Losing fat 2008: You got to move it … move it!

Non-essential fat exists primarily within fat cells located just below the skin and around the major organs. It is called adipose tissue or depot fat. This is the fat we want to burn to achieve an ideal body composition.

Losing the five pounds of fat the average person gains during the holiday season is like running backwards uphill. It's hard ... but you can do it!

The bad news about fat is that it looks awful when it accumulates around your abdomen, hips, arms and thighs. Fat is associated with a very high risk of medical illness and premature death when it comprises more than 40 percent of your total body weight.

Fat is a factor in the occurrence of diseases like diabetes, stroke, hypertension and atherosclerosis. High body fat is associated with breast cancer and infertility. Obesity increases the risk of death for people undergoing general anesthesia for all operations including gastric bypass surgery, breast reduction and liposuction.

The good news about fat is that it tastes good! It is responsible for the smooth texture of many foods we find pleasant to eat, from chocolate to ice cream. A pint of dulce de leche ice cream is divine but contains 1,200 calories - about half the calories the average person needs in a day!

Cheese is the most common form of fat in the American diet. Most ethnic groups, excluding Asians, consume large quantities of cheese. Infants and toddlers are introduced to cheese sticks sold in the baby food section at the corner store.
Beans and nuts are high in nutritional value because they contain fiber, protein and carbohydrate. Unfortunately, most of the calories in a handful of almonds or peanuts comes from fat.

Hawaiian macadamia nuts are delicious and one of my personal favorites but they contain 220 calories in a one-ounce serving! When I eat nuts, I count them as fat calories but with higher nutritional value than a tablespoon of butter or a slice of cheese.

Fatty foods stimulate an area at the base of the brain called the hypothalamus in a region called the satiety center. We feel gratified after a meal with a rich dessert because the satiety center tells us we are full.

Fast food restaurants and coffee houses take advantage of this physiological response by adding soluble fat to food items, milk shakes and specialty coffee drinks. We feel satisfied after eating a fatty meal with little nutritional value but an enormous energy value we convert to depot fat stored on our hips, butt and thighs when we are inactive.

Think of your body as a powerful "musculoskeletal machine." Fat is the most concentrated form of "fuel" your body can use.

Each gram of fat can be converted to nine calories of "fuel." Carbohydrates and protein deliver only four calories of fuel per gram. Alcoholic beverages are "high octane" fuel. They deliver seven calories of fuel per gram.

When the tank of your automobile is full, you store extra fuel in an auxiliary tank. That's what happens when you consume more fuel than your "musculoskeletal machine" needs.

It gets stored as fat in your body's auxiliary tanks located under your skin primarily in the abdomen, thigh, hip, butt, chest and arm regions. Fat is also stored in organs like the liver, kidney and intestines. When fat is stored in body organs, it gives men and women the appearance of being pregnant.

The human musculoskeletal machine

As a physician, personal trainer and nutrition consultant, I have evaluated hundreds of people who give lip service to the idea of exercising for health. But in reality, their immediate goal is to look good and get laid!

Many people don't succeed in their efforts to attain a fit and healthy body because they emphasize short term weight loss rather than the permanent changes in diet and lifestyle that lead to fat loss and a healthy body composition.

As an African-American woman who burned 30 pounds of body fat and successfully overcame obesity, hypertension and a metabolic syndrome through exercise, diet and lifestyle changes, I want to introduce some of you to the concept of body composition -the body fat percentage - and offer you the "skinny on fat burning" as proposed by Ralph La Forge, M.S., director of health promotion at the San Diego Cardiac Center Medical Group.

People whose body composition is optimal have been found to be healthier, to move more efficiently, to live longer, to have more sex and to feel better about themselves. The most important consideration in interpreting body composition is the percentage of the body's total weight that is non-essential storage fat.

Too much "depot" fat has a negative effect on health, self esteem and wellbeing. About one out of every four Americans has a body composition that can be classified as obese. Obesity is the excessive accumulation of body fat - more than 25 percent in males and more than 32 percent in females.

When over 40 percent of the body weight is non-essential fat, the risk of premature death is very high. About 50 percent of Americans are "overfat." This percentage is often higher in the African-American community, particularly among adult and adolescent females.

Body composition has replaced body weight in medical, research and fitness circles. In the past people relied on height-weight tables to determine how much body weight is too much for an athlete to be on a team, for a model to be signed by an agency or for a pediatrician to worry about the growth of a toddler. Based on insurance company actuarial tables that list a range of body weights associated with highest mortality, people whose weight falls above the average for their sex, age and height are considered overweight.

The problem with this method is that these estimates can be inaccurate for many people. An Olympic weightlifter weighing 210 pounds can be considered overweight by these standards, because his muscle tissue and bone are denser and heavier than a sedentary man of similar height with a "beer belly."

A physically fit person can weigh more than an unfit person. A mentally disturbed teenager with anorexia nervosa can weigh in at a low but ideal scale weight and within a year die of a metabolic disturbance and starvation.

African-Americans as an ethnic group have been shown by anthropometric science to have denser bone and greater muscle mass than other ethnic groups. Thus, people of sub-Saharan African genetic stock are "overweight" when compared with other ethnic groups when scale weights or BMI (body mass index) are used as the basis of comparison.

A negative stereotype of the overweight Black is perpetuated even by Black medical professionals who overlook the strength, muscle mass and athletic prowess of the Black athlete and the same physical endowments that brought millions of Africans to American shores as slaves. A recent study by an Oakland nonprofit found that 37 percent of Black youth in San Francisco are overweight. The study failed to incorporate in its analysis the fact that Black youth are genetically endowed with greater lean body mass.

In contrast, Asians, as an ethnic group, weigh less, are of shorter stature and are billed at lower rates for insurance premiums by virtue of this genetic trait.
The human body can be divided into lean body mass and body fat. Lean body mass is composed of all the body's nonfat tissues, including bone, water, muscle, connective tissue and teeth. Body fat includes both essential and nonessential fat.
Essential fat is necessary in the production of hormones by the liver and in the production of cell membranes. Fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A, D, E and K are mandatory for our health.

Essential fat includes lipids incorporated into nerves to speed the conduction of electrical impulses to the brain, heart, lungs, liver and mammary glands. These crucial fat deposits make up approximately 3 percent of total body weight in men and 12 percent in women.

Nonessential fat exists primarily within fat cells located beneath the skin and around body organs. Nonessential fat is also called adipose tissue or depot fat. This is the fat we want to burn to achieve an ideal body composition. We burn fat by converting it to fuel through moderate intensity aerobic exercise of long duration.

Source:www.sfbayview.com