If you’ve been to enough social gatherings you’ve inevitably met one of those people who, when talking to you about fitness, firmly pats his large, rock solid belly and says “It’s all muscle”.

In fact, you too might be looking at your stomach in the mirror and thinking “Wow, this is pretty solid and I can hardly grab any fat.  If I crank up the training and diet hard for 12 weeks I’ll be ready for the beach”.  Or maybe you’re not worried too much about it at all because you’re going to smash a new total at your next meet and being a little thick through the middle isn’t really your biggest concern.

Whatever the case, I feel it is my duty to tell you that you and your friend from the party are freaking ticking time bombs!  Abdominal obesity is a killer and you can only ignore this fact for so long before it comes up to bite you in the ass.

In the photo below you can see a cross section of the abdominal cavity of a person who has low levels of visceral fat (left) and a person who has a high level of visceral fat (right).  The white stuff inside of the abdominal wall is the fat and you can see clearly that it has essentially surrounded each and every organ in that cavity.

If you’re thinking “shit, that can’t be good”, you’re right.  Take a look at the liver of a normal healthy person (left) and someone with a fatty liver (right).  Keep in mind, of course, that the fat in the liver is an independent predictor of Diabetes and if it is  encapsulated in fat, you’re going to be in trouble.

Of course, if your liver is covered in fat, your heart is probably affected too right?  You’re damn right it is!  Take a gander at the two hearts below.  Notice that the heart on the top (front and back views) is smaller and has few fat deposits.  The heart on the bottom, on the other hand, is hypertrophied and is covered in fat.

Interestingly, but probably not surprisingly, liposuction can only remove the fat beneath the skin.  It can’t remove the fat inside of the abdominal wall so even if you look better and manage to reduce your waist circumference, you’re still just as dead as you were before.  In the picture below you can see the reduction in the subcutaneous fat (below the skin), but the visceral fat is the same.

It seems that now, the only plus side to liposuction (for men at least) is that about 34% of women who have liposuction in the abdominal or hip region experience an increase in breast tissue amounting to approximately one cup size.  I’m not even kidding.  You can check out the abstract HERE.

Basically what I’m getting at here is that if you’re the typical off-season bodybuilder who just gets fat and calls it “bulking” or you’re one of those guys who espouses the get big (i.e., fat) to get strong mentality you might want to change your game plan.  Otherwise you might end up pushing up daisies instead of barbells.

As usual, drop me a comments below to let me know your thoughts.  More importantly, please share this with those you feel could benefit from this information whether they train or not.  Obesity is an epidemic that affects all of us.