Monday, June 8, 2009

Are You An Apple Or A Pear - Weight Loss At Present

By Jacqueline Long

These days obesity and being overweight has reached prevalent proportions. It is no question that so many folks want to lose weight. There are many reasons to lose weight from the aesthetic reasons, like looking good to appeal to a mate or to fit in those great pants to what is probably the most critical reason and that is for good health.

Dissimilar bodies hoard fat in a different way. A person who stores all of the excess fat in their thighs and butt has different problems than a person who stores all of their extra fat in the center or the abdominal area. When you carry your fat in your thighs and butt you are shaped like a pear and when you carry your excess fat in your abdominal region you are shaped like an apple. The way that you carry your fat has a great effect on your wellbeing.

Women who are pear-shaped and carry all of their surplus weight in their butt and thighs have a health advantage over the women who are apple shaped. They may fight more with finding the clothes that fit and they may still have body image issues but they do not have the health problems that trouble the apple-shaped women. The fat that accumulates on your butt and your thighs is not inevitably a health issue.

On the other hand the fat that accumulates around the mid section puts the person at risk for such things as heart disease, diabetes and other health risks. The difficulty is that the fat in the middle collects around the internal organs. This prevents their organs and their bodies from optimal purpose. Pear-shaped individuals do not have this same problem because none of the inside organs are found in the butt and thighs.

In order to find out is you are an apple or a pear shape you need to compute your waist-hip ratio. Divide your waist measurement in inches by your hip measurement in inches. If the result is 0.8 or less you are shaped like a pear and if it is more than 0.8 then you are an apple shape. For illustration, you can take a 28-inch waist and divide it by a 38-inch hip and the result is 0.73 or a pear shape while that same hip of 38 inch with a 32-inch waist computes out to a 0.84 or an apple shape.

Both shapes may have body image issues but the truth is that the pear-shapes are not really facing serious health risks. If you are shaped like an apple it is necessary that you do what you can to drop the excess fat. Boost your cardio exercise and make sure that you are eating a fiber-rich diet consisting of more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans and legumes and include lean protein sources like fish and skinless chicken.

When it comes to weight loss an apple shaped individual does have an benefit because weight that accumulates in the abdominal area comes off quicker than the fat that accumulates in the butt and thighs. Butt and thigh fat is quite stubborn and it will take much more exertion to get it to finally come off.

You cannot control the type of body that you have and how you carry excess fat but you can do whatever is possible to prevent the excess fat in the first place or lose it if you already have it.

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