#76: How to Lose Belly Fat in perimenopause and menopause

Have you noticed increased fat around your waist as you go through menopause?

If so, you are not alone: this was the TOP question I was asked when women could ask me anything.

 In this episode, I tell you how you're going to be able to get rid of that belly fat and keep it off! 

You'll learn: 

✅ What causes the accumulation of belly fat in women in perimenopause

✅ How to get rid of belly fat

Enjoy the show!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:49 The Belly Fat Struggle in Midlife
• 1:36 Causes of Belly Fat in Midlife
• 3:56 Why Spot Reducing Doesn't Work
• 7:00 Effective Exercises to Reduce Belly Fat
• 11:17 Summary and Final Tips

Transcript

POD76 - How to Get Rid of Belly Fat

Welcome to 40+ fitness for women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto,, your host, and I'm a certified menopause fitness coach helping women to build the bodies that they want to spend the rest of their lives in.

And today we're going to talk about the question that I am asked most by women in midlife. And it's something that I think plagues so, so many of us and makes us feel kind of not so great in our bodies and that is belly fat. So the question that I get asked the most is how to get rid of the belly fat and You know, can I even get rid of the belly fat in midlife? So let's get into it.

So this is actually a subject that I, you know, is very dear to me because I've been through this struggle, right?

When I was in postmenopause, I was working out five days a week, burning all the calories, sweating, like really working my heart out and All of a sudden, and it felt like it happened overnight. I just didn't look like it anymore. Like my waist had disappeared my muscle tone had disappeared and I wanted to get those things back and I've managed to happy to report.

And so I'll talk about, you know, what is causing this increase in belly fat and how can we actually get rid of it?

So first, what is causing that belly fat to show up? This is something that is happening in midlife in particular because we are going through the depletion of estrogen. So as we go in through perimenopause into menopause, what's happening is that our estrogen levels are starting to fluctuate, drop, and then they actually flatline in postmenopause.

And what happens when you lose the estrogen is that your body fat starts to get redistributed. And unfortunately it moves it to your waist. And that's one of the big reasons why you're noticing that change at this particular age. Now, you may also notice that you are accumulating more fat on your body than you've had before.

And that is due to factors like we are leading more sedentary lives. A lot of us are sitting around at the office in front of our computers. We're exhausted because we're going through perimenopause and our energy levels are down. Maybe we're spending more time watching Netflix or not being active.

Even if you're going to the gym, you know regularly, like going to your aerobics classes and burning calories, that is not enough. You need to be just wiggling in everyday life and when you are tired. When you're in perimenopause and your energy levels are down, then you just move around , less and therefore you spend fewer calories.

So what I'm saying here is that you are eating and drinking, in other words, consuming more calories than what your body needs. in daily life.

Now, how are we going to get rid of that belly fat? Because you absolutely can get rid of the belly fat. And because a lot of it is actually visceral fat. So fat between your organs, which is really bad for our health. You do want to think about reducing that fat. I'll start by saying The thing that will not work.

Okay. Spot reducing is not a thing. 

There is no magic exercise that you can do to all of a sudden target just your belly fat. It drives me so nuts so to see all these reels on Instagram, Facebook, and social media, where it's like snatch your waist by doing this, and they'll have like somebody holding a kettlebell over their head and marching in place.

No, that's not going to do it. And in fact, even doing a lot of sit ups and things that strengthen your muscles, your stomach muscles, uh, or strengthen your core, that's not going to help either. Yes, you'll get a stronger core. Yes, you'll build muscles. You are not going to be able to target the fat on your belly using those kinds of methods.

What you're going to need to do is to go into a calorie deficit in order to get rid of that fat. And here's the part that you're not going to like, which is that your genetics is actually going to decide where on your body, your body starts taking fat first. So when you go into the calorie deficit, your body isn't getting enough fuel from external sources.

So you're not eating and drinking enough to bring in enough calories for your body to survive, like do its day to day functions. So it starts consuming what's on board and what's on board by the way is fat and muscle, those are two sources it can use for energy. And if you want it to be using the fat and not the muscle, remember you need to be weight training.

