Someone mentioned this on the "Flat Belly Diet" link on this forum but I have a question in relation to this subject of visceral fat & stomach muscles.

Q: If a person is overweight by thirty or forty pounds (according to BMI standards), how exactly can you tell if the belly fat is visceral fat than subcutaneous (below the skin) fat?

Especially when you are doing crunches or pilates to improve stomach muscles?

thanks!

~ tea

First of all, you can't spot reduce any specific area of the body. Measure your waist. If its more than 35 inches, you have belly fat. Look at yourself sideways in a mirror, does your stomach stick out more than the rest of your body? Are you apple shaped? Pears don't have much belly fat, their weight is in the hips, and legs.

I would just add that pears can gain plenty in the belly once they pass a certain weight. I know this from experience. It was one of my wakeup calls, that my shape, and not just my size, was changing.