Watch Your Waist, Not Your Weight…Duh?

As you can probably already guess, the size of your waist can tell you a lot of things about the state of your health (wow genius, huh?). What a lot of people don’t realize is that the amount you weigh has a lot less to do with your overall health as bone and muscle weigh more than fat.

In either case, larger waists carry a higher risk for heart attacks, cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and infertility…so watch it: don’t compromise your sex life for a Big Mac!

I read up in the New York times that last month researchers at the Harvard School of Medicine studied 44,000 nurses that had a normal weight but larger waists sizes…the study resulted in many of the women having a high risk for some of the conditions listed in the previous paragraph and thus that normal-weight women with larger waists carry higher risks…what a mouthful! Did you get that? Kind of sporadic, but drop me a comment if you need some clarification.

What’s funny about the obviousness of this post is that most doctors still measure us and call us “fat” - well not me - by throwing us on a scale and measuring our BMI (weight relevant to height); in my opinion, the measurements are a load of crap and really should be thrown out the window.

They should be measuring WHERE your fat is and how much you have RELEVANT to your total weight…why the heck does it matter if you weight 200 pounds and are only 5′8″ if you’re a bodybuilder? For goodness sake, you could have only 4% body fat and sport those numbers…what a load. LOL. (laugh out load…I really did).

And guess what? Another study in March of this year analyzed in “The Journal of Clinical Epidemiology” revealed miraculously that BMI (body mass index…sorry I forgot that earlier) is the crappiest way to assess your cardiovascular health and that the waist is really a better indicator for either genders. Now isn’t that a shocker? It’s not really major rocket science if you noticed.

And now the technical jargon associated “For Your Facts” straight outta the New York Times (I’m NOT copying…I’m giving props here…sheesh):

“…Studies suggest that health risks begin to increase when a woman’s waist reaches 31.5 inches and her risk jumps substantially once her waist expands to 35 inches or more. For men, risk starts to climb at 37 inches, but it becomes a bigger worry once their waists reach or exceed 40 inches.

However, those numbers are based on averages and are not always useful for very tall or short people, children or certain ethnic groups. Among the Japanese, for instance, health risks start to increase for men with a waist size above 33.5 inches, but for Japanese women, risk does not increase until their waists expand to 35.5 inches…”

OK; get all that? Me either; basically it says that when your waist gets big, so does the probably that some thing’s going to go wrong…so eat more salads, ok?

Now just last month, “The International Journal of Obesity” said that maybe your waist in relevance to your height is a better indication of your health…that may be true (light bulb). It says that your waist should be less than half your height…I would hope so.

But now here comes the twisted part (it’s kind of funny actually):

Waist size doesn’t always determine your cardiovascular health…okkkaaaaayyyyy…? Think about a sumo wrestler who weighs like 500 pounds…the dude is huge. He’s fat as all-get-out and looks like he drinks a can of olive oil every night before he gets tucked in bed; but he actually probably has clearer blood vessels than I do. (and I’m 6′3″, 200lbs of lean steel…for the record)

How is that possible? I guess really the sumo’s fat is just under the skin instead of deeper down into the abdomen where it can cause some serious harm. Translation? If one of these guys got liposuction he’d probably come out looking amazingly natural and built without much skin damage or cellulite.

Picture that. LOL. K. Stop. STOP.

Now come on back to me and let’s wrap this up.

The majority of people should be watching their waste size…it’s important. The average person can use their waist as an overall indicator for how the rest of their body fairs in the health department. If your waist is fat, your heart, liver, and muscles are fat too. You’re probably susceptible to a wide range of serious health concerns, high cholesterol, and diabetes…which is incurable.

Lose a little weight, and you’ll be pleasantly healthier. A study was done with 20 really overweight (we now call this obese as to not destroy any feelings or create a sense of emotional unhappiness) who were told to eat better and exercise. Long story short: they lost 20% of their weight and a considerable amount of fat that shrunk their waists (by 23%) and the fat around their organs considerably (by 32%) as well.

A final source of the waist fat is your level of stress. This one is huge…so bear with me. The more stress you experience on a day-to-day basis, the more fat around your waist. What happens is your adrenaline kicks in and juices your cortisol levels which react by pumping out the fat to prepare you for the worst…the worst part really is that the “worst” never happens and the fat doesn’t go away when you snap your pretty little model fingers and wish upon a frickin’ shooting star…sorry. Big breath.

If you’re waist is huge, lose weight. Sorry that the conclusion is so simplified, but quit worrying about what the scale says (laaaddiesss) and start by just plain taking care of yourself. Eat salads, go running, laugh more…be smart and you’ll be spending less time shopping for large belts and more time drilling holes in our existing ones to shrink up the grip.

ciao

Source=Derek Huizinga, Jumpstart Energy