How to lose menopause belly fat easily {without mad crazy diet or exercise}
5 Powerful Tips
Menopause Belly Fat – The Curse of the Midlife Woman
How to lose Menopause Belly Fat?. It’s the curse of the Midlife Woman. How can you lose it? A combination of good quality nourishing food, improving your sleep, lowering stress and intermittent fasting can go a long way to whittling down your belly fat. As your metabolism & cortisol levels improve your Belly will start to shrink. Find out 5 Powerful ways to lose your Belly Fat…
The unflattering roll of fat that starts to accumulate around your middle, rendering your favourite clothes snug and ill-fitting and reminding you of your own mother when she was middle-aged. Your body feels alien and you may be left wondering just how to lose menopause belly fat and especially how to lose it without crazy exercise regimes or starvation diets {which don’t work as we all know}
But to deal with it you need to understand why Menopause Belly Fat happens in the first place.
Just to add before we go further, that I am not a doctor. The ideas described in this post are the result of my own struggles with Menopause Belly Fat and how to lose it. Please consult with your own doctor before making any changes.
Why does Menopause Belly Fat Happen?
So. Menopause Belly Fat. Like most things Menopause related, it all comes down to plummeting levels of Estrogen during Perimenopause and Menopause. As the ovaries stop producing Estrogen, the only place it can still be manufactured is, bizarrely, abdominal fat cells!. Excellent!
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As a result, the body focusses on storing belly fat in an attempt to increase Estrogen supply. Hormonal changes mean that the belly is targeted for fat storage over and above other areas of the body.
But the issue is that this kind of visceral fat accumulating around the organs is really bad news for health. It creates the stress hormone cortisol as well as inflammatory proteins. These, in turn, tip the body to churn out more insulin which can mean a cycle of increased appetite, more fat storage leading to insulin resistance. This is the rocky road towards heart disease and diabetes.
So it’s crucially important to get Menopause Belly Fat under control to live your healthiest future life.
So. How to Lose Menopause Belly Fat… how do we do it?
First of all, let me state that CRAZY AMOUNTS OF EXERCISE WILL NOT SHIFT THIS WOBBLY NEMESIS!.
There. I’ve said it. I get so angry at the myriad Doctors and experts all over the internet making statements like “Exercise More Often, More Intensely to Counter Midlife Weight Gain” {taken from a health website}.
Just working harder/faster/more intensely will make little difference. As the old adage states, “You can’t outrun a bad diet”. You have to pick your battles and strategies wisely.
Menopause Belly Fat has to be attacked from a few different angles and exercise is just one part of the puzzle.
There are 5 main areas that you need to get right to tackle the issue. It’s about making small and easily attainable lifestyle changes which together will tackle the rogue Belly Fat.
1 | Do something enjoyable to increase your metabolism and lower stress.
How To Lose Menopause Belly Fat
Slowing metabolism in Menopause is one of the culprits of Menopause Belly Fat. It makes sense to boost your metabolism. However, you don’t need to do High-Intensity Training or spend hours in the gym to do this.
My favourite type of exercise and the one I think is most beneficial is walking in nature. Get out there in all weathers and take big strides.
Don’t dawdle. Feel the wind on your face. Go out in gales and storms. Walk fast. All the better if you have a dog to accompany you. You will come back with your skin glowing and feeling full of energy. It’s a great metabolism booster.
Walking also has other benefits such as building muscle and improving mood as well as improving Menopause Belly Fat. It’s an all-round winner.
There was a study following obese women who walked for 50-70 minutes 3 times a week. After 12 weeks they reduced their waist circumference by 2.8cm and lost 1.5% of body fat.
Yoga is also a great way to get rid of Menopausal Belly Fat.
There is actually a link between stress and the increased distribution of fat onto the Belly area. Elevated Cortisol levels, caused by stress, lead to fat being targeted right onto the stomach.
This is why Yoga is such a brilliant way of targeting Belly fat as it helps you increase your metabolism and tone your muscles as well as lowering stress levels. In combination with the other lifestyle changes, it can transform your body.
2 | Don’t think “deprivation diet”. Focus on nourishing your body…
By the time a lot of us reach midlife, we may have spent years and years trying various eating plans and losing and gaining weight. Constant dieting can slow down the metabolism and lead to weight gain in the long run, a lot of which will stick stubbornly around the middle.
Often we just don’t know what we should or shouldn’t eat any more. This leads to a difficult relationship with our bodies. Midlife is a time to heal this relationship and focus on putting good nutrition into our bodies. We can’t get away with putting junk in and expecting good performance any more.
So focus on good nutrition and cutting down the refined carbs.
- Avoid sugar in all its forms.
- Drink water instead of soda
- Avoid fruit juices
- Read the labels on prepared foods to check for added sugar.
- Look out for trans fats and avoid them.
- Don’t eat low-fat diet products as they are stuffed full of sugar to compensate for the lack of fat and flavour.
- Cut down starchy vegetables as these are transformed into sugar by the body.
- Avoid breakfast cereals and all highly processed foods.
- Focus on good quality meat, fish and vegetables.
- Eat probiotic foods & beverages to heal your gut. For example, Kombucha, Kefir and Saurkraut
- Cook from scratch.
Learn to nourish your body with real whole foods. It will reward you by no longer needing its belly fat store.
In this study Postmenopausal women lost an average of 21lb and 3.7 inches from their waist in 6 months whilst improving Insulin sensitivity by eating a lower carb higher fat diet.
3 | Cut down on Alcohol
The most obvious issue with alcohol, when it comes to losing menopause belly fat, is the extra carby calories it brings along with it.
