#157: Why You Gain Belly Fat in Menopause & How to Reduce It

If you’ve noticed your waistline changing in midlife and wondered whether this is “just menopause,” you’re not alone.

Belly fat is one of the most common and frustrating changes women experience in perimenopause and menopause. In this episode, I break down some of the key factors contributing to this and what you can realistically do about it.

We talk about:

• How changing estrogen levels affect fat distribution
• What’s really happening with your metabolism
• The role of muscle loss
• Why daily movement matters more than you think

By the end of this episode, you’ll understand why this is happening, stop blaming the wrong things, and have concrete steps you can start taking this week to turn it around.

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Resources mentioned:

1. Walkpad I use >
2. Midlife Fat Loss Formula mini course >
3. Podcast episode: Why You Can’t Exercise Your Way to Weight Loss Episode #51: Earning your food with exercise: why burning calories does not work.
4. Lift IT! my 10-Day Introduction to Strength Training (use code PODCAST7 to get it for just $7)

If you’re enjoying the podcast, and would like to support my work please consider buying me a cup of coffee – link’s in the show notes! 

• Try out strength training with Lift-IT! My 10-day Intro to Strength Training >>
• Learn to Lift with my 10-week beginner program >>
• Download my free guide to working with your menopausal body >> 
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Transcript

#157: Why You Gain Belly Fat in Menopause & How to Reduce It

[00:00:00] Welcome to 40+ Fitness for Women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto your host, and I'm a certified menopause fitness coach. And today I wanna talk about something that. I think is on a lot of women's minds, and that is the belly fat, one of the most commonly complained about changes in our bodies in midlife and right around menopause .

 I have been there. I remember when I was 49 and I saw this picture of myself in a bikini, and I thought. That is not me. I had suddenly gained weight, especially around my waist. And this came at a time in my life where I had, you know, survived the hells of perimenopause and divorce. And I was at a stage where I felt, amazing about life. I felt like I'd been reborn kind of to [00:01:00] life, and suddenly my outside was not matching how I was feeling on the inside and I was dating. And you know, that's one of those times where you want to feel good about how you look, especially when you're meeting new people and maybe even taking off your clothes in front of them. So it really, really ate into my self-confidence. 

 In this episode I talk about how menopause is playing a role in this as is aging, what's going on with our metabolism so by the end of this episode, you'll understand why this is happening you'll stop blaming the wrong things and have some concrete things that you can start doing this week to start turning things around. because honestly, you do not need to resign yourself to this in midlife. So let's get into it.

Alright, so is this [00:02:00] related to menopause? Well, partially yes it is because what happens in menopause is that your estrogen levels start to go haywire at first. And then when you go into post menopause, it actually flatlines. And the thing that estrogen is doing in your body is defining where your fat resources are distributed on your body. If it's on your hips or your thighs or whatever. And when that goes away, then your fat stores start to migrate towards your center. And that's why you're noticing that your clothes are fitting differently because you are just accumulating your fat around your waist.

The other thing that starts to happen is that you start to get more visceral fat, and that is the fat, the unhealthy fat that is around your organs. And visceral fat is different from subcutaneous fat in that [00:03:00] it is harder to actually get your body to start using it as a calorie source

now there are some ways to get your body to start using that visceral fat. And my favorite is start strength training, like proper strength training. And here I have to bring up a story of one of my friends who is a cardio queen. So she is somebody who. You know, she's at the gym five days a week, maybe even twice a day in cardio classes, and she's been doing that for a really, really long time.

Okay, so she's clearly cardiovascularly super healthy, and she does do some body pump and that kind of thing that has some weights. Now she started strength training a few months back and now she did a body composition scan and she was so excited because [00:04:00] even the small amount of strength training that she does, she hasn't given up her cardio.

What she's actually done is added in a strength training session before she goes to her cardio class. So she hasn't become a gym rat, okay? But she's added that in and she has not only gained strength and muscle, but her visceral fat levels have really dropped. And I think it's such a great illustration of how, you can be burning a ton of calories, you can be in really good shape, but that's not necessarily triggering your body to use the visceral fat, that the strength training really does make a difference there.

So I do encourage you to start strength training. It was one of the things I noticed as well. When I started strength training, I was doing these, InBody, body composition scans at regular intervals, and the first thing that left was visceral fat. And of course, I gained muscle. My weight stayed the same, so the fat disappeared from between my [00:05:00] organs.

I started gaining muscle and my body started. To look different. It was like different shaped, of course, because you know, you're losing the visceral fat and you're putting muscle on, which of course goes on in different places than that fat is coming off of.

