To gain major health rewards, shed the weight around your middle with this two-part plan.By Dr. Mehm...

1. Dr. Oz's 5 Tips For A Flatter Stomach
To gain major health rewards, shed the weight around your middle with this two-part plan.
By Dr. Mehmet Oz
A trim midsection is good for many things, like fitting into your favorite jeans or walking the beach
in a swimsuit with confidence. But there are even better reasons to work off extra baggage around
your stomach. That baggage, known as visceral fat, isn't just the most annoying kind -- it's also the
most dangerous. As it forms between your organs, deep within your abdominal cavity, it secretes
proteins that can trigger chronic inflammation, putting you at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and
even cancer.
One easy way to find out if you're carrying too much abdominal fat is to wrap a measuring tape
around your body at the top of your hipbones. If your number is more than 35 inches, it may be time
to take action. The good news: Getting rid of belly fat is simpler than you might think. With the right
plan, it's actually easier to lose than stubborn lower-body fat or the seemingly impossible to tone
back-of-the-arm flab. Stick to these diet and exercise guidelines, and you'll be slimmer -- and
healthier -- by summer.
Fight Fat With Food
Obviously, you want to keep your calories in a healthy range and avoid meals that are high in
saturated fat. But research has also shown that eating more of certain foods can help you burn
excess visceral fat and pave the way to a smaller middle.
Healthy Fats
In addition to helping maintain heart health and keep inflammation levels under control,
monounsaturated fatty acids, or MUFAs, may stop belly fat before it starts. Research in the journal
Diabetes Care found that people who got roughly 25 percent of their total daily calories from MUFAs
gained no visceral fat over the course of the study, while those who ate less MUFAs and more carbs

2. added fat to their midsections. My favorite MUFA-rich food is olive oil because you can use it in so
many meals (check out the belly-blasting breakfast I recommend), but avocados and nuts are other
excellent sources. Pine nuts are particularly great because they also contain high levels of
polyunsaturated fatty acids. These acids increase levels of two hormones that signal your brain when
you're full. Try snacking on one ounce of pine nuts (about the amount you can fit in a shot glass) 20
minutes before mealtime to avoid overeating.
Low-Glycemic-Index Foods
People with chronically high levels of the stress hormone cortisol tend to carry excess visceral fat.
Foods that are high on the glycemic index (GI), which uses a ranking system of 0 to 100, cause more
rapid spikes in your blood sugar, in turn triggering the release of cortisol when glucose levels crash.
The constant up and down of your blood sugar levels can also lead to insulin resistance -- the first
step on the road to type 2 diabetes. To help keep cortisol levels stable, choose low-GI foods (with a
rating of 55 or less) like beans, lentils, and chickpeas, instead of high-GI options like white rice and
potatoes. To find the GI rating of your foods, use the University of Sydney's database at
glycemicindex.com.
Green Tea
A 2012 study in the Journal of Functional Foods found that people who drank one and a half cups of
green tea enriched with a total of 609 milligrams of catechins (a group of antioxidants that have
been shown to help burn fat cells) every day for 12 weeks lost almost 16 times as much visceral fat
as those who consumed green tea without the added antioxidants. To achieve similar results with
store-bought green tea, you'll need to brew two to four cups daily (many varieties can contain 160 to
470 milligrams of catechins per cup).
Dairy
When your body is low on calcium, it produces a hormone that signals the body to store visceral fat.
Meeting your recommended daily calcium needs (that's 1,000 milligrams for adults) can help reduce
levels of this hormone. And a recent study published in Obesity Research found that calcium from
dairy has a stronger effect than calcium from other sources. I recommend eating low-fat Greek
yogurt as a daily snack (just six ounces contain about 20 percent of your recommended dietary
allowance for calcium), though any low-fat dairy will do.
Single Crunch
Core exercises will strengthen your abs, but they won't eliminate the fat that lies beneath them. To
do that, you have to ramp up your overall calorie burn with cardio (running, walking, biking). A Duke
University study found that people who did moderate cardio for 178 minutes per week (roughly 30
minutes of walking six days per week) gained hardly any visceral fat over the course of eight
months. Participants who worked out at a higher intensity (jogging) for a similar amount of time saw
even better results -- reducing their belly fat by almost 7 percent. To maximize your workout, try
interval training, which alternates between high- and low-intensity cardio.
Once you've established a regular cardio routine, add two or three weight training sessions on
nonconsecutive days to your weekly workouts; everyone naturally gains some fat as they age, but
building muscle tone can significantly slow the production of belly fat. In a study conducted at the
University of Minnesota, overweight women who did twice-weekly strength training routines that
included eight to 10 exercises of major muscle groups, from biceps curls to leg presses, gained 67

3. percent less visceral fat over two years than women who didn't do strength training regularly.