Add Purslane To Your Salad
Most people have no idea what purslane is. I didnt either until I discovered my problem with eating excess fructose and how it contributes to fatty liver, among other problems.
So I decided to up my omega-3s, particularly since an omega-3 fatty acid known as docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, seems to reverse the harmful changes to belly fat produced by fructose. In fact, DHA doesnt just change one or two genes, it pushes an entire block of genes back to normal.
Purslane offers the richest of omega-3s and melatonin that you can obtain from a green vegetablemostly alpha linolenic acid , which can be converted into DHA. One chef calls it a miniature jade plant. I call it a super food, a weed worth eating, because its nutrient density strengthens synapses, or connections in your brain, and enhances memory and learning.
I grow it in my garden, then chop it in salads or add it to soups at the very end. You can grow it too, or buy it at your local farmers market, next to the sorrel and nettles.
Types Of Bellies: Bloated Belly
Such a stomach appears because of a bad diet or because of the intolerance of some foods, allergies. As a rule, the stomach is flat in the morning, but appears in the afternoon, because there are too many gases in the intestine and indigestion occurs. The best idea is to start exercising. You need to do morecardio exercises and to sleep better. It is also important to make adjustments to your diet. Keep a food diary to understand which foods cause bloating, exclude fizzy drinks and soda, and eat food in small portions instead of big meals.
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Vary Your Workouts And Try New Activities
Its easy to get into an exercise rut, and even easier to fall out of the habit of exercising at all. But at this stage of your life, not getting your move on is not an option. Ideally to keep your weight in check, youll be working out three or four times a week with the injection of some HIIT and it only needs to take 15 to 20 minutes, says Peeke. Its extremely effective at keeping excess body levels of fat down, and make sure to get in some weight training, even if its just using your own body weight.
So potentially take a Zumba or barre class. See what all your buddies are talking about and join them one weekend for a beginner class at a CrossFit center. Give PiYo a go . There are so many different exercises to try, youll be able to find ones you like and stick with them.
Or maybe youll enjoy the chase of trying out new workouts regularly. According to research published in the Journal of Sport Behavior, adding variation to your exercise routine may be the most successful way to make you stick with it. Any kind of physical activity is better than none at all, but if your body gets too accustomed to a routine, it wont burn belly fat as efficiently as when you first started working out.
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Keep Emotional Eating In Check
Its tempting to want to deal with changing hormones through emotional eating. Fluctuating emotions make that late-night nosedive into the ice cream even more appealing than normal.
Trying to shed extra weight in menopause doesnt mean you have to deprive yourself of everything, but you should monitor when you get the urge to binge on junk food and try to regulate your emotions in healthier ways.
Distract yourself, practice self-care, and become aware of whether or not your body is actually hungry.
You Dont Feel Satiated After Eating
If you now feel like a meal that used to fill you up isnt doing the job and is leaving you wanting more, it could be a sign that your sex hormones are indirectly impacting your main metabolism-regulating hormones. Estrogen and testosterone are the two main hormones at play here.
If your estrogen levels are low, you may not feel as satisfied after a meal. This is because of the impact estrogen has on leptin, your satiety hormone. Leptin is the hormone that tells your brain you are full. The more leptin you have circulating in your system, the more satiated youll feel after your meal, and the less likely youll feel the urge to reach for seconds.
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Contact Synergy Wellness Center To Schedule A Medical Weight Loss Consultation
At Synergy Wellness Center, we understand that sometimes hormones and belly fat go hand-in-hand. We can help you treat and reset your hormones to help you start losing hormonal weight*. We offer personalized weight loss plans designed especially for you and your needs to help you live a happy and healthy lifestyle.
Contact us today to find out more about how we can help you lose hormonal belly fat.
Myth #1 As Long As I Burn More Calories Than I Take In My Weight Will Drop
Remember in your 20s when you could live on takeout and still slip into a pair of skinny jeans as long as you hit the gym 3 times a week?
Ahhh! How easy it is to be young.
While the calories in vs calories out approach may have worked in college and even up till your early 30s
This does NOT work for women once they hit 40 and beyond.
Heres why:
One doctor from Piedmont Hospital in Georgia, USA, suggests that most womens metabolism will drop by 10% each decade after 20. Add in declining estrogen levels caused by menopause and by 50 most womens metabolism has completely tanked.
