If your bathroom scale likes to punish you by adding 2 pounds every time you jump on or off it, kick that traitor to the curb! Just whip out your old tape measure and follow your waistline if you want to improve your health.

"Waist measurements can predict the risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease more accurately than weight," said Professor Anthony Barnett at the National Obesity Forum conference in London. "Men with waists more than 40 inches and women with measurements more than 35 inches are at an incredibly high risk. Thicker waistlines may double to quadruple the risk of either disease, if not both."

Even a lower waist of 37 inches in a man and 32 inches in a woman can still significantly raise the risk of diabetes or heart disease. Stuffing fat deep inside your belly and around your waist is the result of insulin resistance. The more resistant you are to insulin, the more your body has to produce from the pancreas in order to keep blood sugar levels in range. Eventually this leads to exhaustion, and the pancreas stops making sufficient insulin.