Managing Cardiometabolic Risk

Exercise and Abdominal Obesity

As a key caveat, exercisers who lose weight generally lose more abdominal fat compared to exercisers who maintain body weight (25, 26). From a clinical perspective, exercise-induced weight loss therefore causes the greatest reduction in abdominal fat and the greatest improvements in metabolic status. However, given the challenges of losing a substantial amount of weight, it is equally important that minimal weight loss can lower intra-abdominal adiposity and related health risk.

In general, exercise training appears to reduce intra-abdominal fat by approximately 0.5 kg for every 4 kg of body weight loss in both men and women (25, 26). Also, as little as 20 minutes of daily exercise with an energy expenditure of less than 1,500 kcal/week can modestly reduce intra-abdominal fat (5 to 10%). Increasing daily exercise to 60 minutes with an energy expenditure of 3,500 to 4,500 kcal/week leads to much greater reductions in intra-abdominal fat (~30%). In addition, exercise can significantly reduce abdominal fat, intra-abdominal fat in particular, even when body weight is virtually unchanged.