Suddenly their ability to burn calories has been cut by 30% or more!
It’s no wonder women find it impossible to trim the stubborn weight after 40.
On top of that
Cortisol levels are also elevated as we age making women more susceptible to cravings, high blood sugar levels, and high blood pressure.
This makes exercise a double-edged sword.
An extra 30-minute push on the elliptical can increase our already spiked cortisol levels, causing us to eat more of the high-fat, salty foods our body has a harder time burning off.
In other words:
As women reach middle age they have to work twice as hard to burn the same about of calories they did in their 20s but by working out hard they risk craving more foods that lead to weight gain.
Talk about a catch-22!
Once women realize that the gym doesnt give the same results theyre used to they usually switch their focus toward restrictive diets
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You Constantly Feel Stressed Or Anxious
If you are currently experiencing an event that is causing you a lot of stress or work in a high-stress career that makes you feel anxious, your body could be producing high levels of the hormone cortisol.
If you are constantly feeling this way, your body will be producing high levels of cortisol to help you manage that stress. As a result, this hormone can signal your body to store more fat, resulting in weight gain, mainly in the abdominal region.
You Feel Hungry All The Time
Ghrelin, known as the hunger hormone, tells you when its time to eat and has a major impact on the size of your appetite. Ghrelin is directly related to our dietary habits. For example, if you decided to skip a meal or two tomorrow, your body would begin to release ghrelin, telling you to eat again. However, if you suddenly began to binge and overeat, your body would quickly cut back on ghrelin secretion.
Research shows that ghrelin secretion can become dysregulated when you gain weight. Overweight individuals tend to have elevated circulating levels of leptin and decreased levels of ghrelin. Consistently elevated leptin levels can lead to dysfunction of leptin receptors which means your brain will not receive the message that youre full. This can throw your hunger cues out of whack, so you can continue to eat without ever receiving the signal to stop, resulting in undesirable weight gain.
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How To Lose Hormonal Belly Fat
Something happens in your 40s and 50s that you wake up one morning and its as if your body has put on 10lbs of belly fat overnight. Yikes! Struggling with belly fat and sudden weight gain as early as perimenopausal thru to post-menopause is really common. Data shows that post-menopausal women really struggle with obesity. Youre not alone. According to science, you can actually lose hormonal belly fat! Below is advice from Doctors, Registered Dieticians and Exercise Physiologists thats exceptionally helpful to women who are frustrated with their menopausal belly . Plus, reducing abdominal belly fat reduces your risk of other serious illnesses, including heart disease and diabetes, which can impact your quality of life.
Increased Or Imbalanced Cortisol Levels
Cortisol is a hormone that helps the body manage and respond to stress or danger and plays an essential role in our flight or fight response. When you feel stressed, your adrenal glands will produce more cortisol, which sends signals to your body to store more fat.
Suppose you are dealing with high levels of stress, anxiety or any stress-related disorders. In that case, your body will produce increased amounts of cortisol, and high cortisol levels can lead to excess belly fat and weight gain.
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How To Get Rid Of Hormonal Belly
For men, a doctor may prescribe testosterone supplements.
Get a full consultation and blood test from a hormone specialist who will work with you to develop a customized treatment plan.
Hormonal belly in women can be targeted with hormone replacement therapy, including estrogen therapy or estrogen-progesterone/progestin hormone therapy (EPT. Research indicates that postmenopausal women on HRT have reduced levels of belly fat than those that arent.
A doctor may also propose dietary and lifestyle adjustments, including more exercise and a lower-calorie diet, in addition to medications.
Concentrate on things you have control over, such as your food and exercise regimen. Make a point of including plenty of veggies, complex carbohydrates, lean protein, and healthy fats in your meals. These foods will not only keep you full and satisfy your hunger, but they will also provide you with the nutrients you need to avoid age-related insulin resistance and muscle loss.
If you have questions about hormonal belly or any of the conditions discussed here, connecting with a doctor in a discrete setting has never been easier.
Opt Health is a telehealth platform that reconnects men with wellness, fitness, strength, and sexual vitality through scientific preventive medicine. From your own home, you can schedule with a physician, meet one-on-one via video conference, receive test results, and have medications delivered to your door.
