Dear Reader,
You may be fat on the inside even if you’re not overweight. How is this possible?
Your body is capable of storing fat not only over your belly, hips and thighs, but also deep inside your body around vital organs like the heart, liver, and pancreas.
I just read a study that found that people who are “thin outside, fat inside” (TOFIs) may have the same risk for insulin resistance, type-2 diabetes, and heart disease as “fat-looking” folks.
But don’t worry, I’ll give you a good tip to stay healthy and fat-free, both inside and out.
Researchers at the Imperial College, London scanned nearly 800 people since 1984 with MRI machines to create “fat maps” showing where people store fat.
According to the data, people who maintain their weight through diet rather than exercise are likely to have major deposits of internal fat, even if they are otherwise slim.
Even people with normal Body Mass Index (BMI) scores — a standard obesity measure that divides your weight by the square of your height — can have surprising levels of fat deposits inside. (I never use the BMI in my practice… it has some major flaws. But it will be useful for understanding this study.)
Of the women scanned in the Imperial College study, as many as 45 percent of those with normal BMI scores (20 to 25) had excessive levels of internal fat. Among men, the percentage was nearly 60 percent. The researchers even found TOFIs among people who are professional models.
Although this may not seem serious, people who are fat on the inside are essentially on the threshold of being obese. They eat too many fatty, sugary foods — and exercise too little to work it off — but they are not eating enough to actually be fat. Scientists believe we naturally accumulate fat around the belly first, but at some point, the body may start storing it elsewhere.
Here’s the bottom line: The study found that diets for weight loss was more likely to result in TOFIs than exercise.
The PACE® program not only burns fat better, it protects your heart and lungs better than any diet.
The key to real fitness are heart and lung “reserve capacity.” You build this up through high-intensity, short duration workouts. PACE® will do more for your overall health than “aerobic” exercises like running and jogging. It will keep you lean on the inside too…
Remember, the first feature of my PACE® plan is progressivity. This simply means repeated changes in the same direction. Do a bit extra this week that you didn’t do last week.
Most people doing cardiovascular “training” increase the duration. That’s precisely what I want you to avoid. Gradually increase some measure of intensity instead. Begin light and gradually pick up the pace or add resistance as your capacity increases.
The second principle is acceleration. In other words, get up to speed a little faster in the next session than you did in the last. When you are deconditioned (out of shape), it will take several minutes to gear up your breathing and heart rates. But as you get more accustomed to the challenge, you will respond faster. As you get into better shape, you will increase the intensity in each session and increase the intensity earlier in each session.
Start with 20 minutes every other day. As you get into better shape, break those 20 minutes into two 10-minute exertion periods with 5 minutes of recovery in between. After a few weeks, break those 20 minutes into four 5-minute exertion periods with 2 minutes of recovery in between. Continue to break your exercise into shorter exertion periods at you own pace.
When you are well conditioned, you will be using very short exertion periods. For instance, my intervals for biking are less than a minute followed by a minute of recovery repeated for 8 sets.
Use any activity that will give your heart and lungs a bit of a challenge. My favorites are swimming, biking, running and elliptical machines. I switch off between them to keep it fun and lower the chance of “overuse injuries.” What you will use will depend on your level of fitness. The important thing again is that the challenge advances gradually through time.
Hundreds of my patients have had success with PACE®. I just measured the body composition of “DL” – he lost 77 pounds in just 3 months…
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD