Dr. Oz and Waist Size

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1

Interesting bit of info on waist measurement that I didn’t know and really made my day - probably you guys already know how to properly measure your waist but I thought I would share anyway and maybe give some of you good news and hopefully not bad.

Today my wife saw Dr. Oz on Oprah and he says the way to measure your waist is to contract your stomach as hard as you can and measure around the belly button - all this time I have measured with belly relaxed so I immediately lost 5 inches off my waist! :wink:

The reason being that you want to measure the omentum where the fat is stored which can not be contracted like muscle can - otherwise you are just measuring sagging abdominal muscle.

Also, 35" for men is ideal - or 1/2 your height in inches, so for me I can be at 37" and be “okay” but I have work to do as I still need to lose 1.5". If you are at 45" (40" for women) or more you are heading for trouble.

He’s got a book out that looks like it might be worth looking at - something like “You On a Diet”.

“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.”

2

So 35" with yout gut sucked in by 5" is a good waist size? Typical Oprah BS. The average couch potato doesn’t have a chest that big.

3

This means flexing your abs, not sucking in your gut, right?

4

I can see it’s gonna please the McDonald lovers crowd, but I don’t think there’s any serious science behind this. I wonder how it’s gonna affect visceral fat, since it’s located between the digestive organs and the mucle wall.

5

This was not made up by Oprah, but by Dr. Oz who is a trained medical doctor. Because I did not watch the show I can not repeat what was said exactly - but you might want to check out his work as he definitely knows what he is talking about. I believe he is a heart surgeon - not a gossip columnist or a physical trainer with 6 months of experience under his belt.

This waist measurement is an indicator of your health not your appearance, i.e. it is the measurement of the amount of fat stored in the omentum. This fat is what leads to all sorts of health problems as it crowds and puts pressure on the kidneys and liver as well as other organs.

When you stand relaxed the muscles in the abdominal wall will be relaxed and will sag down and outward - that is not a true indication of the fat you have stored in the omentum. The omentum is an organ of the body located below the stomach where fat is stored - this is that pouch of fat you see gathered around, above and below the belly area.

You can not contract fat, so if you contract your abs as hard as possible what is left over to measure is the fat that is stored in the omentum. This is the waist measurement to be concerned with for HEALTH - not necessarily for the beach physique.

Since I couldn’t care less about displaying 6-pack abs while weighing 150#, it is reassuring to know that in terms of health my waist size is getting to where it needs to be.

6

[quote]Avoids Roids wrote:
So 35" with yout gut sucked in by 5" is a good waist size? Typical Oprah BS. The average couch potato doesn’t have a chest that big.[/quote]

Of course 35" (for men) is the maximum he recommends - or 1/2 of your height in inches if you are taller than 70". For women it is 32".

7

[quote]Zen warrior wrote:
I can see it’s gonna please the McDonald lovers crowd, but I don’t think there’s any serious science behind this. I wonder how it’s gonna affect visceral fat, since it’s located between the digestive organs and the mucle wall.[/quote]

ZW - see my post above. Visceral fat is located in the omentum. According to Gray’s Anatomy - the omentum…“always contains some adipose tissue, which in fat subjects accumulates in considerable quantity.”

I don’t believe Dr. Oz is trying to please anyone, but rather just the opposite. If your fat accumulation is over a certain amount he explains that you are going to have a very short life ahead - he is a proponent of “clean” eating and trying to help people with some common sense about diet, exercise, etc.

As for “science” the guy is one of the leading heart surgeons in the world so I imagine he probably knows what he is talking about. For guys like us, unless we already know it all - his work is worth checking out in my opinion.

8

Dr. Oz is one of the authors of “You - The Owners Manual” and the new one they were promoting on Oprah and other media. Their advice seems sensible and health-based; they explain bodily functions and use easy-to-grasp analogies for further illumination. Fot most T-Men, their exercise advice is tepid, to say the least, but I think their point of reference is in avoiding illness, not optimizing performance or body composition.

