Abdominal Obesity and Your Health

Abdominal obesity is an aggravating factor in chronic disease. What causes obesity is high insulin levels caused by our highly processed sugar laden diet. Obesity treatment includes exercise, nutritional supplementation, and avoiding processed food.

The Obesity Epidemic

With 65% of Americans now classified as overweight or obese, it's appropriate to call obesity an epidemic! There are no shortage of statistics on the decline in our health due to obesity and chronic disease, but there is no acknowledgment about what causes obesity and what the most effective obesity treatment is.

Abdominal obesity can be caused by a number of things, including some acute medical conditions that go beyond a person's caloric balance. For the purpose of this article, I am going to focus on otherwise normal healthy individuals, for whom obesity IS related to their dietary and exercise habits.

Many so-called “experts” profess to not understand what causes obesity. They are either ignorant of science, or just plain dishonest. The causative factors in abdominal obesity have been known for some time.

High Insulin Levels

High insulin levels are the bane of society health-wise. They are perhaps the number one problem preventing most people who are overweight from losing weight and getting to a healthy body composition.

Insulin is essential for life. Type one diabetics must take insulin because their bodies do not produce it. However like many other things, too much is almost as bad as too little.

Insulin is a transport hormone and a fat storage hormone. Insulin causes a suppression of lipolysis (fat burning) and causes fat to be stored in the body, mostly in the abdominal area. This is what sets the stage for abdominal obesity.

This storage of belly fat can aggravate many different medical conditions, however it is the high insulin levels that promote inflammation throughout the body which have the most adverse impact on our health.

Metabolic Syndrome

As an example of the ignorance about what causes obesity, shown by many “health authorities” the term “metabolic syndrome” was created to describe a number of symptoms all having to do with insulin resistance and obesity.

There is no mystery here. High insulin levels result from too much processed carbohydrate in modern diets. Chronically elevated insulin causes inflammation, which damages arteries leading to heart disease and other medical problems.

Since inflammation underlies all chronic disease, it's accurate to say that processed carbohydrates lead to high insulin levels, which in turn lead to the symptoms of chronic ailments from cancer to heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, depression, dementia, and cognitive decline.

Obesity Treatment and Preventing Abdominal Obesity

I haven't as yet mentioned exercise, because quite honestly it is not the answer all by itself. If people ate a perfect diet, they could probably get along without vigorous exercise. I've seen far too many overweight people who exercise regularly to believe that exercise itself is the answer.

So called “experts” and “authorities” don't seem to understand what causes obesity and that body composition is far more than calories in and calories out. It's a complicated dance of hormonal signaling, that essentially tells the body where to store it's fat.

Abdominal obesity is an indicator of either high insulin levels or elevated cortisol (stress hormone). It is a barometer for what is going on with your hormonal system, and it's a warning that changes need to be made to address hormonal imbalances before serious health problems occur.

What changes?

• Reducing your sugar intake
• Avoid processed foods
• Keep grains to a minimum in your diet
• Eat for your blood type
• Eat quality protein with EVERY meal
• Use a quality fish oil to help lose abdominal fat
• Do interval training (2-3 times per week) for exercise

These obesity solutions will reduce your high insulin levels and allow your body to get into it's fat burning mode. You will begin to “draw down” on your stored bodyfat and obesity will be a thing of the past for you!


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