i'm sitting at huber saab waiting for my car's headlights to get their fix on and i'm watching tv in the little waiting room. happy valentine's day to all my people out derre. i love that my crocker said that she likes valentine's day for the not so likely reasons,she likes pink, red and hearts...and valentine's things. i will have to agree. vday has never been one of my favorite holidays. i think that in ten years we will find that hallmark was behind all major holidays, especially valentine's day and definitely the sweetest day or whatever in october.
so. anyway. as i'm browsing the internet, checking my email i came across this article on msn about belly fat. it's quite interesting.
i've listed the article in it's entirety below but i thought that i'd give a summary.
look at your belly, is it pudgier than normal? i know mine has seen better and worst days. but this article makes me want to be more deliberate about what i eat and what contributes to my buddha belly. some experts are saying that being obese is almost as deadly as smoking. ouch.
and although that being obese ain't sexy for your health, carrying fat around your belly is definitely not sexy for your health. double ouch.
i look down at my stomach (in my head) and i see my belly. i see the stretch marks that came from years of overeating and being overweight. they are faded reminders of my struggle with food...these shadows of my past will stay with me.
so we continue.
our waistlines may be a better indicator for heart attacks than our bmi.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have set a waist measurement cutoff point at above 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men—no matter how much you actually weigh—as an unhealthy sign of excess visceral fat, the dangerous hidden fat that surrounds vital organs deep inside your body.
it's not about being necessarily overweight...it's about the amount of visceral fat (the bad, naughty fat) thats cramping your organs on the inside. not sexy. and this goes for thin people, too.
this all comes at a good time in my journey in weight loss. steph and i were talking about my belly and she reminded me that when we're stressed a lot of times we will carry our stress in our bellies. oh snap. again, ain't nothing sexy about a stressed stomach.
so. stressed stomach. weight goes right there. and then, if i'm eating poorly, hello belly, you want to be buuh-loated? anyway. you get my point. it's all connected.
taking our pulse is important, we've got to figure out how we're feeling and make sure we're being deliberate in approaching those places in our lives with confidence...calling out things that shouldn't be...making amends with our body and getting serious about our health. i know that this journey isn't just about the numbers on the scale, it's much different than that.
i love the junk in my trunk. it's beautiful. you can't find a pair of jeans that don't like my budunk-uh-dunk. but i want to live a whole, healthy life, too. so. i'm going to take my bootyliciousness, tame my belly, grab my gear and keep trucking along on this journey.
take that visceral fat.
What Your Waistline Reveals
Use a simple tape measure to determine if your belly is helping—or hurting—your health
By the Editors of Prevention
More on this in Health & Fitness
Flat Belly Diet experts and scientists have known for years that excess body fat isn't good for you. Obesity (which means "overfat"), is considered as deadly as smoking, according to some analyses. Traditionally obesity was determined by the number on a scale or, a bit more accurately, by taking the Body Mass Index (BMI), which calculates your body size while trying to account for bone mass. If your BMI is over 30, you're considered obese.
One of the problems with the BMI, however, is that it doesn't take into account muscle mass (as a result, some athletes with low body fat and a high percentage of muscle mass would be computed as obese, when clearly they aren't).
More recently, however, studies have begun to show that while obesity isn't good, carrying excess body fat specifically around your belly is really, really bad.
In research published in the medical journal Lancet, doctors concluded that a person's waist measurement is a more accurate forecaster of heart attacks than the body mass index (BMI). The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have set a waist measurement cutoff point at above 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men—no matter how much you actually weigh—as an unhealthy sign of excess visceral fat, the dangerous hidden fat that surrounds vital organs deep inside your body.
Another measurement that is slightly more targeted to belly fat is the waist-to-hip ratio, which reflects the concentration of fat around your belly as opposed to around your hips or thighs. Analyzing data from 27,000 people in 52 countries, scientists found that heart attack sufferers had similar BMIs, but higher waist-to-hip ratios, than those who'd never had a heart attack.
Measuring Your Waist: Two Ways
The waist-to-hip ratio compares the measurement of the narrowest part of your waist to the broadest section of your hips. Your waist measurement should be taken in the spot that falls between the ribcage and the hipbone as viewed from the front.
Your hip measurement is truest if you turn sideways to the mirror and make sure you incorporate your derriere in the measurement. Now, divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement. For example, a woman with a 30-inch waist and 37-inch hips has a waist/hip ratio of 0.7.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a healthy waist-to-hip ratio for women should not exceed 0.8.
Measuring Visceral Fat: High Tech Methods
As we understand more about visceral fat and the various chronic—even deadly—diseases it can cause, researchers are developing increasingly more accurate, and expensive, ways to measure it. The latest test (as of December 2007), is one that detects levels of a protein called RBP4 (retinol binding protein 4), which is produced in higher quantities in visceral fat compared with subcutaneous fat (the kind of fat you can see on your body when you "pinch an inch.").
In overweight people, blood levels of RBP4 are double or triple the amount compared with normal-weight people. But other tests are used, including: CT (CAT) Scan MRI Sonogram/Ultrasound DXA
The scary part is that you don't have to be overweight to have too much visceral fat inside your body, putting your health at risk. This understanding is relatively new, and describes those who are thin on the outside but have excess fat on the inside.
It's hard to imagine that one could be thin and fat at the same time, but Jimmy Bell, PhD, a professor of molecular imaging at Imperial College, London, has shown that it is possible. Dr. Bell and his team have been using MRI machines to scan nearly 800 people in an effort to produce what they call "fat maps."
His findings will surprise you: About 45 percent of the thin women and 65 percent of the slim men he tested carried excess visceral fat. Because the Flat Belly Diet is designed to help you reduce levels of dangerous belly fat, you can follow it even if you don't need to lose pounds.
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