Belly Fat – How to Prevent and Lose Belly Fat
How to prevent and lose belly fat
That tummy you have “learned to live with” is doing more harm to your heart than you may think. Learn the real health risks and how you can shrink your belly for good!
SPARE TIRE. POT BELLY. MUFFIN TOP
Love handles. Dunlap syndrome. All these playful phrases refer to what the medical profession calls abdominal obesity. Unfortunately, abdominal obesity is anything but funny. It’s downright dangerous.
Research has shown that in young and older people a like, those with big bellies are at increased risk for chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, insulin resistance, diabetes, and even cancer. More than one-third of U.S. adults that’s more than 72 million people are obese and more than half of all U.S. adults have abdominal obesity, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet you can reduce your midsection and your blood pressure and high cholesterol with a few simple lifestyle changes.
WHY BELLY FAT SO UNHEALTHY
Scientists used to think that fat cells were just a repository for excess fat, like storage trunks that just sat there. But in recent years, researchers have discovered that fat cells secrete hormones and other substances some bad, some good. Some of these substances help reduce infiammation while some increase inflammation. The more excess fat you have, though, the more bad chemicals the fat produces.
“Fat cells are active little endocrine factories producing a wide array of hormones and other compounds that are poured into the blood,” says Harvey B. Simon, M.D., an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and founding editor of the Harvard Men’s Health Watch newsletter. When it comes to belly fat, there are two kinds: subcutaneous fat, which accumulates around your middle, and visceral fat, hidden beneath your abdominal muscles. Subcutaneous fat contributes to inflammation and cardiovascular disease.
Visceral fat actually plays an important role in our immune system, says Steven Heymsfield, M.D., executive director of clinical sciences at the pharmaceutical company Merck and former deputy director of the New York Obesity Research Center at St. Luke’s‚ Roosevelt Hospital. Visceral fat is filled with white blood cells that mop up microbes and other toxic substances that may escape through the intestinal wall.
But too much visceral fat secretes infiammatory chemicals much more than fat cells found in other parts of your body. Infiammation is what researchers believe leads to chronic diseases, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.
Excessive visceral fat also dumps a lot of free fatty acids into the blood stream, which carries them directly to the liver. Chronic overfiow of fat to the liver results in high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and insulin resistance. Also, excess visceral fat has been linked to fat accumulating around organs such as the heart and liver, which impairs their ability to function well, Simon says.
STRESS PLAYS A ROLE
Your genes influence where your body decides to store extra fat. Even if you are genetically inclined to store fat around your waist, you are not doomed to end up looking like your portly Aunt Ida. Research and common sense tell us that behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, and being a couch potato lead to less healthy lifestyles, which often lead to a big stomach. If you manage your calorie intake and engage in daily exercise, you will still have Aunt Ida’s blue eyes but not her waist. Chronic stress also may play a role. When your body is stressed, it produces cortisol, a hormone that places your body on alert.
Research suggests that this hormone can lead to an increase in belly fat in adults and children. “Stress is also linked to behaviors such as increased eating, drinking, and smoking, and less exercise,” says Stephen Siegel, M.D., FACC, FACSM, assistant professor in the NYU School of Medicine department of cardiology and president of the Greater New York Regional Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine.
HOW TO FIGHT THE FAT
The good news is that research is showing that you needn’t diet to lose abdominal fat (although if you are overweight, losing weight is always a good idea). Aerobic exercise exercise that gets your heart rate up can decrease ab Hab without a reduction in calories. “Modest daily walking, at least 2-3 miles a day where you burn approximately 100-150 extra calories a day, is important along with a generally active lifestyle,” Simon says. In the 2006 STRIDDE study, walking the equivalent of ll miles a week prevented accumulation of visceral fat. More exercise resulted in a loss of ab flab.
The bad news is that subjects who did not exercise gained a significant amount of abdominal fat, including visceral fat, in only six months. There is a high cost of a sedentary lifestyle in the short and long term. No matter your age, you need not be stuck with a big gut for the rest of your life. A 2003 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that post menopausal women who engaged in 45 minutes of exercise daily, such as brisk walking, lost between 3.4 percent and 6.9 percent of their abdominal fat in a year’s time.
BEWARE THE QUICK FIX
If you are overweight or obese, you need to lose some weight for the sake of your health and well being. Stay away from fad diets, including those that suggest cutting out entire food groups such as carbohydrate, and from quick fixes, such as pills and certain juices that promise rapid weight loss. The best overall approach to reducing belly fat is to combine sensible eating with regular exercise.
The on going Framingham study shows that eating healthful foods and exercising regularly reduces both kinds of belly fat. Healthful foods include whole grains, beans, low fat or nonfat dairy, and lots of vegetables and fruits. Eating lean protein, such as fish and chicken, is associated with a reduction in abdominal fat. Reducing the amount of saturated fat the kind found in butter, cheese, meat, and ice cream also helps reduce belly fat and your risk of cardiovascular disease. Here are simple steps, right, you can take to start on the road to good health and a healthy weight.(e-lifestyle.us)