One of the questions I hear more often from women trying to get healthy and lose weight is: how can I lose belly fat? These women have been able to lose weight by cutting calories, watching what they eat and exercising more, yet their belly fat is the same or worse as before.
You can not lose belly fat through exercise alone. Don’t get me wrong, you have to do exercise, but if you just focus on exercise alone, you won’t lose belly fat. You really have to look at your nutrition.
While the most pressing concern is appearance, having belly fat can also indicate that your health is poor. Our genes are set up for scarcity but in the sea of plenty they will continue to store fat for a later time when we don’t have enough to eat but that time never comes.
Belly fat leads to chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, decrease sex hormones and overall increases your risk for many of the age dependent chronic diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and even dementia.
Visceral Fat
That is fat deep within the belly, the visceral adiposity, that belly fat deep inside the abdomen is really concerning in terms of overall health. In just the United States, we know that 70% of Americans are overweight or obese, but 86% are over-fat. Meaning that they have too much fat, and especially concerning is that visceral fat.
VAT or visceral adipose tissue, or belly fat, it’s fat around your organs, your liver, your kidneys, your intestines. Deep belly fat produces all sorts of inflammatory markers, interleukin 6 and tumor necrosis factor. It increases inflammation in the body and it is associated with increased insulin resistance. High levels of insulin and the high level of inflammation, are drivers for cholesterol, for damage to your arteries, and for cancer to grow.
Waist circumference
Waist-to-hip ratio is how much belly fat we have. The waist-to-hip ratio is a great measurement that we can all do and to find the right place for your waist circumference, it’s in between your lowest rib and your upper hip bone. Then your hip circumference t’s over the greater trochanter, the largest part of your hip.
The goal for Caucasians is to have a waist circumference less than 35 inches for women and less than 40 inches for men. For Asian and Indian ethnicities, it’s less than 31 inches for women and less than 37 inches for men. For women, you want less than 0.8, and for men, less than 0.9, for the waist-to-hip ratio.
The drivers of belly fat
The major cause is our ultra processed high starch sugar diet. That’s the biggest cause, because it drives insulin, and insulin drives all that extra calories into your fat cells in your belly. It prevents fat breakdown or lipolysis, and it produces inflammatory compounds. It makes changes to your hormones, it makes you hungry all the time, and it slows your metabolism.
What you can do here is decrease
1) liquid sweets/calories:-decrease sodas, juices, sweet teas and coffees and even whole milk or nut milks can have a lot of sugars.
2) Flour: ultra processed foods or flour in general is worse than even table sugar.
Other causes of belly fat include a bad gut microbiome, increased stress, poor sleep, environmental and chemical toxins often called obesogens.
Peri-menopause is those years before you go into menopause. Typically, a woman goes into menopause between the ages of 45 and 55. That’s an average. The years before they go into menopause is called peri-menopause. During those peri-menopausal years, women may be having anovulatory cycles (they are not ovulating). They might not be ovulating every month and they have variability in terms of their hormone levels. Their hormones might be higher or lower, different months. During peri-menopause, you can get a lot of symptoms, but not every woman. For some women peri-menopause comes with more irritability, more hot flashes, more night sweats, more trouble with sleep and even weight gain.
Belly fat in women of any age can lead to acne, facial hair, and alopecia. As women enter age forty and are nearing peri-menopause and menopause increase fat increases the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, dementia, depression, heart disease and high blood pressure. After menopause, woman are more likely to put on weight and lose muscle which can lead to having more belly fat. Diet is the foundation that helps balance your sex hormones
Change Your Mind and Improve Your Health
If you want to lose pounds, you need to first lose the ideas that keep you stuck in an endless cycle of yo-yo dieting. You need to let go of the beliefs and perspectives that sabotage your goal of permanent weight loss and vibrant health. Thinking the way you’ve always thought and doing things you’ve always done will only lead to more of the same.
Focus on seven strategies to normalize insulin, lose that stubborn belly fat, and finally gain abundant health. Improve your overall health and your weight will start to come off and you will look better and feel better.
- Eat real food. When we eat real food, we are more satisfied, eat less, and lose belly fat. Getting adequate vitamins and minerals helps you burn calories more efficiently, helps regulate appetite, lowers inflammation, boosts detoxification, aids digestion, regulates stress hormones, and helps your cells become more insulin sensitive. Along with lots of green vegetables, include protein in every meal since studies show it keeps you fuller longer so you lose more weight.
- Manage stress levels. Chronic stress causes your brain to shrink and your belly to grow. Chronically elevated levels of cortisol cause increased blood sugar and cholesterol, depression, dementia, and promotes the accumulation of belly fat that we so commonly see in patients with insulin resistance or diabetes. You crave sugar and carbs and seek comfort food.
- Address food sensitivities. We often crave the very foods we are allergic to. Getting off them is not easy, but after two to three days without them, you will have renewed energy, relief from cravings and symptoms, and begin to shed belly fat. Gluten and dairy are two big food sensitivities, but many others can create roadblocks that make losing belly fat nearly impossible.
- Get 7– 8 hours of sleep. Not getting enough sleep drives sugar and carb cravings by affecting your appetite hormones. One study found even a partial night’s poor sleep could contribute to insulin resistance. Poor sleep also adversely impacts fat-regulating hormones like leptin and ghrelin.
- Supplements: Take a high-quality multivitamin that contains blood sugar-balancing nutrients. Optimize omega-3 fat. Omega-3 fatty acids are important for controlling insulin function. Optimize your vitamin D Low levels of this critical vitamin impair appetite control.
- Monitor alcohol. A daily habit of alcohol can do more harm than you realize, especially if you are overweight or struggle with weight loss. Consider this: If you drink two glasses of wine a day, you will consume about 72,000 extra calories a year, which could mean an extra 20 pounds a year. And these liquid calories go right to your belly. Stop for six weeks. See how you feel.
- Exercise regularly. Aside from changing your diet, exercise is probably the single best medication for insulin resistance. Walk at least 30 minutes every day. For some, 30-60 minutes of more vigorous aerobic exercise four to six times a week may be necessary. Studies show interval training and weight resistance can improve fat loss.
These steps are reflective of our five step system to start getting healthy. Everything is connected and improving your health starting with the food you eat will improve your overall health. You will still need to exercise, reduce stress and improve sleep.
