World Muay Thai champ holds Bacolod seminar

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You may not be as healthy as you look

Are you TOFI?

(Thin Outside, Fat Inside)

I could hardly be described as overweight. I stay busy all day, teaching Thai Boxing fitness classes and training for professional Muay Thai bouts. Although I don't smoke and rarely drink alcohol, I love junk food and beverages. Last week, as part of a core conditioning class I'm taking, I had the chance to find out what my lifestyle was doing to my insides when I got my fat measurements through a hi-tech MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner.

Thanks to MRI, doctors can look at the body's composition in a new light. These high-tech images show how much 'internal fat' even slim people carry - and raise fresh questions about how healthy people are. Doctors are increasingly concerned that people can look slim on the outside but still have a problem with fat.

My results were shocking. I'm very fit and tone and as a professional fighter, I have a lean and powerful build. At first glance, I look like someone with 8 to 10% body fat. So when I saw the number 20 on the screen, I could not believe my own eyes! 20 percent body fat??? What's going on? What am I doing wrong?

That's when my conditioning coach, Ruben Payan told me about Visceral Fat, also known as Hidden Fat. There lies the problem...

Visceral Fat

Visceral fat, also called intra-abdominal fat or hidden fat, refers to the fat that surrounds the internal organs. Subcutaneous fat, on the other hand, is body fat that is close to the skin's surface and is considered less dangerous, and easier to lose, than visceral fat.

Visceral fat is the fat that surrounds your inner organs, or better known as hidden fat.

Visceral fat is like a giant gland secreting hormones and toxic chemicals that contain inflammatory agents that act on the liver, bowel and arteries to the heart. The more visceral fat you carry around the higher your chances of developing insulin resistance (leading to type two diabetes), heart disease and other metabolic syndromes.

Studies have shown that those with visceral fat are more susceptible to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and hypertension. Sedentary people, smokers and drinkers have more visceral fat than active people who are non-smokers and non-drinkers. Stress may also be a factor in the storage of visceral fat on the body.

Visceral fat is harder to lose than subcutaneous fat because it is more deeply embedded in the body's tissues. Visceral fat is only measured accurately by an imaging machine that can see how much of the abdomen is made up of visceral fat. A person may be within a healthy weight range, but still have too much intra-abdominal fat around the internal organs.

The liver metabolizes visceral fat and releases it into the bloodstream as cholesterol. Harmful, or "bad" cholesterol, which is Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL), builds up into a plaque that blocks the arteries.

Losing weight through proper diet and effective exercise can help reduce visceral fat. How much fat a person eats does matter as studies have shown that those who eat 30% or more of their diets as fat usually have high amounts of visceral fat.

Some of the most effective ways to lose this visceral fat include intense cardiovascular routines on a regular basis.

Walking, running, skipping rope and kickboxing are considered by many health and fitness experts to be the most effective ways of exercising to control visceral fat than by doing exercises such as swimming where gravity keeps the body afloat. For example, walking at a fairly fast pace for 30 minutes six days a week has been shown to help reduce visceral fat, while walking only three days a week has not been shown to have much affect on the reduction of visceral fat. Increase your workout with 4-5 times a week of running, kickboxing and weight training and you will be well on your way.

Losing weight throughout your entire body and regaining a new sense of health is the best way to begin losing this visceral fat. More aggressive and intense forms of exercise may be required in order to lose this type of internal fat, but with a solid effort it is not impossible.

Overeating is the main way you can develop visceral fat.

If you intake more fatty foods on a regular basis than your body is more likely store this amount of excess fat around your stomach and internal organs when you reach a limit of fat storage that is maxed out. When a person becomes over weight or even obese they increase the chance of experiencing the dangers and risks of visceral fat build–up.

Of course a change in diet is 100% necessary to even see the slightest bit of change when you reach this type of fat loss program requirements. By utilizing a diet that is higher in protein and lower in fat you can begin breaking down and burning away visceral fat. Lots of fruits, vegetables, lean meats and water are the key to this type of intense and aggressive weight loss.

Medical Studies on Visceral Fat

According to researchers from Duke University Medical Center, exercise can significantly reduce the amount of visceral fat you carry around. The more exercise you do, the more of this type of dangerous fat you will lose. Researchers in this study said that extra exercise can reverse the amount you have, while some moderate exercise can stop your visceral fat mounting up.

If, on the other hand, you remain inactive, more likely than not you will pile on the weight at a rate of four pounds per year, say researchers.

You can read about this study in the October issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology. Lead author, Dr Cris Slentz, said, "In our study, the control group that did not exercise saw a sizable and significant 8.6 percent increase in visceral fat in only six months. We also found that a modest exercise program equivalent to a brisk 30-minute walk six times a week can prevent accumulation of visceral fat, while even more exercise can actually reverse the amount of visceral fat.Until we are able to prevent the weight many dieters regain following short-term dieting success, we should place a greater national emphasis toward prevention. It will be a challenge to change the message from 'exercise now to lose weight' to 'exercise now so in five years you won't be 20 pounds heavier.'"

The team studied 175 men and women, they were all overweight and led sedentary lives - they were all beginning to show signs of lipid problems. Four groups were created and the 175 people were placed into them at random. Each group carried out different levels of activity/inactivity:

1. No exercise at all.
2. Low dose moderate intensity activity (walking 12 miles per week
3. Low dose vigorous intensity activity (12 miles jogging per week)
4. High dose vigorous intensity activity (20 miles jogging each week)

All 175 people were told not to alter their diets. The aim of the study was to see what impact exercise alone might have.

The whole trial lasted six months for the couch potatoes (inactive ones) and eight months for the other three groups (the active group were given a two-month start to get them fit enough to do the trial).

All activity was supervised.

Computed Tomography (CT) was used at the beginning and end of the trial (to determine the extent and distribution of fat change).

Slentz found there was no significant difference in visceral fat levels among the low exercise groups. He concluded that mild exercise helps stop the increase, but does not reduce. The inactive group experienced increases in visceral fat levels.

He found that the more people exercised, and the higher their intensity, the faster they lost their excess visceral fat. He also added that jogging 17 to 20 miles a week may seem like a lot. However, all the participants were soon able to run those amounts each week quite comfortably.

The most active group saw visceral fat levels drop by 6.9% in six months, subcutaneous fat levels dropped by 7%.