Personal fitness, er, fatness, is no longer measured in the amount of muscle you have, or the amount of fat encircling your middle. Why? The answers may surprise you. You may even have to examine how the new definition of fat applies you personally.

Body Fat

Fat is fat, right? Actually, it is not. There is visceral fat, and there is subcutaneous fat. These two kinds of fat in and on the body are the worst fat deposits you can have. The "subcu" fat is all that jiggly stuff on your waist, belly, hips, thighs, back, and yes, underarms.This kind of fat you can actually do something about; you can lose it, shrink it, freeze it, and liposuction it out. Considering all of the dangers related to this kind of fat, you want it gone.

The visceral fat, as the name suggests, absolute enshrouds your internal organs. You cannot remove it or get rid of it once you have it, and that makes it even more dangerous than "subcu" fat. Worse still, you could be quite slender, but your internal organs are hidden in layers of visceral fat! What makes this fat particularly dangerous is that you cannot tell how much you have without an MRI or surgery for another issue, and it causes so many major health risks and potentially lethal issues in your body!

Finding out What You Have and What to Do Next

Thankfully, your subcutaneous fat is measurable. A body fat calipers can take measurements of pinchable fat from all over your body, and then your doctor can combine the measurements and do a little math to find out what your body fat index is. It gives you a good idea of how much you would need to lose to get close to a healthy percentage of body fat. 

As for your visceral fat, you will have to ask your doctor to schedule an MRI to find out if your organs are drowning in fat. If the doctor notices that any of your internal organs are partially or fully included in the MRI pictures, you have a problem. Since there is nothing you can do for the visceral fat besides make major changes in your diet, that is what you will have to do. The idea is to prevent more visceral fat from developing and accumulating around your organs where it can make you really sick.