Everybody is talking about diets, weight loss, and fat. In most cases, they are talking about what can be seen. What a lot of people don't realize is that despite diets and diet pills, there is a fat that is more dangerous than they imagine. The big problem here is that someone who does not seem to be seriously "fat" or fat enough to worry about doing something about it may have high levels of inner fat.

You'll run across various terms for it. Intra-abdominal fat is one of the more common ones. This isn't the fat you see usually, nor does its presence always correlate with body shape. For years we have heard that a "pear shaped" body is bad, while an "apple shaped" body is good. However, studies have shown that even the apples can have internal fat, and this is bad.

It appears that high levels of internal fat can predispose a person to cancer (uterine, breast, and colon), heart problems, and diabetes. Heart disease used to be predominately a male problem, but that has changed to the point where a person's sex doesn't do them much good where heart conditions are concerned. Speaking of sex, it has been found that internal fat can interfere with a person's ability to enjoy sexual activity. Additionally, the risk of strokes and high blood pressure are increased when high levels of intra-abdominal fat are present. Internal organs surrounded by fat have difficulty performing their necessary tasks.

With our more sedentary lives, and the surfeit of foods that most of us have access to, internal fat has increased along with the visible fat that people worry about so much. The problem is that the internal fat is possibly more likely to create irreversible chronic health conditions unless the person takes matters into their own hands...and feet.

Some good news is that researchers have found that even a few minutes of exercise a day can help reduce internal fat and restore a person's potential for avoiding heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, at least to the extent that they would be influenced by internal fat.

While 45 minutes of aerobic activity a day about five days a week is the optimum, positive results have been attained with as little as 30 minutes a day, three or four times a week. Nor does the activity have to be particularly intense to achieve some decrease in intra-abdominal fat deposits. Regular walks or any other daily increase in activity, such as gardening, playing with the kids, walking the dog, swimming or bicycle riding can get the job done. Internal fat deposits are often decreased even when there is no apparent decrease in visible fat.