 Now, the second thing that gets blamed a lot as far as midlife weight gain is that my metabolism is slowing down. And the thing is that they have done research on this and discovered that actually from about age 30 to about age 60, if your muscle mass stays the same, then your metabolism does not decline. All right, so age is not the thing that is causing that decrease in your metabolism. What is causing it is the fact that you are losing muscle and losing muscle is a hundred percent natural. If you're not actually [00:06:00] doing something to hold onto that muscle, you will lose 3-8% of your lean muscle mass each decade. That may not sound like much, but over time it really makes a difference. So if you want to. Get your metabolism back up to where it was before then put some muscle on your body. And again, the fastest, most effective, efficient way to do that is to do proper strength training. So get a strength training program, apply progressive overload and do that consistently, and you will put more muscle on.

And this is not an overnight fix, for sure not. It will take you probably a year to put on a significant amount of muscle. 'cause you know there's a learning curve and then you start to actually build the muscle more effectively. But that is a long-term solution, and I have to [00:07:00] say that since I have put more muscle on my body, it has made it much easier for me to maintain my weight. I don't need to think so much about what I'm eating. Like I don't need to worry during holidays because I know that's one of the things I hear women say that, oh, it used to be that. You know, I could go crazy eating at Thanksgiving or Christmas and then I would just kind of be good for a few weeks and the weight would drop and I'd get back to normal. But now it doesn't happen that way. Well, having more muscle on your body takes you, back to be more like that old model of having a lot more kind of give as far as how much I can eat.

Now the third thing that I think is really going on here in midlife in particular, is that we we are not moving as much as we used to. And now I'm not really talking about the [00:08:00] exercise kind of moving though. That may also be different, but I never advocate, paying for what you've eaten by exercising.

But what you do need to understand is that your daily movement, just waving your arms around, moving around the house, doing stuff right. That matters. And in fact, the calories you burn with that kind of just movement throughout your day is a larger amount of calories than what you burn by that hour exercise session that you do, even if you're doing something where you're really sweating and raising your heart rate.

And in midlife, there are so many factors going on here, which I think really affect our ability to move or that we move and one of it them is that you're going through perimenopause and menopause. Right. It can be exhausting I mean, if you're anything like me, I mean. It's chaos, right? You are [00:09:00] not sleeping. You've got hot sweats, you are feeling more stressed out. You know, sleep amounts decline. Then you're tired. You don't feel like moving so much, and naturally you don't move so much because you're tired. Your children are bigger, so they're not requiring so much. I remember when my kids were little, I felt like I never had a minute to sit down. I'm like lifting one kid, cooking for another, cleaning up after another, getting ready for another, taking one to hobbies. You know, it was like a constant motion machine. But now that they're teenagers and. Well, two of them have already moved out, and the third one drives finally. So I, I mean, I don't really have to do much for him.

He cooks I go to the grocery store, you know what I mean? Like, so the, the moving around is much less. And it really makes a difference, and that's why I talk about getting in your steps every [00:10:00] day. So if you have some kind of a tracker, like an Oura or a watch or whatever, it's not about taking a walk though taking walks is amazing. It is amazing for your mental health and, and your health in general. Um. But that, that could stress you out even more. I know it stressed me out way more to think like, oh, I need to go out there and take an hour walk every day on top of doing like an 8-10 hour workday and going to the gym and you know, taking care of kids and all the other things.

So I try to incorporate those steps into my day, . I'll take a little break every hour or so and walk down to the basement and walk upstairs. I mean, just little things like that to increase movement. Plus, I've gotten a walk pad that I can use so that I'm not just sitting still when I'm working all day long.

So these are kind of little things that you can do and there really are lifestyle changes, but also understand that you [00:11:00] are living in this bigger context of being in perimenopause and menopause, which you are like maybe affected by poor quality of sleep, higher levels of stress. Also aging parents, teenagers are not always so stress free and all these things.

So there is a lot going on here. I'm not saying it's just all simple and there's just this one magic bullet that you can take care of. So, so be, be gracious to yourself.

And then the fourth thing I wanna talk about is actually how many calories you're consuming. I love this saying of you can't outrun your fork.

I know a lot of us and me included, have been raised with the idea of, oh, you can eat a lot if you work out a lot, but. It actually doesn't work that way. And I have a whole podcast talking about why you can't really [00:12:00] exercise your way to getting thinner, though of course exercise is important. I'm not saying that, but that's not the best lever to pull if you want to reduce body fat.

So what is the thing? It is like what you're putting in your mouth. I'm not kidding. And. The thing is that I would say that without exception, every time I've worked with a client and they say, oh, I've gained a little bit of weight, and oh, I'd like to lose a little bit of weight, you know, 10 pounds. I don't work with extremely overweight people, but you know, just those that are feeling like, oh, I would want to not have to buy the next size up of clothes.

