TMaybe I'll do something radical, like read the labels.
That's not a bad place to start.
If you put a gun to my head, and said that I had to choose between gorging on a pound of bacon and a pound of sugar, I'd take the bacon.
Cane sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, bleached white flour and potatoes are probably killing far more Americans than trans-fats, or even just "regular fat" ever will.
Your insulin response also has a lot to do with triglycerides and the HDL/LDL cholesterol ratio too.
I'm not saying to go full-bore Atkins, especially the "induction phase" which people abuse to get the fastest results and causes that diet plan's bad rap, but refined carbohydrates are bad ju ju.
And the whole "low fat" craze makes it worse, because to replace the fat in these foods, the manufacturers often just add more corn syrup or starches to try and replace the fullness and texture of the missing fat.
Even when you look at "healthy" foods, like whole wheat or whole grain bread, reading the label is amazing, most of them have high fructose corn syrup as the second ingredient.
Also, the other posters are right on the money about exercise not doing much to get rid of one's gut. I just learned this myself, but there's an organ called the omentum in one's abdomen. It's a fatty organ that sits around the intestines, under the stomach muscles. It grows as the body deposits fat, and also secretes hormones involved in digestion/metabolisim, and the more you eat, the more it grows. And since it's under the muscles, no amount of sit-ups will shrink it.