Many of us unfortunately don’t have six-pack abs. I definitely don’t, but to be honest I need to put more effort into achieving that goal. But abdominal obesity can actually be harmful to your health as it increases your chances of becoming insulin resistant and promotes the development of heart disease and diabetes.

People who are prone to being obese cannot oxidize dietary and endogenous fat and if they consume diets high in energy and fat the body stores it in the adipose tissue which causes expansion of the waistline.

One dietary step to prevent your waistline from expanding, is to cut down on saturated fats and increase your monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats in your diet, this in turn improves insulin sensitivity and metabolic abnormalities.

For healthy abs, butter, ghee, visible animal fat on meat and full-cream dairy products need to be cut out of your diet. Pies, pastries and cakes also needed to be avoided. Don’t eat fried foods and stay away from take-away. Use more canola, sunflower and olive oils, include more seeds nuts, avocado in the diet. A guide to ensure that you use less oils is to use one to two teaspoons of oil per person that you are cooking for. Reducing fat intake will definitely make you one step closer to having a flat, healthy stomach.