I don’t consider them to be “snake oil” salesmen and would be inclined to further research their claims if I was unfamiliar with them.

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[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
This means flexing your abs, not sucking in your gut, right?[/quote]

Nope he said suck it in. Not much difference between that and flexing the lower abs.

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[quote]Rockscar wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
This means flexing your abs, not sucking in your gut, right?

Nope he said suck it in. Not much difference between that and flexing the lower abs.[/quote]

Wow. This should make some of the fat guys feel better about their health.

Time to start bulking!

11

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Rockscar wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
This means flexing your abs, not sucking in your gut, right?

Nope he said suck it in. Not much difference between that and flexing the lower abs.

Wow. This should make some of the fat guys feel better about their health.

Time to start bulking![/quote]

Thing is, you can’t suck in fat.

12

Any doctor who says an average person is healthy if his unsucked in waist (about 5" larger than a sucked in belly) should be about the same size, or perhaps even a little bit larger, as an average person’s chest size (38-40"), is a quack. I did not see this show so I did not hear exactly what he said.

However, IF he did say THAT, his patients are much better off by him making the talk show circuit rather than actually practicing medicine on them.

13

[quote]Avoids Roids wrote:
Any doctor who says an average person is healthy if his unsucked in waist (about 5" larger than a sucked in belly) should be about the same size, or perhaps even a little bit larger, as an average person’s chest size (38-40"), is a quack. I did not see this show so I did not hear exactly what he said.

However, IF he did say THAT, his patients are much better off by him making the talk show circuit rather than actually practicing medicine on them.[/quote]

He said what I originally posted - you might want to re-read it.

He never said anything about sucking in your gut 5". Try to think it through - how much you can suck in your gut will depend on the make-up of your abdominal muscles, etc. nor did he compare waist size to chest size as there is probably little, if any, correlation between the two.

What does chest size have to do with the amount of fat carried in the belly? One is based on rib cage size (mostly dependent on genetics), the other on the amount of fat you have stored in the omentum due to poor life style and eating habits (dependent on lifestyle).

You are totally missing the point because you obviously think you are smarter than a heart surgeon - yep he’s a “quack” allright - here is a link to his qualifications (I would have cut and pasted them here but they would have gone beyone the allowed limit):

Personally I think I would rather have a medical doctor (and a heart surgeon at that) evaluate my health than you - but maybe you can share your qualifications with me? Please be so kind as to tell me what your “opinion” is as to a healthy waist measurement and the facts you base it on.

14

You said 5 inches in your post. That is where that number came from. That means 35" sucked in plus 5" equals a 40 inch waist. Personally, that number seems high to me. My waist only decreases 1.5" when I suck it in.

I said that that is larger than the average person’s chest measurement. This number, based on the total population and not just bodybuilders, is between 38" and 40", depending on what source you look at. Of course, I should have stated that was based on males and not total population. My bad.

Therefore, it is correct to say that Dr. Quack has implied, based on your 5" notation, that it is perfectly healthy for a person to have a waist as big as their chest.

I said, and continue to say, based on the litany of facts above, that that is wrong whether or not it is said by the world’s greatest cardiac expert, Oprah, Don Imus, Howdy Dowdy or Donald Duck. If the implication came from Oprah, Imus or Mr. Dowdy, it is just plain wrong. If the implication is from the cardiac expert or Domald Duck, it smacks of quackery.

If the 5" is incorrect, it should not have been stated and left to the reader to infer that the good doctor was talking about a 40" waist. In which case, you bad.

I’m off to McDonalds to Super-Size it since I now have it on good authority that I can healthily add 9" to my waist. :slight_smile:

Oh yeah. As to my qualifications, I have none. As to my opinion, which I share with Donald Duck, I would say that a person with a waist size in the relaxed position (not sucked in by 5") that is equal to or less than 1/2 of their height, is probably not carrying a lot of excess and dangerous fat around. Quack. Quack. :>)