Up Next:
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Limit Fructose And Glucose
Fructose is the most metabolically hurtful sugar. It goes straight to your liver, where it makes fat and triggers insulin and leptin resistance. Fructose doesnt tell your brain that youre satisfied, so you still feel hungry and keep eating. The net result is inflammation, a stressed-out liver, and more visceral fat.
The main culprit for most Americans is excessive amounts of high fructose corn syrupthe Department of Agriculture estimates that Americans consumed an average of about 27 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup in 2014but I found that I probably have a problem with even higher-fructose fruit such as bananas, dates, and dried apricots.
The main takeaway is that in contrast to glucose, fructose doesnt trigger insulin secretion or leptin production. These two hormones dampen appetite by telling your body youre full and to put the fork down. Limit your fruits to lemons, limes, avocados, and olives. Dial down the fructose to lose belly fat.
The 5 Hidden Causes Of Belly Fat And How Liposuction Can Help
Sometimes, despite your best efforts to eat right and get enough exercise, stubborn belly fat just wont go away. The subcutaneous fat that lies just beneath the skin can be difficult to get rid of through diet and exercise alone, but these five lesser-known contributors to belly fat could be hindering you even more from achieving your goals. If this is the case for you, some lifestyle changes, teamed with liposuction, could help you to get rid of belly fat once and for all.
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What Is A Menopause Belly
As the name suggests, many women develop the menopause belly right around menopause. At this time, your body goes through some pretty major changes, and a bigger midsection might be one of them.
This can be attributed to several factors including slower metabolisms and hormonal changes. Decreased metabolism and a natural decline in physical activity can both make it more likely for us to gain weight.
And as we reach perimenopause, we see a decrease in estrogen, the hormone responsible for a ton of important body functions including fat accumulation. As your estrogen levels decrease, your fat distribution can change, leading to weight gain that settles right around your waist.
So in short: your falling estrogen levels can redistribute body fat and leave you with more around your midsection, even if your other habits havent changed.
Balance Cortisol To Conquer Hormonal Belly Fat
Now that you see why its overall health, and cortisol specifically, that we have to target in order to free our bodies from excess hormonal belly fat, lets look at the actionable steps we can take to finally achieve health, balance, and sustainable long-term weight loss. Get ready to say goodbye to hormonal belly fat for good!
1. Look into lab tests
Knowledge is power, so the first step I recommend in tackling any sort of health problem is to know where you are, whats working, and exactly what isnt. This is the best way to determine the best course of action for you. In my clinic, I run a urine and salivary adrenal fatigue test on patients with weight problems. This test looks at your brain-adrenal function and cortisol patterns throughout the day, so you can see if your cortisol is behaving normally, or not.
2. Tap into the power of adaptogens
Adaptogens are plant and herbal medicines that are rock stars at restoring balance to various areas of the body, especially when stress is causing the imbalances. Some of my favorites for rebalancing cortisol and easing dysfunction of the HPA-axis are licorice root, ashwagandha, schisandra, and cordyceps. Find these in powdered form and add to your teas, smoothies, or coffee.
3. Give keto a go
4. Manage that stress
As one of the first functional medicine telehealth clinics in the world, we provide webcam health consultations for people around the globe.
BY DR. WILL COLE
Evidence-based reviewed article
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Health Risks Of Hormonal Belly
Hormones regulate various bodily functions including metabolism, stress, hunger and sex drive. Hormonal imbalance is the major reason behind it. If there is fluctuation in hormones, then it can result in various health conditions including underactive thyroid, PCOS and even menopause. Hormonal imbalance can also be a result of obesity, environmental triggers, excessive stress and even some medications.
Time Meals And Snack Right To Counter Mindless Eating
Its not just what you eat when you are following a mid-life diet that matters, but also when you eat. Midnight ice cream binges and potato chip raids, for example, are generally bad ideas and would be a poor choice even during the light of day. But the general message on food timing is clear: Dont eat too much too late, Peeke says. Eating later in the evening is murder for trying to keep weight off.
Another way to keep snacking calories in check is to avoid mindlessly nibbling throughout the day or falling into the dreaded afternoon snack trap. What a menopausal woman does from 3 p.m. on every day can determine how big her belly is. Thats when most women tend to overeat and oversnack.
To help rein in your snacking, Peeke says to start paying attention to your circadian rhythm. Eat during a window of 8 to 12 hours a day, and then dont eat for the rest of the time. Experts find this imperative to take care of weight at any age, but especially during menopause, she says.
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