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—the fat that
pushes your waist out— is the most dangerous fat on your body.
And it's one of the reasons why The
Abs Diet emphasizes losing belly fat-because doing
so means you'll live longer.
Belly fat is classified as visceral fat; that means it is located
behind your abdominal wall and surrounds your internal organs. Because
it carries an express-lane pass to your heart and other important
organs, visceral fat is the fat that
can kill you.
Just consider one University of Alabama-Birmingham study in which
researchers used seven different measurements to determine a person's
risks of cardiovascular disease. They concluded that the amount
of visceral fat the subjects carried was the single best predictor
of heart disease risk.
Whether you want to change your body to improve your health, your
looks, your athletic performance, or your sex appeal, The
Abs Diet offers you a simple promise: If
you follow this plan, you will transform your body so that you can
accomplish each and every on e of those goals. As a bonus,
the Abs diet will do something more than just enhance your life;
The Abs
Diet is going to save it.
The average American has about 30 billion fat cells: each of
them is filled with greasy substances called lipids. When you
pump doughnuts, corn chips, and fried Snickers bars into your
system, those fat cells can expand-up
to 1,000 times their original size. But a fat cell can
get only so big; once it reaches its physical limit, it starts
to behave like a long-running sitcom. It creates spin-offs, leaving
you with two or more fat cells for the price of one. Only problem:
Fat cells have a no-return policy. Once
you have a fat cell, you're stuck with it. So as you grow
fatter and double the number of fat cells in your body, you also
double the difficulty you'll have losing the lipids inside them.
Many of us tend to store fat in our bellies, and that's where
the health dangers of excess weight begin. Abdominal fat doesn't
just sit there and do nothing; it's active. It functions like
a separate organ, releasing substances that can be harmful
to your body. For instance, it releases free fatty acids
that impair your ability to break down the hormone insulin (too
much insulin in your system can lead to diabetes).
Fat also secretes substances that increase your risk of heart
attacks and strokes, as well as the stress
hormone cortisol (high levels of cortisol are also associated
with diabetes and obesity as well as with high blood pressure).
Abdominal fat bears the blame for many health problems because
it resides within striking distance of your heart, liver, and
other organs-pressing on them, feeding them poisons, and messing
with their daily function.
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