When they really start to track and they really look at what they're eating, they very quickly [00:13:00] identify what issues there are there. It is amazing how eye-opening that can be to track just for a couple of weeks. So some examples are one client who recognized that, oh yeah, I have that glass of red wine and chocolate every night, and that is a lot of calories. You know, you substitute that for something else. Cup of tea and a carrot or something. And you're gonna start to lose weight gradually as you get rid of that. And I've had two clients who had the same exact thing come up where they were like, oh yeah, I've been eating nuts as a snack. Like I start to get hungry, a little peckish in the middle of the day, and they'll grab like a handful of nuts and they just didn't realize. How many calories were in that handful of nuts. They're just thinking nuts are, healthy they're a [00:14:00] good option versus chocolate or something. A candy bar. Yeah, sure. But it doesn't mean that they're low cal. 

When I went through my calorie deficit a couple years ago and lost the 10 pounds in about eight weeks. It really opened my eyes for example, I like to eat sandwiches often, so I'll have the bread. And some ham or Turkey or cheese or both like ham and Turkey and cheese, and I realized that, oh, I should really just ditch the cheese and do something else instead. Or use the Turkey, just Turkey or just a little bit of cheese, you know? I was noticing that. Wow. Actually. Even though this doesn't fill me up very much, it is actually taking up a lot of calories. And then I noticed that hey, actually I can eat pretty much as much as I want, like chicken and, and no problem, or sweet potatoes and potatoes, you know, so it got me to change my eating habits a little bit, which [00:15:00] has, helped me to maintain that weight loss.

And now I will also mention that I am not as thin as I was two years ago, or as thin as I was a year ago. I have more body fat on my body and I know why. I know why, and it has been that I have. Eaten too much. I have been tired. I've been stressed, not sleeping well, and that leads me to want to have sweet things during the day. Carb loading, and my huge weakness is the hour before bed if I could just. Decide that I am going to not eat after eight 30 at night, then oh my goodness, you know, but I just haven't gotten there yet, so, so part of it is the knowledge and then the other part is actually implementing that knowledge. But to [00:16:00] summarize, I really recommend that. Anybody who is thinking about, Hey, I, I don't know where this weight is coming from. Before you give up and resign yourself to it, or go try to find some magic injection or pill, take a look at what you're eating. And see if you can't make some simple adjustments because there might be something there.

And I have this, mini course called Midlife Fat Loss Formula, where I take you through step by step how to do this and then if you wanna use that data to lose weight. Then it teaches you how to do that as well, how to plan your meals, all kinds of things,

 All right, so I promised actionable tips. So if you think about what can you start doing today or this week is I would really suggest that you focus on sleeping better because having bad sleep, not [00:17:00] enough sleep, raising your stress levels, all those things, it doesn't help to keep weight off or to use fat.

So really, I feel like. In midlife, I'm like a broken record that get your sleep under control, and then other things will start to fall into place, so focus on your sleep. Then another very simple thing you can do is just start moving more and maybe you can't make. 6,000 steps a day, or 10,000 steps a day from additional movement.

But every little bit counts. And as you build that habit and then you do that for a year, it's gonna make a big difference. Similarly, take a look at what you're eating and if you know that, oh my god, yeah, I lick that peanut butter spoon when I make my kids the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Cut that out. If you drop out one thing that's like a hundred extra calories that you don't need, or [00:18:00] 200 extra calories that you don't need, that you're consuming every day, that too will make a big difference in the long run. And then something that might not happen this week though, maybe it will, is.

Start strength training. Honestly, it will help you not just in this, but it'll get your body stronger. Keep your body in better shape. Improve your confidence. I, I mean, the list of benefits just goes on and on.

And I've recently launched this v ery simple. 10 day introduction to strength training. It's a little mini course, with four 20 minute workouts in it and some education about how to do strength training, and that has been really helpful for a lot of women to actually understand what is strength training versus. The cardio with weights that you see out there. And I've had so many women thank me, like, oh, this is [00:19:00] exactly what I needed to understand this. And it's currently still at $7. But I'll be raising the price very soon. So get in there and get it. It's called Lift It and uh, the link will be in the show notes. 

 All right. So I hope that this helped because I know that there is a lot of information online and I think that it is a little bit more complicated than just do one thing. There are a whole lot of things going on in midlife, but I think that these kinds of changes to your lifestyle can really make a difference long term. And after all, we are gonna be living with this midlife body, with this postmenopausal body. For the decades up until the end, so we may as well learn to work with it. Till next week, happy training.