards. 🚀

- Dan

When you're ready, here are 2 ways I can help:

1. The Lean Body 90 System: When you’re ready to get in great shape, Lean Body 90 is the obvious choice. You can get in great shape and reach your fitness goals in just 90 minutes a week. Lose weight and build muscle even without hours in the gym or highly restrictive diets. Join 1000+ students here.

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Disclaimer: This email is provided for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking personal medical advice should consult with a licensed physician.