What bacon belly is and how to get one

Bacon has more to do with electricity than you might think, and electricity has an awful lot to with health (and explains why children bounce). Here's why...

Muscle is a great electrical conductor. Electrical impulses flash through muscle fibres, making them contract. Those contractions power walking, talking, digestion, respiration, your heartbeat and other good stuff. Fat is a poor conductor and acts as a sort of insulator around muscle. Layer up fat and muscle (poor conductor – good conductor – poor conductor – good conductor, etc.) and you end up with a great way to store electricity, a biological battery of sorts.

Considering that muscle contractions – so essential for life – run on electricity, having an inbuilt battery sounds like a good plan. The only place in your body where fat and muscle come in bacon-style layers is in your lower abdomen, just below your navel. In Chinese medicine, this area is known as the Sea of Qi, describing a great reservoir of life-powering electricity.

Qigong Chinese exercises include breathing techniques designed to power up the muscle fibres in your bacon layers, effectively charging your biological battery. Here’s one for you to try:

1. As you breathe in, push your perineum (the bit between your front bottom and your back bottom) outwards and downwards.

2. As you breathe out, pull your perineum upwards and inwards.

You will notice that this moves the muscles in your lower belly inwards and outwards, charging your bacon battery, slowing and deepening your breathing, sustaining your energy and calming your mind.

Simple and brilliant.