Simple Ways To Keep Healthy Weight and Sexy Body Shape

A healthy weight and a nice sexy body shape are a matter of simple knowledge and a commitment to simple healthy lifestyles that are sustainable. You cannot sustain activities such as fasting and gym workouts, but you can maintain and make your everyday lifestyles such activities as reducing carbohydrates and sugar consumption, keeping enough intervals between the next meal and regular walking. And they are all you require to do to obtain the ideal weight and the sexy body shape.

How much should you weigh to be healthy? What is a healthy weight for your height? There are several factors that influence our weight, for example age, sex, muscle mass, genetics, ethnicity and physical activity levels - just to name a few. Whilst many of us are looking for that magic number on the scale, the truth is that there's no one “ideal” weight that we should be aiming for.

Yes, maintaining a healthy weight is important for our health and wellbeing and lowers our risk of diseases, however it's important to know that it's not the only measure of success. Paying attention to non-scale victories or other health outcomes such as waist circumference measurements, or improvements in our fitness levels is just as important as they help to reinforce healthy habits. When it comes to your weight and health, what's most important is being the healthiest version you can be.

Fats deposited in the body due to excessive amounts of glucose in the bloodstream that is converted into a substance called glycogen by a hormone called insulin are found mostly under the skin, especially at the thighs and arms. However, a fat deposit that normally distorts our body shape or contour and causes us to have apple-shaped figure and diseases is the visceral fat.

The visceral fat
The most dangerous fat in our body is not a cholesterol in the bloodstream, but the fat deposits at the bottom of our belly or waist called the visceral fat. Visceral body fat, also known as 'hidden' fat, is fat stored deep inside the belly, wrapped around the organs, including the liver and intestines. It makes up about one tenth of all the fat stored in the body. Most fat is stored underneath the skin and is known as subcutaneous fat. That is the fat that is visible and that you can feel. The rest of the fat in the body is hidden. That is visceral fat.

Visceral fat makes the belly stick out or gives a person an 'apple' shape. It also produces chemicals and hormones that can be toxic to the body.

Visceral fat produces more toxic substances than subcutaneous fat, so it is more dangerous. Even in thin people, having visceral fat carries a range of health risks.

Visceral body fat is the fat that causes most sicknesses and diseases in the body. Someone may be slim, skinny or less weighty, but may have a visceral deposit. Before we talk about how to reduce visceral fat in the body, let’s take a look at ideal or healthy weight in relation to our height. This chart is just the weight in relation to height and does not take into account our muscle mass. For example, a boxer may weigh more than his ideal height due to the muscle mass.

Someone may have an ideal weight, yet may have deposits of visceral fat and non-sexy body shape.

What causes visceral fat?
Fat gets stored when you consume too many calories and have too little physical activity. So the simple way to avoid it or reduce it to the minimum is to reduce intake of calories, especially from processed carbohydrates and consumption of added sugars especially high fructose corn syrup which is added to many processed foods and drinks. And reduce the frequency or increase the intervals between meals to between 6-8 hours to reduce insulin resistance found whenever we consume carbs or sugars.

Some people tend to store fat around their belly rather than on the hips because of their genes. In women, getting older can change where the body stores fat. Especially after menopause, women’s muscle mass gets less and their fat increases. As women age, they are more likely to develop more visceral fat in the belly, even if they do not put on weight. In men, age and genetics also play a role in developing visceral fat. Drinking alcohol can also lead to more belly fat in men.

What are the health risks of visceral fat?
Having visceral fat in the belly is a sign of metabolic syndrome, a collection of disorders that include high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol and insulin resistance. Together, these increase the risk of stroke, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Having too much visceral fat in the belly can also cause:

• dementia
• cancer
• asthma
• liver disease
• gall bladder disease and gout
• fertility problems
• lower back pain
• osteoarthritis

How do I know if I have visceral fat?
The best way to tell if you have visceral fat is to measure your waist. The waist circumference is a good indicator of how much fat is deep inside the belly, around the organs. For women, your risk of chronic disease is increased if the waist circumference is 80 cm or more and for men 94cm or more. These measurements don’t apply to children or pregnant women. If you think your waist measurement may be too large, talk to your doctor.

Measuring the Body Mass Index (BMI) may also tell whether you are carrying too much fat.

How can I reduce visceral fat?
The best way to reduce visceral fat is through losing weight and diet. The best way to reduce weight is intermittent eating or cutting back the frequency of eating, especially eating of carbohydrates. The carbohydrates or sugars are the main cause of fat deposits in our body and increase of our weight. Anytime we consume carbs or sugar, the level of insulin, hormone that converts glucose from carbohydrates and sugars to glycogen to be stored as fats, increases.

All the cells in our body uses glucose for their functions. So any amount of glucose in the blood is used within 6-8 hours of consumption. That means, if we can maintain a minimum of eight hours intervals between consumption of carbohydrates and sugars, we shall not have problem with fat deposits. But we often eat and drink sugary foods and drinks; bread, cakes, toffees, sugary guns, soda and malt drinks, fruit juice, added sugars in coffee and tea and many more as frequently as every minute.

Our mouths have no rest, but every minute we are tasting, biting and drinking a sugary substance, a drink or snack loaded with sugars and high-fructose corn syrup. High-fructose corn syrup, also known as glucose–fructose, isoglucose and glucose–fructose syrup, is a sweetener made from corn starch. As in the production of conventional corn syrup, the starch is broken down into glucose by enzymes. It forms the added sugar in many beverages, cakes and snacks in the shelves of supermarkets

And today, unlike in the olden days, these ready prepared foods, drinks and juices are at every corner of the street, in kiosks and in vendors. So if even we are not taking a meal, we already have high insulin in our blood from the consumption of these high sugar substances, foods and drinks. But if we are able to overcome their temptation and abstain from them to maintain the eight-hour distance between meals, we will not have the problem of weight.

However, it is nit easy to overcome their temptation or avoid them because their sight is appetizing and they send sweet-flavour that raise our craving and cause us to have a burning sensation of hunger that appears as if we shall die for not eating them. But if you can ignore them for a while you shall break their temptation. Visceral fat responds better to our editing habits, diet and exercise than fat on the hips. Regular exercise can also stop visceral fat from coming back.

Another option is medication, but studies show this is not as effective in reducing visceral fat as intermittent eating and exercise. If we can maintain enough intervals between meals we shall only have to add walking for 30 minutes three to four times a week and we shall have great and healthy shape. Liposuction does not work to remove visceral fat.

Even though you cannot change your genetics, hormones or your age, you can reduce your risk of disease by:

• intermittent eating
• exercising for at least 30 minutes every day (for example by brisk walking, cycling, aerobic exercise and strength training)
• eating a healthy diet
• not smoking
• reducing carbohydrates and sugary intake
• getting enough sleep