Chuck the spare tire.
The heavier you are, the more likely you'll suffer from hypertension and high cholesterol. Unfortunately for "apple" types, carrying your weight around the middle (rather than being bottom-heavy, or a "pear") puts you at additional risk of heart disease. That's because the inner fat cushioning the abdominal organs is linked to lower levels of the good cholesterol and higher levels of the bad kind, according to Nieca Goldberg, M.D., chief of the women's heart program at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and author of Women Are Not Small Men: Life-Saving Strategies for Preventing and Healing Heart Disease in Women. To see if your figure puts you at risk, she says, divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement. If you get above 0.8, you need to lose weight.
