Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 If you want to reduce body fat, you need to start consuming fewer calories than you expend on a daily basis. In other words, have a calorie deficit. In time, your body will start converting fat into useable energy, and by doing so, fat stores will begin to vanish across your body. But they won't just magically disappear from one particular place.
If you are a male, abdominal fat is probably the last fat that will disappear from your body. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 That was a long-winded way to answer your question, but the answer is, yes, sugar can be converted into body fat, but it is not the first strategy that your body uses to lower your blood sugar. If you're exercising, that will help lower blood sugar levels automatically, or if your glycogen levels are low, your body will first try to store glycogen. But again, most people are not exercising, and their glycogen levels are already topped out, so when they consume sugars, they are directly promoting the creation of body fat. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| You don't have to "think" about where to put your body fat on any particular day, any more than you have to "think" about why you might sometimes feel attracted to another person.)
Thirdly, your body stores fat wherever you have fat cells. This may sound obvious, but it's actually interesting when you realize that people who undergo liposuction to remove fat cells from their body end up causing a redistribution of fat to other locations that might be less desirable. |
| Secondly, from an anthropological point of view, the placement of body fat also has some implications for mate selection. This is especially true in women, where fat is stored in locations like the hips, buttocks and breasts to actually create a more attractive physical body in order to attract a potential mate. In this way, the fat is stored in predetermined locations on your body for much the same reason that a male peacock has brightly colored feathers -- it's part of the mating game, so to speak. |
| Remember, fat storage is a survival strategy, so your body wants to maximize energy efficiency in the creation, storage and use of body fat.
It wouldn't make sense to have a lot of extra fat on your fingers and toes because you'd have to swing those around when you moved and that would require extra caloric expenditure. So given that your body wants to store fat as a way to have portable energy, it makes perfect sense that it would prefer to store that fat in your midsection. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 In Obesity Research back in 2003, researchers investigated the relationship between tea drinking, body fat percentage, and body fat distribution and found that folks who drank tea on a regular basis for more than ten years had a 19.6 percent reduction in body fat and a 2.1 percent reduction in waist-hip ratio compared to non-tea drinkers. Now that could be due to any number of factors other than the tea drinking, but other research since then has pointed to the likelihood that there is indeed something in tea that helps you lose fat. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| So if you want to get rid of body fat, do it the right way: through diet and exercise, and not through cosmetic surgery or gimmicks that claim to eliminate fat from one specific area of your body. Fat loss takes real work, and even though there are some helpful appetite control tools available right now (like hoodia gordonii supplements), there are no magic pills that will do the work for you.
This isn't what you'll hear from those selling fat loss supplements and diet pills, of course. But it's the truth as things stand today. |
| Some people talk about growth hormone and using HGH supplements or DHEA, and certainly those can help with the reduction of body fat by, in a sense, moderating the biological aging taking place in your body. But you're never going to have total success with fat loss unless you also engage in regular physical exercise and pursue a healthy diet.
When it comes to abdominal fat, remember, there's no way to eliminate that fat by itself without taking a holistic, whole-body approach. In other words, there are no fat loss shortcuts. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| But again, most people are not exercising, and their glycogen levels are already topped out, so when they consume sugars, they are directly promoting the creation of body fat.
In the third part of this article, we'll talk about how dietary sugars cause adult-onset diabetes, and we'll present strategies for both preventing and reversing diabetes. |
David Winston, RH(AHG), and Steven Maimes
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 Selected Research Studies
Effect of Licorice on the Reduction of body fat Mass in Healthy Subjects (Armanini et al. 2003).
In this interesting study, seven men and eight women took 3.5 grams of a commercial licorice product per day for two months. Test subjects had a 10-percent reduction in body fat mass with no change in caloric intake.
The Treatment of Atopic Dermatitis with Licorice Gel (Saeedi, Morteza-
Semnani, and Ghoreishi 2003).
A 20-percent licorice gel used for two weeks was very effective in reducing the redness, swelling, and itching associated with atopic dermatitis. |
Elaine Magee
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 High-calcium, low-calorie diets have been shown to help reduce body fat and preserve muscle mass, but some experts suspect that other components besides calcium in dairy products aid the effort. In recent clinical trials of people receiving comparable low-fat diets—one with calcium from dairy products and the other from supplements—those taking supplements lost less weight and body fat.
