Slim your waistline with whole grains

Just in case you didn't get the memo, it's perfectly okay to eat carbs. In fact, you should be eating plenty of them; that is, you should be eating plenty of "good" carbs. Falling into that category are fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grains.

Why is it important to eat a diet rich in whole grains? Because results from a recent study, conducted at Penn State University, revealed that doing so may help slim your waistline while lowering your risk of heart disease.

Researchers divided 50 obese adults with metabolic syndrome (a collection of risk factors that increases risk of diabetes and heart disease) into two groups. Members of both groups cut back on their calorie consumption for 12 weeks. Only one group was instructed to eat only whole-grain products, whereas the other group was instructed to not eat any whole-grain foods.

At the end of the 12 weeks, both groups had lost weight,. But, there was a disparity of about 3 pounds between the average weight lost by each group (11 pounds vs. 8 pounds). Moreover, although both groups experienced a decrease in overall body fat, the whole-grain group lost significantly more body fat from the abdominal region than the refined-grain group.

If you're interested in reading further, the results of this study can be found in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.