We at That's Fit and AOL Health know you've got a lot going on in your lives besides staying in great shape, and we realize that more than just diet and exercise goes into feeling your best every day. That's why we're sharing some of the exciting reporting going on at AOL Health.

Carrying some extra weight around your waist? Obesity experts and bestselling authors Drs. Mary Dan Eades and Michael R. Eades claim to have the remedy. Their new book "The 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle" promises to show you how to get your tummy back in shape. AOL Health has six steps you can start trying today.

Do You Know What's Really in Your Food? Take AOL Health's Weird Food Ingredients quiz to see if you know what bathroom cleaning ingredient is also found in chips, what hot dogs and headaches have in common and more!

Think good luck and genes are all it takes to live to 100 (and beyond)? These centenarians (members of the over-100 club) share insight about why they think they've lived so long, including what they eat (and what they avoid) and how they've stayed active over the years.

Photo: Darren Hester, Flickr

For years, fat carried around the abdominal area has been regarded as the detrimental by-product of our fast-food consuming, activity-loathing society -- and not just because it looks awful hanging over the edge of your low-cut jeans. Belly fat is just plain bad for your health. In fact, it's the worst kind of fat to have. Or so we thought.

Recent findings from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are suggesting that our obsession with belly fat is misguided -- it's actually the fat that's collected in the liver that we should be concerned with. "Visceral (abdominal) fat tracks closely with liver fat," lead author Dr. Samuel Klein says in a press release. "We have found that excess fat in the liver, not visceral fat, is a key marker of metabolic dysfunction. Visceral fat might simply be an innocent bystander that is associated with liver fat."

The bad news? Unlike belly fat, you can't really tell if your liver is fatty (well, not in a mirror, anyway.) But there is good news. "Fatty liver disease is completely reversible," says Klein. "Even two days of calorie restriction can cause a large reduction in liver fat and improvement in liver insulin sensitivity." So what are you waiting for? Help that liver of yours slim down.

Can make-up help? Find out if lip balm can lead to weight loss.

You've probably heard me rant and rave about blueberries. I eat them about six days a week, I gave them a "star" in my book "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth," and I've spoken at length about their high antioxidant content, their low sugar content and their ability to boost memory (in experiments conducted by Jim Joseph at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging).

Well, get ready for some hot news: Blueberries may also help banish belly fat.

Source

Have fitness questions? Fitz has your answers. Our That's Fit fitness expert -- and now your own virtual personal trainer -- will help you get fit, increase your overall health and do it in a fun way. Drop your questions here in the Comments section below and we'll choose one per week to publish on That's Fit! Learn more about Fitz here.

Q. Hi Fitz. I'm a tall, mostly trim guy, but I have a bit of a gut. My sister's always nagging me about it, but since I'm trim, I tend to ignore her. She says it's worse to have fat on the gut than fat in the butt, but I say fat is fat. What's your spin? Adam

A. Wow, Adam! What a saucy way to deliver a question. I'll do my best to respond accordingly. Here goes: Big bums can be sexy. Big bellies can be lethal. My little scenario didn't rhyme as well as yours, but you get the gist, right? Your sister is correct, pal, and you'd serve yourself well to force that waistline of yours to jump in line with the rest of your trim body.

Source

The benefits of probiotics -- the "good bacteria" that populate your gut -- are legion, and many nutritionists consider probiotics to be one of the most important supplements you can take. They help support digestion and assimilation of nutrients. And emerging evidence strongly supports the idea that probiotics are important for a healthy immune system.

But cutting belly fat?

Yup. Researchers from Finland enrolled more than 250 pregnant women in a study on pregnancy weight gain. During their first trimester, they were divided into three groups. Two groups received standard, prudent dietary advice in line with current recommendations about weight gain during pregnancy. They were also provided with lots of foods that contained monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, plus fiber-enriched cereals and the like. But one of these groups was given capsules of lactobacillus and bifidobacterium, commonly used families of probiotics. The third group was the control group -- the women in this group received no counseling and were given dummy capsules.