One theory is that two milk proteins, casein and whey, represent the ideal combination of fast and slow proteins. I bet you didn't know protein could be fast or slow, did you? |
Steven V. Joyal
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 There is also evidence that they improve cholesterol levels and favor a beneficial redistribution of body fat (i.e., less abdominal fat and more peripheral body fat). The side effects of thiazolidinediones (TZDs) include fluid retention and liver toxicity. The latter complication requires that you have regular monitoring of your liver function.
Several significant warnings about TZDs emerged in 2007. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 In fact, for this study, mice drinking fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks ultimately had 90 percent more body fat than mice consuming just water.
"We were surprised to see that mice actually ate less when exposed to fructose-sweetened beverages, and therefore didn't consume more overall calories. Nevertheless, they gained significantly more body fat within a few weeks," said study author Dr. Matthias Tschop. |
Steven V. Joyal
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| Excess Abdominal Body Fat
Research shows that having fat around the abdomen (often referred to as an "apple shape" or a "beer belly"), and not just total body fat, is associated with insulin resistance and an increased risk for heart disease. The risks associated with the accumulation of excess fat around the abdomen have been known for some time. In 2005, researchers published the results of a study that followed 27,270 men for thirteen years. During that time, 884 men developed type 2 diabetes. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| Accordingly, the vast majority of people, when they consume refined carbohydrates, are going to be in a physiological state where circulating blood sugar gets quickly converted into stored body fat.
This is the last strategy the body can use to remove blood sugar from the bloodstream. This process also involves the liver, and it essentially converts the sugars into fatty acids, then stores them in the fat cells around your body. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 They had large bellies and a high percentage of body fat.
So, if anything, I'm probably programmed to store quite a bit of body fat. It's not at all easy for me to become a thin person. In fact, it was quite a challenge and I struggled with it for years. Ultimately, that's what motivated me to learn more about foods and to continue refining my diet. Because frankly, if I had eliminated my back pain and lost all my excess body fat and been a thin person by taking some magic pill ten years ago, I would have just taken that magic pill and forgot about everything else! |
C. W. Randolph, M.D.
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 Chapter 2 will help you to understand how age, body fat, and environmental toxins can join forces to sabotage your inner hormonal equilibrium.
DOMINANT? velyn, a thirty-seven-year-old graphic artist and mother of three, walked into my office literally dragging her forty-three-year-old husband, Richard, behind her. I had delivered all three of her children and had been her gynecologist for years. Evelyn related the following:
Dr. Randolph, remember how trim and athletic my body was even after three kids? Even two years ago, I was a perfect size 8. |
Wendy Bazilian, DRPH, MA, RD, Steven Pratt, MD, Kathy Matthews
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 Other and perhaps more significant flaws were that the charts didn't objectively account for age, frame size, or take into account body fat distribution or degree of obesity. Over time these tables gradually fell into disfavor. Now most professionals rely on a combination of assessments to arrive at a goal or ideal weight for an individual.
Here are my recommendations for those who would like to set an ideal weight that might serve as a long-term goal. One important point: No single measure is the answer. So review these assessments and see where you fit in:
The Scale. |
| This study, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that blood levels of vitamin C were negatively associated with body fat distribution. In other words, independent of body mass index (BMI), age, supplement use, socioeconomic levels, or smoking status, the higher the vitamin C in the study participants' blood, the lower their waist-to-hip ratio.14 This held true for both men and women. |
Stacy Malkan
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 Many of these chemicals persist in the environment, accumulate in body fat and can remain in breast tissue for decades. Some have been shown to induce mammary tumors in animals, while others disrupt the delicate hormonal balance in the body. "Compelling scientific evidence points to some of the 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use today as contributing to the development of breast cancer, either by altering hormone function or gene expression," according to State of the Evidence 2006: What Is the Connection between the Environment and Breast Cancer? |
John J. Ratey, MD
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 It's true that many ADHD kids are more active than their peers — studies show they have less body fat, on average — and I see plenty of adults with ADHD who are already exercising. But they need to be doing more, and on a regular basis. In general, I tell my patients to make every effort to institute a regimen of daily exercise—or at least during the five weekdays, when they need to focus at school or work. |
| Giving the kids targets for heart rate, blood pressure, body fat, and the rest, he announces, is a proven method of motivating people to stay fit. Indeed, studies suggest that simply getting on the scale every morning improves the likelihood that someone who's overweight will shed pounds. But Lawler and Zientarski's ambitions extend far beyond concerns about their students' body mass index.
