Should your heart be a point of concern, you should watch your weight. However, weight is not always about pounds. The proportion of your hips to waist is more important than what you weigh.

The American Heart Association warns us that a man with a larger than 40 inch waistline and women with a waist line larger than 35 inches are taking their chances on developing heart disease. If your waist to hip ratio is high, you’re at greater risk for heart disease than an overweight person with smaller proportions.

The fat that accumulates in the body, called visceral fat, is the culprit for this increased risk. This is the fat that lies beneath the muscle and around your organs. It puts more strain on the heart than other types of fat.

It can cause high blood pressure, high levels of blood sugar, and high cholesterol. All of these risk factors added together greatly increase the risk of heart disease for an individual.

On the plus side, the loss of even a little weight from the midsection lessens the heart disease probability by a significant amount. One of the proven ways to specifically work on the waist area is yoga.

You don’t have to spend hours and hours at the gym every day, either. It’s possible to improve your health and achieve the results you want in just 20-40 minutes of exercise each day.

You can also handle your weight problem by changing your diet to include lots of fruits, vegetables, lean meat and whole grains. Eliminate food products that contain high levels of fats, particularly saturated or trans, as well as sugar.

A healthier diet helps you to lose excess fat, and it also regulates your blood sugar and blood pressure, as well as lowering your cholesterol. Together, this addresses your worries about heart disease and is the path to a healthier heart.

Changing your waistline isn’t just about fitting into a new dress size or pant size. In fact, this type of change is about keeping your heart healthy so that you can live a long, high quality life.