We at That's Fit and AOL Health know you've got a lot going on in your lives besides staying in great shape, and we realize that more than just diet and exercise goes into feeling your best every day. That's why we're sharing some of the exciting reporting going on at AOL Health.

Suffering from crunch fatigue?

You might want to try a stomach-slimming move that doesn't actually involve exercising -- just add these flat-belly foods to your diet. Our favorites? Avocados, dark chocolate and peanut butter. Or, here are snacks, desserts and meals that target ab flat. Plus, if you've heard about the "Flat-Belly Diet," and are curious about how well it works, check out this photo gallery of before and after photos of successful flat-belly dieters!

When it comes to flatter abs, does diet help you, or exercise. Or a little of both?

Liposuction is a quick -- if not entirely easy -- way to get rid of the belly fat. But while lipo might help you slip effortlessly into that itty, bitty bikini just in time for spring break, it won't do much to improve your health.

Belly fat isn't just unsightly, it's also dangerous. But the belly fat targeted by lipo sits just under the skin, while the stuff you really want to get rid of hangs out around your internal organs. Studies show that while lipo can reduce waist circumference, a risk factor for weight-related diseases, it doesn't appear to impact inflammation in the body.

There's only one way to banish that kind of blubber once and for all, through good old diet and exercise. Lipo can get rid of the fat, but changing your lifestyle once and for all prevents you from ever putting it back on again ... and that trumps instant results any day.

Put a new notch in your belt this month with AOL Health's Shrink a Size, and don't forget to check out how much our readers have already lost!

Source

Paunch, Buddha belly, spare tire, food baby -- whatever you call it, you're sick of the excess belly bloat you're carrying around. Dieting is one way to get rid of it, but what if you need results fast? The experts over at Prevention magazine put together a four-day jumpstart plan for reducing belly bloat, and they claim that if you follow it, you could lose up to seven lbs!

Here are some tips to follow over the four days:

• Avoid salt, meaning don't add any to your food and don't eat really salty foods either
• Avoid excess carbs, especially white breads and pastas
• Avoid gassy foods, like peppers, legumes, broccoli and citrus foods
• Avoid gum. Strange but true -- instead of helping you lose weight, it causes bloating because you're swallowing air.
• Cook your veggies. You get just as many nutrients in a smaller amount of cooked veggies than you do in a large amount of raw veggies, taking up less room in your GI tract.
  

For more info, check out the Flat Belly Diet on Prevention.

Source

Walking is great exercise all on its own. It's perfect for most any fitness level and doesn't require any special equipment. But if you add a few of the following techniques to your daily walk, you can significantly increase the number of calories burned and burn some of that dangerous and unsightly belly fat.

CNN recommends one of three methods for putting the punch into your walking workout:

• Plyometrics: These moves might make you feel a little silly at first, but you'll be the one laughing when that belly felt melts off. Add moves like bounding, jumping, and skipping to your walking workout.
• Hills: This is easy if you live in a hilly neighborhood. Substitute about 25% of your usual flat walking route with a hilly one. If you live in a flat area, you can program a hilly workout into a treadmill instead.
• Intervals: Intervals are surprisingly fun. Just keep up your normal moderate pace for ten minutes, then speed up for one minute. Return to your former pace for three minutes, then speed up again for a minute. Repeat this three or four times, then go back to your moderate pace.
  
  

Check out the full CNN article to find out how to make these walking techniques work for you and get ready to blast that belly fat!

Source

Belly fat doesn't just make your belt a little tighter -- it can be a risk factor for a host of conditions including certain cancers, stroke, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes. A recent study shows that belly fat can also be a risk factor for developing dementia later in life. In fact, it can be a larger indicator than family history.