"I tell people it's not my job as a PE teacher to make kids fit," Zientarski says. "My job is to make them know all of the things they need to know to keep themselves fit. Exercise in itself is not fun. |
| Their percentages of body fat were way below national norms using the CDC's height and weight standards. On other fitness variables, something like ninety-eight percent of the students passed."
Broeder is perfectly aware of Naperville's demographics, yet he's still impressed. "The numbers are too high for it to just be that," he says. "The PE program itself has to have had an additive impact on what that population would achieve otherwise. |
Wendy Bazilian, DRPH, MA, RD, Steven Pratt, MD, Kathy Matthews
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| One study with mice found that fish oil affected body fat distribution among the subjects. In this study the mice were divided into three groups. Some were fed soybean oil, some lard, and others fish oil. Those who were fed fish oil developed less visceral fat, which refers to the fat surrounding the organs that is difficult to reduce and a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease17. These fish oil-fed mice also had lower leptin levels and, as we've seen, these lower levels of the hormone leptin would help regulate both appetite and metabolism. |
| In another small 2-year study of young women that investigated the relationship between nutrients and body composition among exercisers, researchers found that the young women with a high calcium intake gained less weight and body fat over the 2 years than those with the lower calcium intake. |
| A regular program of strength training can reduce your body fat, increase your lean muscle mass, and help you to burn calories more efficiently. But perhaps the most significant benefits of strength training are the long-term bonuses: Strength training can ensure your future independence and overall ability to enjoy life. Strength training today can mean a future filled with activities and pleasures that are sometimes denied to those who lose strength, motion, and functional abilities. |
C. W. Randolph, M.D.
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| When high estrogen levels are unopposed by sufficient progesterone, the resulting condition of estrogen dominance also impacts your body fat's distribution. In both men and women, higher estrogen levels predispose the body to store fat around the abdomen. In women, estrogen dominance causes fat to be stored around the waist, hips, and thighs, and it's the main reason that many middle-age women have pear-shaped bodies. Estrogen dominance is also the reason for the middle-age spare tire in men. |
Wendy Bazilian, DRPH, MA, RD, Steven Pratt, MD, Kathy Matthews
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| We know from animal studies that soy protein can reduce body fat accumulation and improve insulin sensitivity.45
There's yet one more emerging area of study on soy that points to the possibility that it could play a role in promoting weight loss. In a study of rats, researchers found that soy isoflavones actually played a role in reducing inflammation, a condition that we've looked at as playing a role in exacerbating obesity and weight gain. The rats in this study that consumed soy isoflavones had improved insulin sensitivity, which seemed to be caused by a reduction in inflammation. |
David W. Grotto, RD, LDN
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 Ingestion of a tea rich in catechins leads to a reduction in body fat and malondialdehyde-modified LDL in men. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005;81:122-129.
Yang YC, Lu FH, Wu IS, et al. The protective effect of habitual tea consumption on hypertension. Arch Intern Med. 2004;164(14)!l534-1540.
Teff www.ethnomed.org/cultures/ethiop/teff.html
Mengesha B, Ergete W. Staple Ethiopian diet and cancer of the oesophagus. East Afr Med}. 2005 Jul;82(7):353-356.
Tomatoes www.tomato.org
Basu A, Imrhan V. Tomatoes versus lycopene in oxidative stress and carcinogenesis: conclusions from clinical trials. |
John J. Ratey, MD
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| Aside from wreaking havoc on the cardiovascular and metabolic systems, body fat has its own nasty effects on the brain. The CDC estimates that 73 percent of Americans over sixty-five are overweight, and, given the potential problems obesity can lead to—from cardiovascular disease to diabetes—the agency is right in declaring it a pandemic. Simply being overweight doubles the chances of developing dementia, and if we factor in high blood pressure and high cholesterol—symptoms that often come along with obesity—the risk increases sixfold. |
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