There are four keys: exercise, diet, sleep, and stress management.

Exercise

Forget spot-reducing. There aren’t any moves that specifically target visceral fat. As you lose weight, you lose all types of fat.

But vigorous aerobic exercise has been shown to trim subcutaneous and visceral fat, even fat stores in the liver linked to fatty liver disease. It’s also proven to slow the build-up of visceral fat over the years.

In a Duke University study, 30 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity, done four times per week, reduced subcutaneous and visceral abdominal fat. Resistance training alone reduced only subcutaneous fat.

Cris Slentz, PhD, who worked on that study, defines “vigorous” as jogging for physically fit people and walking briskly at an incline for obese people who may risk injury by jogging. Workouts of the same intensity on stationary bikes and elliptical or rowing machines are also effective, Slentz says.

Diet

A fiber-rich diet may also help. Hairston’s research shows that people who eat 10 grams of soluble fiber per day, without any other diet changes, build up less visceral fat over time than others. That’s two small apples, a cup of green peas, and a half-cup of pinto beans, for example.

“Even if you kept everything else the same but switched to a higher-fiber bread, you might be able to better maintain your weight over time,” Hairston says.

Sleep

Too much or too little sleep also plays a role in the build-up of visceral fat. A study published in Sleep tracked adults’ visceral fat over five years. People who slept five hours or less, or eight or more hours, per night gained more visceral fat than those who slept between six and seven hours per night. The study doesn’t prove that sleep was the only difference, but it may have contributed to the visceral fat build-up.

Stress

Managing your stress matters. That includes chronic stress you face in your personal life, and societal stresses, such as discrimination. A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology showed that African-American and white women who reported significant experiences of discrimination had more visceral fat than women who hadn’t had such experiences.

The stress of discrimination doesn’t necessarily cause weight gain. But Shively, whose research focuses on social stress and visceral fat, tells WebMD that the body can respond to all types of social stress by storing fat viscerally.

“You can’t control society, but you can modify your response to it,” she says. Shively recommends getting social support, meditating, and exercising as ways to handle stress.

Keeping up with your friends may also help. A study published in Biological Psychiatry showed that men and women who got support from a best friend before a stress test made less cortisol, a stress hormone. And another study, published in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, showed that women who pray or meditate have healthier levels of cortisol than those who don’t meditate.

But you only have so much time, right? “If you could only afford the time to do one of these things, exercise probably has the most immediate benefits, because it hits both obesity and stress response,” Shively says.