Why is belly fat so dangerous? - Triathlon Week

sfricks · 07-28-2006, 06:25 AM

Dear Dr. Mirkin: Why is belly fat so dangerous?

If you store more fat in your belly than in your hips, your cells are likely to be resistant to insulin which puts you at high risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and premature death. In one recent study, researchers measured insulin resistance and compared it to several risk factors for diabetes in men and women: 1) heart-lung fitness; 2) whole-body fatness and 3) abdominal obesity (Diabetes Care, March 2006).
They showed that lack of physical fitness and overweight are very significant predictors of diabetes in men and women and that the single most important measure of insulin resistance is storing fat in the belly rather than the hips.
Storing fat in your belly causes you to store excess fat in your liver, which interferes with its function of removing insulin from your bloodstream after it has done its job of driving sugar into
cells. When your blood sugar rises after meals, your pancreas is
supposed to release enough insulin to keep it from rising too high.
If your cells cannot respond to insulin adequately, you are called insulin resistant, your blood sugar rises too high and your pancreas releases huge amounts of insulin. When your blood sugar rises too high, sugar sticks to cells. Once there, the sugar cannot get off the cells and is eventually converted to a poison called sorbitol that destroys the cells to damage nerves, arteries and other tissues throughout your body. Excess insulin acts on your brain to make you eat more and on your arteries to cause heart attacks. See [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Robyne May · 02-11-2008, 08:15 PM

Hi there , Im a new member to this site.
I have been competing in triathlon for 4 years now. I enjoy training a great deal . I live on a farm (2000 acres) and most of my training is done at home, except for the swimming in which I travel about 20kms. to our local pool in Cummins. The pool is open only seasonal so other than that I have to travel 70kms to ´Port Lincoln or invent something at home to use as swim training.
The longest triathlon I have competed in is the Half Ironman which the club I am a member of , put on. The Lincoln tri club is a great club with plenty inspirational people in it. I guess I get all of my motivation and inspiration from these people, many who have competed in Ironman and are such terrific people who share their experiences and stories and tips with me.
I am a swimming instuctor who loves teaching competative strokes and kids to learn to swim.
I work at our local pool (cummins) and Port Lincoln (70kms).

This website seems great and I hope to learn new things and get a few new tips from it see ya

sfricks · 02-12-2008, 04:11 AM

Welcome on. Sounds like you can make some nice contributions to the forum. Looking forward to hearing from you.