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BYE-BYE, BELLY FAT
Strategies to Win the Battle of the Bulge by Anjula Razdan
L
ooking good at the beach isn’t the only reason to flatten our tum- mies. It turns out that abdominal fat has a major impact on whether we stay healthy and vital or put ourselves at increased risk for several chronic diseases.
All of us need a bit of internal belly fat, according to nutritional expert Dr. Pamela Peeke, who says, “We need stomach fat to help cushion organs and maintain internal body temperature; it’s also a good source of backup fuel.” Peeke is the author of Body for Life for Women and Fight Fat After Forty.
Two Types of Fat Ringing all our midsections are two different kinds of fat: subcutaneous, beneath the skin; and visceral, stored deep in the body around major organs. Each functions differently on a biological level.
Subcu-
taneous, or “pas- sive” fat, requires meta- bolic in- tervention from other
body systems and glands in order to be processed for en- ergy. Visceral, or “ac- tive,” fat functions much
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like a gland itself: It is programmed to break down and release fatty acids and other hormonal substances that are metabolized by the liver (it’s also what tends to make a tummy protrude in clas- sic “beer belly” fashion).
Health experts Dr. Marie Savard, and Carol Svec, co-authors of The Body Shape Solution to Weight Loss and Wellness, state in their book, “Excess visceral fat can lead to increased blood sugar and higher insulin levels, and it also generates increased inflammation, all of which are the perfect setup for diabetes, certain types of cancers and stroke.”
Four
Factors There is no single answer to the riddle
of weight gain; it
involves four factors—ge- netics, eating habits, stress and hormones. Some of us, says Savard, are des- tined to be “apples,” gain- ing weight in the stomach and upper-body region,
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while others are fated to be “pears,” putting it on in the hips, buttocks, thighs and lower legs.
Abdominal fat is produced when we ingest more caloric energy than our bodies can use. “It’s certainly no secret that the way we eat is out of sync with our body’s needs,” writes Floyd H. Chilton, Ph.D., in Inflammation Nation: The First Clinically Proven Eating Plan to End Our Nation’s Secret Epidemic. “Most of the evolutionary forces that shaped our genetic development were exerted 10,000 years ago, when we were hunter-gatherers. Nothing in that programming could have prepared us for the Big Mac.”
As Peeke puts it, “Genetics may load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger.” She spent years researching the link between stress and fat at the National Institutes of Health, and says that chronic stress can beget an expan- sive waistline because it triggers ongoing production of cortisol that, among other things, spurs intense appetite that causes us to overeat; the resulting weight gain tends to settle mainly in the abdomen. Declining levels of sex hormones cause both men and women to develop a paunch as they age. Even pear-shaped women start to lose their estrogen advantage after menopause. Remarks Savard, “When they gain weight after menopause, the tendency is to put on visceral fat... and transform from pear into apple.”
Strategies
Potbellies are epidemic, and there is no quick-fix approach. Common spot remedies like crunches might tone back and abdominal muscles, but they don’t address fat stored inside the belly. For that, we need to reduce our body’s overall fat storage.
Savard advises against being tempted by crash diets; they sometimes lead to weight gain. She advises that, “Reducing your caloric intake by more than 25 percent simply triggers your metabolism to go into starvation mode, which lowers your [resting metabolic] rate.” Sticking with a sensible, whole- foods diet and moderate, daily exercise will deliver much better results.
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