The Bottom Line on Belly Fat

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Our pretend daughter Jamie slow-cooked a roast for Memorial Day, and it was delicious, the best she’s ever done. She does them very well to begin with, so what made this one so good? Fat. It was a chuck roast. What made it so good was not the fat that you could see, it was the intramuscular fat you really can’t see when it’s cooked. The marbling you see before cooking? That’s more like what I mean, but some fat is so woven into the muscle you can’t see it even then. Why on earth am I talking about chuck roast? It’s because we humans are well marbled as we age, but in our case, it’s not a good thing.

I’ve told you about subcutaneous and visceral fat, but there’s one more type: intramuscular fat. Because we are so sedentary, we have plenty of it, and the more sedentary we are, the more intramuscular fat we have. While it could be a readily available supply of fuel, it’s a sign of muscle loss and sedentary living.

How can we tell whether our fat is located under our skin or around our organs? The only definitive way is with a CAT or PET scan. Dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) can be used to determine body fat, but it’s not as precise on the location.

Let’s make it simple. Stand up. Contract your abdominal muscles as tight as you can. Now grab your belly fat, opening your hand as far as you have to get a good hold. If you seem to have more fat in your hands but there doesn’t seem to be much under the muscle, you most likely have more under the skin than under the muscle. If you can’t grab much fat in your hands but you still have a large waist, it’s mostly visceral fat.

While not exactly a scientific method, it can give you an idea of where you stand. And this doesn’t count the marbling effect. For me, it’s almost all subcutaneous fat I can grab.


The Bottom Line

How do you get rid of belly fat? Eat less. Eat better. Move more.

Yes, you’ve heard that before, but here’s why it’s the solution to this problem:

  • Eating less will help you lose fat from under the skin and under the muscle.
  • Eating better means you will be eating fewer refined carbohydrates, and that can benefit your visceral fat.
  • Exercise will help the intramuscular fat because you’ll use it as fuel. It will help the subcutaneous fat because you’ll be burning calories—and yes, do your crunches and leg lifts to strengthen your core. But the visceral fat will benefit the most from exercise because exercise can help use the hormones it produces and move your metabolic function more toward normal.

Find a way to eat less, eat better, and move more that suits your lifestyle. It may be completely different from what works for your best friend or your Aunt Mary, but it will work for you. For many people, my Optimal Performance Program is helping them achieve results they haven’t gotten any other way. But whatever approach you use, you must do something; when I say the guy in the photo has a killer belly, I mean it literally. The answer isn’t a pill or a special food; it’s the effort you put into it.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

The Dangers of Undercover Fat

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What’s lurking under your abdominal muscles, in and around your liver and other internal organs? Undercover fat, actually called intra-abdominal or visceral fat. It’s dangerous because visceral fat is more metabolically active and increases the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes among other diseases.

What does “metabolically active” mean? Primarily, this fat makes more chemicals that can impact other organs in a negative way: protein, fat, and cholesterol-based hormones such as cortisol, insulin, and estrogen. These chemicals are critical to our health but in excess amounts can result in insulin resistance, fatty liver, and excess estrogen in women and men.

How do you know what type of fat predominates in your body? Better yet, is there anything you can do about it? We’ll finish this up on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

“Sit-Ups Make You Fatter”

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When I spot a headline like that, I have to click on it to see what they’re talking about. And I usually end up disappointed because it’s about some product to help you lose belly fat. What about the sit-up claim? They say doing crunches or sit-ups or leg lifts will make the muscle under the fat bigger, thereby pushing the fat out farther, and giving you the appearance of being fatter.

Baloney. Sit-ups won’t make you fatter and those products they’re pitching won’t help you lose belly fat. But it does merit a look at the types of fat, where it’s stored, and what you can do about it.

The most obvious fat is the type you can see and pinch: subcutaneous fat. Literally, that means it’s right under the skin. We can see the rolls and bulges. It doesn’t make us happy and, in fact, can make us feel bad about ourselves. I can’t tell you to stop feeling that way because I feel the same way at times.

But there are two things that are important about it. First, it’s a form of protection against famine; not that famine is likely on this continent, but it’s a reserve energy supply. Second, it’s not as metabolically active as intra-abdominal fat, which is found underneath the abdominal muscle. I’ll talk more about that on Thursday.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

The Microbiome of Your Lungs

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When we think of the microbiome, it’s logical to think only of the digestive system and our skin. In reality, the microbiome includes every microbe in and on our entire body, including our lungs. At one time, the lungs were thought to be microbe free; that certainly seemed to be the case for newborns. As babies are exposed to various bacteria and other microbes, a microbiome develops in the lungs much as it does throughout the body. It seems to have the same balance of good and bad microbes, although not as extensive as the gut.

