About abdominal fat

[CF-OC_gal]

...because abdominal, or belly, fat is the kind that lies deep inside the body. Doctors call this visceral fat because it wraps around your "viscera"—your vital organs such as your heart, liver, lungs, and stomach. And against conventional wisdom, it's not lifeless fat. It actually acts like an organ itself, generating hormones that can actually cause weight gain while preventing the production of healthy substances that can lead to weight loss. In fact, studies just coming out are changing the way doctors view obesity as they learn more about visceral fat and how it can change the body's internal chemistry. What this fat ultimately does is cause us to age quicker and become vulnerable to disease.

That is s quote from the Kathy Smith monthly news letter I get. I find it interesting that this fat is "metabolically active". I do know that the medical community uses it as a risk indicator for diabetes and breast cancer. Fat does produce estrogen too which can be in excess for some women. It is also suspected to be natures way of easing the transition to menopause for women by offering up additional estrogen to replace that which was provided by a younger reproductive cycle. The problem is our modern lifestyle often overrides the benefits by excusing excess weight gain as normal aging.

The newsletter goes on to recommend keeping up with cardio and resistance training and to track changes in waist measurement rather than scale weight.