Tummy fat is not only figure-damaging, but can also harm your health. A March 26, 2008 article in “USA Today” notes that having a large belly puts you at risk for developing diseases like diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, some cancers and dementia. If you are a man with a waist size over 40 inches or a woman with a waist over 25 inches, take immediate measures to reduce your belly, advises the American Heart Association.
Exercise
Tummy fat is particularly responsive to exercise efforts—but you have to exceed the five weekly sessions of 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The "Journal of Applied Physiology" published a study in 2005 showing that while sedentary participants continued to pile on abdominal fat, exercisers following the ACSM/CDC guidelines prevented the accumulation of additional fat. Only those exercisers who exceeded the guidelines and performed the equivalent of 20 miles of jogging per week lost belly fat.
Eat More Dairy
Findings in a 2009 study by researchers at Curtin University in Australia show that a dairy-rich diet helps dieters lose weight and belly fat. Participants who consumed five servings of foods like low-fat cottage cheese, yogurt and milk daily lost more weight and belly fat than those consuming just three daily servings. Ways to include more dairy are to have milk with whole-grain cereal at breakfast, stir milk into soup at lunch and snack on Greek yogurt.
Avoid Trans Fats
The man-made trans fat that helps extend the shelf life of foods may contribute to the accumulation of fat around your middle. In a 2007 issue of the journal “Obesity,” researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine found that when monkeys were fed a low-calorie diet that included trans fats, they still gained fat in the abdomen. Their counterparts who ate the same number of calories, but no trans fats, lost weight. Avoid commercially prepared fried foods, and scan nutrition labels for the words “partially hydrogenated” which indicate the presence of trans fats. The American Heart Association recommends you eat no more than 1 percent of daily calories from trans fats.
References
- "USA Today": Belly Fat Linked to an Increased Risk of Dementia
- American Heart Association: Metabolic Syndrome
- "Journal of Physiology": Inactivity, Exercise and Visceral Fat
- Curtin News: Higher Dairy Intake Can Help Fight Obesity
- "Obesity": Trans Fat Diet Induces Abdominal Obesity and Changes in Insulin Sensitivity in Monkeys
Member Comments
marie9999 August 1
Is there a typo in this article - I have read before that for women the waist is recommended to be less than 35 not 25.