Alcohol has a lot of calories and is often sugary and carb-heavy {beer for example} A Large glass of medium dry white wine has around 190 calories. It’s not hard to see how even a few glasses a night add up to a significant amount of extra empty calories over the week.
Often alcohol is mixed with sugary, sweet sodas or juices too. So, even if the rest of your diet is great, these sweet calories will be heading straight for your belly fat stores.
Alcohol also lowers your inhibitions, so all your healthy eating goals go out of the window and you find yourself staring at a big slice of pizza or side of chips at 11 pm. We’ve all been there.
Alcohol also upsets sleep which is really important to weight loss as we will see below.
You may feel a glass of wine helps you to sleep more easily and it may help you to get off to sleep. However, you will find yourself waking at 3 am and tossing and turning with anxiety as your body struggles to process the sugars and toxins. Better sleep comes with less alcohol.
However, the biggest problems is that alcohol messes with the way your body processes other things. When you drink alcohol your body prioritises removing it as quickly as possible because it is a toxin and it wants it gone!. Therefore your liver stops burning fat and focusses on the alcohol instead, bringing fat-burning to a grinding halt.
Drinking worsens insulin sensitivity and messes with your hormones. It can lower Testosterone, which women do need for losing weight and gaining lean muscle. Overall it scrambles your bodies natural ability to burn fat, leading inevitably to more weight heading to the belly area.
The good news though is that cutting out alcohol, even for a short while can really help.
In this UK study, it was found that stopping drinking for 30 days in “Dry January” reduced insulin resistance, reduced liver stiffness and improved blood pressure. If you improve your insulin resistance this helps you lose weight as you process sugars more efficiently.
I cut right down on alcohol during perimenopause and have found so many benefits that I wrote a detailed post about how to do it here. One of the best benefits was a shrinkage of my menopause belly. The weight I lost seemed to be targeted at my belly so I was extremely pleased with the results. The post has a free download explaining exactly how I cut right down on alcohol. I hope it can help you gain more control over it.
4 | Get a decent nights sleep
One of the issues we often battle in perimenopause or menopause is getting enough sleep. Waking at 3 am and tossing and turning can become the norm and building up a constant sleep deficit really doesn’t help weight loss.
This happens quite quickly too. A study carried out by the University of Colorado found that after only one week of limited sleep [5 hours a night} participants gained an average of 2 pounds of extra weight.
The way this works is that sleep deprivation messes with the hormones Ghrelin and Leptin which regulate hunger and appetite. Leptin suppresses appetite and encourages energy expenditure by the body. Leptin is reduced when you are sleep deprived. Increased Grehlin triggers hunger and yes, this hormone increases when you are sleep deprived.
Messing with these hormones also increase cravings for sugary and carby foods leading to poor food choices too. So lack of sleep leads to a hormonal double whammy of eating more of the foods which will head straight for your menopause belly.
So how can you improve the quality of your sleep?
I found two things that worked well for me.
- Cutting right down on alcohol as detailed above. Contrary to popular belief, alcohol doesn’t help you sleep. It contributes to poor quality sleep and waking in the night. View my details post on how to cut down easily here.
- Getting an eye mask.
This is such a simple and cheap hack but I absolutely swear by this. We evolved to sleep in cave-like darkness. Even a tiny light, such as from an alarm clock, keeps the brain on alert and messes with our melatonin levels leading to shallower sleep. Cutting out all light with a good eye mask allows the body to reach deep restorative sleep.They aren’t expensive on amazon and can really make a huge difference to your sleep quality. It’s absolutely worth a try.
5 – Try Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is not a diet but rather a way of timing your eating for maximum metabolic health. When done right it can be the secret weapon in the battle to lose weight and Menopause Belly Fat.
The idea is that the modern habit of grazing all the time and late at night puts pressure on the body and doesn’t give it time to rest and repair.
The method is that you eat within a “time window” and then don’t eat outside of that. There are many different variations on Intermittent fasting but a 12-hour window is a good place to start and is not restrictive. You also don’t want to eat too late at night. So for this example, you would simply eat all your meals as normal between 7 am and 7 pm and then stop eating till the next day.
This allows your body to enter its repair cycle during the night and doesn’t result in excessive hunger. It’s really easy to do and doesn’t involve cutting calories or eating special foods.
Studies seem to show that intermittent fasting weight loss targets abdominal fat.
There also seem to be other benefits, which can help menopause symptoms, including
- Improving insulin resistance – which helps weight loss
- Enhancing hormone function
- Improving cellular repair
- Improving metabolism
How To Lose Menopause Belly Fat… It IS possible
It’s easy to get disheartened by the creeping roll of belly Fat which can seem impossible to get rid of. I know from personal experience that it can seem like nothing will shift it and it’s easy to assume that its something you just have to live with after 50.
I assure you this isn’t the case though. In combination, the ideas listed here will target the spare tyre effectively without you needing to kill yourself with extreme exercise or crazy crash diets.
Gently ease your body in the right direction and within a few months, you should see positive results.
Is there a good diet or weight loss plan I could try?
Yes. I learnt a lot about how to lose Menopause Belly Fat in my research to improve my own health over the last 6 years. I have put all my information into my structured weight loss plan.
The Belly Boss 21 Day Menopause Weight Loss Challenge
Love & Light
Helen
Good content. I’ll try absorbing all this info. I, too, was told by my doctor to exercise more but showed no appreciable change after a year. Now, on an editorial note: point 2 should say “deprivation” not “depravation” as the root word is deprive not deprave.
Thanks Eilea. Yes I think the exercise mantra from doctors is given without critical thought and doesn’t help much at midlife. Just serves to make people feel guilty when they can’t lose weight as if they haven’t exercised hard enough. There are so many other things to do which they don’t mention.
Thanks re the typo. That slipped through my net ?. Fixed now. x