More that 6,000 people were included in the study. Those with the most abdominal fat between ages 40 and 45 were three times more likely to develop dementia than those with the lowest amount of belly fat. According to the report, nearly 50% of American adults have an unhealthy amount of belly fat. And those that are at risk aren't limited to people who are obese. Many are at a healthy BMI or are only slightly overweight according to the scale, but carry their excess weight mostly in their abdomen. At this point, scientists don't know exactly what the belly fat/dementia link is. Theories include that belly fat increases the development of amyloid plaques in the brain (substances that are linked to Alzheimer's) or that dementia is linked to obesity-related illnesses such as heart disease.

Source

When researchers asked a group of healthy, active men to cut their activity levels down considerably, something interesting happened. Though the men did not gain weight or noticeable fat, their visceral (belly) fat increased by 7%. Belly fat is the more dangerous type of fat because it surrounds the internal organs and is linked to cardiovascular disease. Exercise reduces belly fat, and according to this study, not-exercising allows it to return.

In addition to increased belly fat, the men also became less sensitive to insulin and their triglycerides also increased. All of these changes occurred in just two to three weeks time.

While the men were still healthy after the study was over, it's clear that exercise is an important part of a healthy life. Even if you can only manage a short or moderate workout, keep moving to help your body stay at the top of its game.

Source

We've heard it before -- if you want to know the state of your health, turn your attention to your waistline. Waist circumference is getting a lot of attention as the new risk factor for future health problems, even becoming more popular than the old stand-by BMI. Why? That's because belly fat is thought to be more dangerous than fat that pads other parts of your body.

What's so bad about belly fat, or visceral fat as it is known? Researchers at the University of Michigan think they've figured it out. Belly fat, when transplanted into mice, caused more inflammation in the body and was linked to atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. Mice who received a subcutaneous fat transplant (or fat that sat below the skin) had less significant changes.

Now, you may ask yourself what fat mice have to do with your future health (And you may also ask, how exactly does one transplant belly fat into a mouse? But I don't want to hear the answer to that question, so...moving on...). Health experts think that similar changes occur in humans, and other studies seem to support that claim.

Belly fat responds well to exercise, so even if you're eating a healthy diet, add some activity to your day to whittle that waistline.

Source

Ahh -- soybeans, soy milk and soy products are soooo good. There's nothing like adding some toast soybeans to that low-calorie salad dressing to give that meal some kick, right? If you're no fan of dairy, soy milk makes for an excellent alternative also.

New research out recently concluded that a soy may even prevent belly fat in women who have gone through menopause as well. So, soy can help you keep fat off in the worst place it could possibly collect? That's what the study is saying, although it's just preliminary data.

The study zeroed in on isoflavones, which occur in soy products and are structurally similar to estrogen. Hence, they bind to estrogen receptors in fat tissue. The study looked at 18 postmenopausal women, and the one who drank a soy-containing shake every day for 90 days gained less abdominal fat than ladies who drank a milk-containing shake every day during the same period.

Are you ready to bust out that soy shake every morning? Try substituting soy milk for even skim milk in that fresh fruit smoothie -- for starters.

Source

Excess belly fat is a particularly dangerous risk factor for future health problems. So, if having a big belly is a bad thing (health-wise, at least) couldn't you just reduce your risk by having liposuction? No, say the experts. Liposuction removes subcutaneous fat that lives just under your skin. The fat that can seriously harm your health actually resides under the abdominal wall, next to your internal organs.

Reducing the number of calories you eat and increasing the number your burn is still the best way to get rid of that pesky abdominal fat.

Source

LA Fitness audited fitness levels of 1,000 people in the UK. Now they don't say if the small sample is representative of the UK populace, but here are the pathetic results of this particular sample.

Fitness levels are at an all-time low. More than half the population cannot cycle for 20 minutes nor touch their toes. Sixty-eight percent cannot manage 20 sit-ups, while 66 percent avoid rigorous activity such as cycling, running or speed walking, becoming breathless after three flights of stairs.

Turns out Northern Ireland is the least fit. Half cannot sling home groceries from the market and an astounding 70 percent cannot touch their piggly wigglies. Probably a nasty combination of belly fat and tight hamstrings.

Source