Written by Betty Weider
Dear Betty,
This may sound vain, but I want to trim my tummy so I can wear revealing clothes and dress in style. What exercises can I do to take a few inches off my waist?
P.L.
Toulon, France
There's nothing wrong with wanting to look your best. In fact, that's the No. 1 reason most women exercise and diet. But here's a more important reason to seek a trim waist: It's healthier for your heart.
Being associated with excess abdominal fat, a large waist is considered a health risk. For most women, says the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, a waist measurement of more than 35 inches or 88 cm is high risk. Some women would be horrified to measure even 30 or 32, but for the high percentage of women who are obese in the United States and other industrialized nations, 35-plus is a harsh reality - and a dangerous one. For men, the high-risk cutoff is a waist larger than 40 inches, or 102 cm.
Doctors use the waist cutoff along with the Body Mass Index to identify overweight and possible heart-disease risk. The high-risk waist size would indicate increased disease risks in persons with BMIs of 25-34.9. Persons with BMIs of 25-30 are considered overweight; with BMIs higher than 30, obese. The BMI, however, has been criticized as unfair or at least not applicable to bodybuilders because it's based on height and weight, without regard for whether those pounds are muscle or fat. With waist size factored in, however, fat mass is taken into account.
A high BMI by itself may indicate that you're overweight or even obese, but if you also have a large waist or two or more risk factors, the National Institutes of Health recommends treatment for weight loss. A 5'6" woman who weighs 155 pounds has a BMI of 25; at 186 pounds, her BMI is 30. Again, this is determined solely by height and weight (literally, weight in kg divided by the square of height in meters), not by pounds of muscle or fat. In terms of indicating increased risk, these waist cutoff numbers may not apply to very short people or to those with BMIs of 35 or over.
Yet a slim waist is no guarantee of good health or long life. Rachel Mackey, MPH, of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, who discussed the waist circumference criteria at a recent American Heart Association conference, advises, "We strongly encourage people to check with their doctors to develop an individual plan to reduce cardiovascular risk."
Push-Aways
The classic exercise for a slim figure is the push-away - pushing yourself away from the table. Better yet, eat low-fat, high-fiber, lean-protein meals that will fill you up without fattening you up.
Meanwhile, stay active. In addition to some intense ab exercises like crunches and knee raises to keep your midsection tight, you need to burn calories to keep the fat from accumulating. Bodybuilding creates muscle that burns calories. Really intense workouts that incinerate 500 calories in an hour can be great, but don't forget the cumulative effect of increased activity overall. Burning an extra 50 calories 10 times a day will use up 500 calories, too. The bottom line here is your midline and your lifeline. Your efforts to keep your waist whittled won't be in vain if you also stay fit and healthy in the process.
