"Abdominal fat" is most common among middle-aged men with apple-shaped bodies

Obesity is a disease! This is not discrimination against fat people. In fact, following the World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the American Medical Association (AMA) voted to officially include obesity in the list of diseases and called on relevant units to actively combat the rising obesity problem.

Middle-aged men are most likely to suffer from abdominal obesity and are the representative group of the apple-shaped body.

Everyone's metabolic capacity is different, and the rate at which fat accumulates is also different. Depending on the distribution of fat in different parts of the body, obesity can be divided into four types: apple type, pear type, winter melon type and water drop type. Follow the quiz to check your lifestyle, dietary preferences and body warning signs, find out the corresponding obese body type, and tailor a suitable weight loss method. If you are not fat, congratulations. By changing your lifestyle and eating habits that make you gain weight, and doing appropriate exercise, you can avoid your body from getting out of control.

Apple-shaped people - common in middle-aged men

Where is fat

Fat is mainly accumulated in the abdomen, which is commonly known as the tuna belly. The middle-aged and broad-shouldered body type usually has thick arms and a broad back. Generally speaking, the most obese middle-aged men are apple-shaped. Xiao Dunren, executive director of the Taiwan Obesity Medicine Association, pointed out that this is a typical case of "visceral obesity," which means that most of the body's fat accumulates around the internal organs, affecting insulin resistance and secreting inflammatory factors, causing blood vessels to harden, which in turn increases the risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. It is the culprit of metabolic syndrome and poses a great threat to health.

Moreover, because the body is often in an inflamed state, people with apple-shaped obesity often suffer from joint pain, especially in the knees, back and neck. Apple-shaped obesity can be seen from waist circumference. For Taiwanese people, the standard waist circumference is 90 cm for men and 80 cm for women. In order to more accurately see the distribution of body fat, Xiao Dunren often takes abdominal ultrasounds for patients. Once the visceral fat exceeds 5 cm, it can be determined to be visceral obesity. "Different types of obesity have different sensitivities to various weight loss methods.

The good news is that visceral fat is turned over very quickly, and once you start getting serious about losing weight, you usually have pretty good results,” he says.

What wrong habits make you fat?

Liking to drink, frequent socializing, overeating, and liking spicy, grilled, fried and other heavy-tasting and greasy foods are common characteristics of apple-shaped obese people, said Liao Qianhui, a Chinese medicine doctor at Yufeng Chinese Medicine Clinic. According to Chinese medicine, people with this body type have "excessive stomach fire" and poor gastrointestinal digestion function. In addition, they consume a large amount of greasy food which further stimulates the secretion of gastric acid. As a result, they are prone to symptoms such as gastric ulcers, duodenal ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux, and bad breath.

Abdominal fat accumulation is also related to excessive stress. Wu Yingrong, executive director of the Taiwan Nutrition Foundation, pointed out that when a person is prone to tension and is under stress for a long time, the human body will secrete the stress hormone cortisol (also known as cortisol). In order for the human body to have enough energy to fight stress, stress hormones send signals to encourage the body to convert calories into fat and store it, especially visceral fat, and tend to choose high-calorie foods in the diet to make fat storage more efficient. Chen Jianhui, chief director of Zhenguan Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic, echoed that this type of stress-induced obesity belongs to the liver-gallbladder damp-heat type obesity caused by liver-qi stagnation. The biggest symptoms are stiff shoulders and neck, pain in the ribs, irritability, and it is easy to have constipation, hemorrhoids, fatigue in the limbs, frequent dreams, and dizziness. It can also cause women's menstruation to be unstable.

How to lose weight through metabolism

How to adjust the metabolism of apple-shaped obesity? Liao Qianhui bluntly stated that high-pressure work or lifestyles must be changed. "At least you have to know how to relieve stress, rather than relying on overeating," she said. In terms of diet, in addition to eating three meals at regular times and in regular amounts, she also suggested starting with a large amount of fresh vegetables, and only starting to consume meat and starch when you are at least 60% full, to avoid eating too much fat and calories.

Chen Jianhui emphasized the importance of "not eating late". He pointed out that the liver and gallbladder digestive system, like the physiological schedule, operates most efficiently in the morning. Therefore, if you eat breakfast at 8 or 9 in the morning, you will be hungry at noon. From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, the later it is, the more rest the body's organs need. Therefore, even if we eat the same amount of food at night as during the day, the digestive system will take more time to metabolize it. Therefore, he suggested eating dinner early and try not to eat too greasy food. When the famous chef Ke Junnian lost weight two years ago, he ate everything for breakfast, reduced the amount of dinner and ate less starch, combined with exercise, and lost 20 kilograms in a year.

Exercise prescription

American nutrition expert Dr. Jeffrey Morrison pointed out that the traditional low-calorie, high-exercise weight loss method may be counterproductive, because this approach puts the body in an environment of hunger and stress, which in turn prompts the body to secrete large amounts of cortisol, making the body mistakenly believe that it must reserve energy, thereby reducing metabolism. Liao Qianhui suggested that one can start with relaxing stretching exercises such as yoga to reduce physical and mental stress.

However, to truly improve metabolism and delay the formation of visceral fat, it is still necessary to combine it with cardiopulmonary aerobic exercise, said Zheng Yiqi, a nutritionist at the Weight Management Center of Taipei Medical University Hospital. If your weight is greater than 100 kg, swimming or recumbent exercise bike is recommended to avoid knee injuries. For those who are trying to lose weight due to apple-shaped obesity, jogging or cycling for 15 to 30 minutes of continuous sweating can truly achieve the effect of burning fat.

■ Chinese medicine diet therapy, acupoint massage

● Recommended foods: white radish, winter melon, bitter melon, clams, spinach, water spinach, asparagus, guava

● Acupoints: Neiguan (pericardium meridian), Taichong (liver meridian)

● Rose Liver-soothing Tea: 2 cents of rose flowers and 2 cents of mint leaves. Put all the ingredients into a filter bag, add 500cc of boiling water, and steep for 5 minutes before drinking.