“It’s aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart pumping, that’s best for reducing abdominal fat,” Powell-Wiley said.
Research suggests that moderate aerobic exercise, for 150 minutes a week, can do the job, Powell-Wiley said. And that includes activities like brisk walking.
Plus, she noted, exercise has many benefits beyond trimming waistlines. It improves cardiovascular fitness, which helps prevent heart disease, and makes daily tasks like stair-climbing easier. Exercise can also help people sleep more soundly, manage stress and just feel better, Powell-Wiley said.
“We’re trying to move away from focusing on weight loss, and putting more attention on adopting a healthy lifestyle,” she said.
One reason is because people can become discouraged if they don’t see a big change on their bathroom scale.
But weight does not tell the whole story, Titano said. Body composition can change with exercise, meaning that fat around the middle may wither while muscle mass increases, she explained. That could show up as little change on the scale.
Again, Powell-Wiley said, that tape measure can come in handy if you want to track changes in your belly fat over time: Wrap it around your middle, just above the hip bones, and take the measurement after an exhalation.
Beyond that, Powell-Wiley said, you can take stock of how regular exercise and healthier eating make you feel — whether you have more energy, less fatigue and greater capacity to manage those stairs.
She also stressed that no one is finger-wagging. Daily walks and diet changes are often talked about as “simple,” but that may not be the case for people who lack time for exercise and money for healthy food, she noted.
The statement was published online April 22 in the AHA journal Circulation.
More information
The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has advice on maintaining a heart-healthy lifestyle.