Research has shown that in serious lung conditions such as cystic fibrosis as well as chronic lung conditions such as asthma and allergies there’s a dysbiosis of the lung microbiome. In other words, the lung microbiome is out of balance.

What can be done to restore the balance? Nothing other than traditional treatments for now, but this is an area of great research interest. I believe that focusing on eating foods with probiotics as well as prebiotics can help our entire microbiome, not just our gut.

Vegetables, beans, yogurt, fermented foods, and fruit should still be the foundation of our diet. Whether it helps the lung microbiome is not known, but it will help the gut microbiome. As we know, what helps the gut microbiome can influence other parts of the body; it’s reasonable to believe that it just may help the lung microbiome as well.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet
References:
1. JAMA. 2017;317(17):1713-1714. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.3023
2. http://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/Lung-microbiome.aspx

 

Potatoes and Your Microbiome

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A Cherokee legend talks of two wolves inside us, one good and one evil. Which one will win? The one you feed. It applies to our microbiome as well. We have good and bad microbes within us at all times. Which ones dominate? It depends on how we feed them.

In a recent study, researchers tested a prebiotic made up of a harder-to-metabolize starch extracted from potatoes. The subjects were a group of elderly and middle aged men and women. The objective was to compare the types of bacteria that responded positively to the prebiotic.

At baseline, the elderly subjects had higher amounts of the bad microbes, proteobacteria such as E. coli, compared to middle-aged subjects. After three months of using the prebiotic, there was a decrease in the bad microbes in the elderly subjects while both groups experienced in increase in bifidobacteria, the good microbes. The conclusion was that the prebiotic helped create a better microbiome balance.

While this was a small study that focused on one type of prebiotic, there’s a lesson. If you have a diet that includes vegetables, beans, and some starchy root vegetables such as potatoes, you will get a variety of prebiotics including the type used in this study. They will help you feed the good microbes to create the right balance in your digestive system. Which microbes will win? Your diet determines which ones dominate.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2017.03.025

 

Fiber and Your Microbiome

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Researchers used gnotobiotic mice in a recent study to test the importance of fiber; gnotobiotic mice are born with no bacteria of any type. Researchers used a synthetic human microbiome to introduce a bacteria colony into the mice. Once the colony was established, they withheld fiber from the diet of the mice. Then it gets scary: the mice’s microbiome used the naturally occurring mucus layer of the digestive system as food, which led to exposure of the underlying cells. The mice were exposed to a pathogen similar in effect to strains of E. coli in humans, and the mice that were deprived of fiber became ill as a result of the bacteria and died.

This mucus barrier is the same in our digestive system. The fiber we eat feeds our microbiome; if we don’t get adequate fiber in our diet, the possibility exists that a similar destruction of the mucus can take place.

The solution seems simple: eat vegetables, beans, and other fiber-containing foods to strengthen your microbiome and use a fiber supplement as insurance.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet
Reference: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2016.10.043

 

How to Limit Your Processed Food

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There are two strategies that you can use to control your intake of processed foods.

The first is the simplest yet the most difficult, especially if it’s something you really love to eat: Don’t buy it. If it’s not in the house, you can’t eat it. Whenever I tell that to someone, the next words out of their mouth are usually something like “That’s not going to happen!”

I understand completely, but for me, it’s the only way I can reduce my intake of chips and peanuts. If they’re in the house, I will eat them and I won’t stop. Some types of nuts such as almonds or walnuts are easier to control. I have yet to find something to substitute for any type of chip. You can put salt on carrots and celery, but it isn’t the same. You can dip broccoli or cauliflower in olive oil or balsamic vinegar and it doesn’t come close. It’s the combination of processing combined with the fat and salt that makes these foods difficult to resist for me.

Can you walk away from the pantry as you let one square of chocolate dissolve in your mouth? Can you eat two Oreos and put the package away? We all have our Achilles heel of foods; Paula almost finished a box of deluxe ice cream sandwiches the day we bought them, so we never bought them again. For you, it may be bread or donuts or chocolate or jelly beans. If you can’t walk away, just don’t buy it.

The second approach, and one that may be more reasonable for some, is to portion out a serving and don’t eat any more. In my opinion, there are no foods that you can never eat as long as you control the amount and the frequency. If you can control your portions, that works just fine. If you can’t, you have no alternative other than to not purchase them.

Here is a bonus third way: Eat your vegetables first. Research shows that vegetables contribute to satiety. If you eat them first, it may be easier to control the processed foods you desire. Drinking a glass of tomato juice instead of a milkshake may not be as rewarding emotionally, but it may satisfy you physically.