So I've talked about that in, Oh my God, so many episodes. But in any case, you need to be in this calorie deficit. And when you are in the calorie deficit and your body is hunting around for where am I going to get the fat from, you can't tell it that, Oh yeah, take it off here. Take it off there. Right? It is genetically coded where you are going to lose that fat first.

So, for example, for me, if I gain weight, put on fat, the first place I'm going to see it is on my belly. This has been, I mean, since I was 16. So this is not a menopausal thing for me. This is like genetics forever. So for me to lose weight. fat off my belly. And for example, get a six pack means that I have to be like extremely low body fat, okay. 

So if you're like me, you will possibly lose fat off of your boobs, your butt, you know, places where you don't want to lose it before you lose it off your belly. So that's just something for you to understand.

Now, having said that, there actually is kind of a trick to get your body to actually start using that belly fat and that is by doing intense exercise. And there are two different kinds of exercise specifically for midlife women, so women in perimenopause, menopause beyond, which have been shown to set off a cascade of events. These are biochemical reactions in your body, which trigger the use of the belly fat, the visceral fat. Okay. 

The first one is my favorite, which is strength training. All right. And strength training, it's not enough to just pick up some light dumbbells, light for you dumbbells, and wave them around and do a ton of reps and, and most group fitness classes are going to be like that, where you have fairly light weights.

 No, unfortunately you need to actually be lifting heavy. And when I talk about lifting heavy, I mean, heavy for you. So the heavy strength training, the heavy lifting is one way to trigger your body to start using the visceral fat, the belly fat. And this was something that I actually noticed right away.

When I started on my weight training journey, I was not in a calorie deficit. I stayed in maintenance, which means that my body weight stayed just about the same through that time. Of course, you know, you have your daily fluctuations like everybody does, but it stayed basically the same over time. But when I started strength training and building muscle, then my visceral fat levels dropped.

I had my body composition measured, uh, a little bit after I started, and then about three months later, and there was a significant drop in the visceral fat. It was actually pretty amazing. So that can work even if you're not particularly in a calorie deficit, as long as you're not in a, you know, calorie surplus.

In other words, putting on more weight as you go.

And the second way that you can Um, stimulate the use of your belly fat by your body is to do very high intensity , cardio training called sprint interval training. Now this is like HIIT training on steroids. So you're really going maximum, maximum effort for short periods of time. And I actually did a whole podcast episode on that just a short while back,

it was episode number 67 sprint interval training. So take a look at that one, uh, to learn more about sit training. 

So the two types of exercise that have been shown to help move that belly fat, move that visceral fat are heavy weight training and that's heavy for you. Okay. So what's heavy for you is different from what's heavy for me.

And what's heavy for you is going to change over time, right? As you get stronger, you're going to need to, you're, you're going to need to lift heavier things for it to be heavy for you. Right? And then the second thing is sprint interval training, which is this extremely high intensity short bursts, of high intensity cardio training.

And now in order to lose fat in general, you do need to be in a calorie deficit. In other words, you need to be feeding your body less than what it actually needs so that it starts using those fat stores on your body as a fuel source. And I did a whole podcast, episode number 60 on my six point formula for fat loss.

So listen to that one to learn more about how to do proper fat loss so that you lose fat.

So to summarize, it's good news, which is that of course you can lose the belly fat and the visceral fat even in perimenopause and postmenopause. You just need to do the right things. So first you need to be in a calorie deficit, like really be in a calorie deficit. That's going to allow you to lose fat overall in your body.

And if you want to trigger your body to really start taking the visceral fat, the belly fat from you, then start doing high intensity training. So what that means is on the strength side, you do strength training, lifting heavy for you and on the cardio side, you need to be doing some super high intensity training.

So sprint interval training or hit training, but hard hit, not the kind of hit where, Oh, I could do this for an hour. That's not super intense.

 Both of these topics you can learn more about in my other episodes and there are links in the show notes, 

and I'll see you next week. In the meanwhile, wishing you happy training.