Should Your Belly Be Flat

Look at children. They stand easy with no attempt to "hold in their belly" or "look better". They simply are. They run and play and have way too much energy.

If those children become over weight or obese, they develop fat all over - not just in the belly area. So logic tells us that the apple shape, the belly fat is an adult disease. We blame it on having children or too much beer or cokes. We may even agree that belly fat develops when we eat fatty, fried or sugary foods, drink too much alcohol or sugary drinks and decrease our exercise.

We love to read that our fatty body is due to a virus. That implies a cure - except no other virus has a miracle cure except time and rest and whatever immunity your body has developed.

We need to accept once and for all that belly fat is totally our fault. And the only way you can get rid of belly fat is to reduce body fat.

Stop thinking of belly fat as some special beast. It is fat, hard to eliminate fat, but none the less it is fat.

Remember that muscle weighs more than fat, so don't concentrate on the scales and losing pounds. Concentrate on losing inches, even 1/8" is a measurable gain in health.

Think of mass. A pound of fat is many times bigger than a pound of muscle - think basketball and tennis ball.

So you gotta watch what you eat and drink but you also have to exercise. The diet will reduce the fat but it will not build the muscle.

You need to build the muscle base to hold your internal organs in place, to stand upright, to breathe with ease, to live with joy and freedom to move.

until next time - move that body
Sharon
Answers For Your Health

SAD it is but not Seasonal

Sagittal abdominal diameter is the new measure of obesity and potential heart disease.

Now the professionals have tested and determined that not all fat cells are equal and some fat cells are fat. What you and I need to work for is a skinnier fat cell. And they are all convinced that the greater the apple shape the greater the health risk to your heart. Those of you with the pear shape can at least feel superior because your heart is healthier.

If you need the latest on the correlation between BMI and Heart Health read this article from
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The more your belly sticks out, the greater your risk of developing heart disease, a new study shows.
"The message is really obesity in the abdomen matters even more than obesity overall," Dr. Carlos Iribarren of Kaiser Permanente of Northern California in Oakland, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health.

There is also this tidbit. You can lose weight with diet alone, however you will continue to have fatter fat cells. The only way to slim down the fat cells themselves is to add exercise to the diet. However, it seems to make no difference if the exercise is a walk or more intense aerobic routines.

According to a study from Wake Forest University the control group that walked at a leisurely pace (about one to two miles an hour), for a maximum of 55 minutes three times each week and the control group that walked at a higher intensity at 3.5 to four miles an hour but limited the time to just 30 minutes each session, also three times a week equalled the same weight loss results.

Yes to build up the muscles you are going to have to add some aerobics or weight lifting. So remember a slimmer fat cell is a slimmer you.

I just thought of a new title - Slimming from the inside out.

Sharon
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