This is something to work on at home with your children. Based on recent changes to the guidelines for school lunches, the upper levels of sodium may be suspended for school districts that request it. It seems innocent enough but in effect, your kids probably will be exposed to high levels of salt, learning to become dependent on the same nutritionally deficient foods we have problems with today. Schools can also opt out of the whole-grain requirement, so expect to see cheaper white bread. Best bet is to fix healthy lunches for your children every day and teach the kids to fix them, too.

I hope this helps. For me, it’s a never-ending battle and I know it is for others as well. Find which strategy works best for you—abstinence or control—and stick to it.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

What’s Wrong with Processed Foods

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If you do an Internet search for processed foods, you’ll get a whole lot of opinions on why they’re a bad thing. There isn’t a substantial amount of research behind the opinions when you look closely. In fact, there isn’t a substantial amount of research on processed foods at all and why they’re difficult to resist. Keep in mind that I’m talking about extensive processing; fruits and vegetables that are frozen immediately have been shown to have more nutrients than fresh produce that’s been sitting in the grocery display case for a while, and canned fruits and vegetables are a close second.

What’s the problem with processed foods, other than the fat, sugar, and salt? Two things stick out in my mind. First, the act of processing alters the vitamin, mineral, and phytonutrient content of the foods. Whether we’re talking about grains such as wheat or corn, beans such as soy, or dairy such as milk, some if not most nutrients are lost in the processing.

Second, you lose the fiber, and given how little fiber adults get, that might be the most serious loss of a nutrient. Fiber acts as a prebiotic to feed the microbes in our gut and helps with satiety and digestion. Breads, pastas, rolls, bagels, and every other processed food that uses grains come up short.

I’ll add one more to the list: probiotics. Processing destroys the good bacteria and other microbes that are valuable to our health. It isn’t just what we are getting in processed foods that harmful; it’s what we’re not getting that compounds the problem.

What’s the solution? I’ll finish this up on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Why Can’t I Stop?

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If there’s one question that frustrates all of us, including myself at times, it’s “Why can’t I stop eating ____?” For me, it’s salty and crunchy such as nuts and chips. For others, it’s refined carbohydrates such as baked goods, or sweets such as chocolate or cookies. Why can’t we just stop eating them? Why are we not able to say “Enough!” once we’ve started eating?

The reasons appear to be simple. The common denominators in every processed food appear to be salt (sodium), sugar, or fat, or some combination of the three. You don’t really ever hear someone saying they went on a kale-eating binge, do you? It’s always some processed or refined food. I’ll add fast foods to that list because the foods are cooked and assembled in a way that makes us want more.

I’ll examine a couple of reasons why these foods are so problematic on Thursday. For some insight on the food industry and how the food industry manufactures foods we can’t resist, get a copy of Michael Moss’s book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Industry Hooked Us. It’s a revealing look at how companies spend a lot of money on research to put together the flavors we can’t resist.

Dr. Chet

 

How to Live to Your 90s

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Today’s message is based on my father-in-law, Don Jones, or Joner as most of us knew him. As I said Wednesday, he passed away last Sunday. He lived to 94 years and six months; Peggy, the sister he was closest to, died at the exact same age. How was he able to live that long? I’ll give you my observations based on his life.

  • Genetics: it pays to have the right genes and Dad certainly did. Several of his siblings lived into their 90s.
  • Quit smoking: he quit smoking before he turned 21 years old. That’s probably the single most important thing he did. His father and siblings who smoked all died much younger. He never drank alcohol after that either.
  • Love: he loved his wife of over 70 years deeply, and as I said Wednesday, he longed to be with Ruth again. That’s a love that transcends life itself.
  • Humor: he had a great sense of humor. He gave it and was able to take it as well. My big ears were a frequent target. Once after we came in from a run together on a cold day, he said, “I know why you wear that headband: reduce wind resistance.”
  • Demeanor: he was almost always calm and pleasant and rarely showed any anger. Paula said when she was a kid and acted up, he’d just hang his head and sigh, and that hurt worse than any spanking. Once when he was mad at me, he showed it by leaving the newspaper at the top of the steps instead of putting it on the counter. He never stayed mad long.
  • Faith: he believed in God and lived his faith.
  • Exercise: he worked physical jobs most of his life. Then he began running when he was 70 and continued until he was in his mid-80s, hitting 700 miles for 2002. No doubt that helped him live longer than he might have with a genetic tendency toward stroke. He was never very fast but once you’re over 70, there’s not a lot of competition and he enjoyed picking up trophies at many of his 5Ks. I’m sure that competitive spirit added zest to his life.
  • Body weight: he was never fat for his height. That reduced any additional stress on his joints.

Those are my observations on how Joner lived into his 90s. While you can’t change your genes, you can certainly make the most of what you’ve got; his lifestyle and approach to life certainly helped my father-in-law.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet