Belly Fat! Why we have it and the 2 Foods to Avoid to Help Get Rid of It

Have you ever considered that your waistline might be whispering secrets about your health? On today's podcast episode, we unravel the mystery of belly fat's impact on women's health, with a spotlight on those navigating  perimenopause and menopause. I'll guide you through the nuances of visceral fat, how it differs from other body fats, and why it's a paramount health indicator. We'll explore the two major dietary villains that could be padding your middle and how to sidestep them.

But it's not all tape measures and food foes; we also dive into the sugar-laden minefield hidden in your everyday beverages. Sharing my own battle scars from sugar addiction, I'll help you spot and sidestep the sweet deceptions lurking in your drinks. You'll learn how to satisfy those sugar cravings with healthier choices, recalibrate your palate, and navigate dietary changes with confidence, especially during hormone fluctuations. Remember to subscribe to our podcast, and for those in the throes of perimenopause seeking more support, make sure to grab the free Radiant Reset Hormone Detox Guide from our show notes. Let's embark on this journey together towards a more informed and healthful life.

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Transcript

Belly Fat and Women's Health

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi, I'm Susie Garden and this is the Ageless and Awesome podcast. I'm an age-defying naturopath and clinical nutritionist and I'm here to bust myths around women's health and aging so that you can be ageless and awesome in your 40s, 50s and beyond. The Ageless and Awesome podcast is dedicated to helping women through perimenopause and menopause with great health, a positive mindset and outrageous confidence. Hit, subscribe or follow now and let's get started. Hello, gorgeous one, and welcome to this week's episode of the Ageless and Awesome podcast, and I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite favorite topics this week, and I may even do a little series on this topic.

Speaker 1 0:52

Topic is belly fat. I love talking about this because it's something that we, as women, often can struggle with, and it's also hugely underestimated by the general population of how much having belly fat influences your overall health, your longevity, your ability to have kind of a good I don't know good, a pleasant I don't know if any of these words are right, but it will absolutely impact your menopausal experience, your perimenopausal experience and, let's face it, for most of us it is something that, just from an aesthetic point of view, we would prefer to have a smaller waist and that comes down to, I guess a bit more of a primal thing of the fertile woman's shape, which is of having a narrow waist and childbearing hips. So I'm going to be talking today about the two foods you need to avoid at all costs to avoid belly fat, and why belly fat is bad for you in terms of dementia risk, cardiovascular risk, hormone issues so many things. There's a lot to cover. As I said, I may break this up into a couple of podcasts. I'll see how I go, but it is one of my favorite topics. I have spoken on this topic before and so you feel free to look back in the catalog to see what I said last time. So this will be a little bit more of an update from that particular podcast, but there will be some of the same information covered as well, because, to be honest, we've known about this for a long time, but I really don't think that this is something that is properly communicated from a health point of view and it's something that when women come to me and they're talking to me about their bodies and their goals, their health goals, their weight loss goals, et cetera, et cetera, the belly fat is almost always referred to in terms of the aesthetic and not so much as in terms of improving their future health and wellbeing and their aging. So let's get stuck into it.

Speaker 1 3:13

So why is belly fat such a big deal? Well, we have a couple of different types of fat in the body and the fat that accumulates around the kind of waist area, and that can be. When we're talking about that, we're not just talking about at the front of the body. It's very, very sneaky. You can get this weight at the back, on the back. You know we refer to it as back fat. You may have heard that term, you may have used that term, but yeah, it's not just what happens around the front of the body, it's also around the back, and that's why taking a waist measurement is really important to make sure you're capturing everything that's going on in your body.

Speaker 1 3:57

When we're talking particularly about belly fat. But the belly fat is actually something called visceral fat. But the belly fat is actually something called visceral fat and it's not like the fat that is, say, in our face or in our arms or in our legs. That is very different type of fat. That fat is pretty inactive, it's just pure energy stores. The fat that we have around our middle, our belly fat is actually can be quite dangerous because it infiltrates around our organs. That's one part of it, and the other part of it is that it actually starts to act as its own organ. When you get enough of that belly fat accumulating and you actually don't need that much for this to start happening it actually starts producing its own hormones. And that can be quite tricky, particularly when it comes to long-term weight loss. Because if you have belly fat, like if you're an apple shape that's what we refer to an apple shape in a pear shape You've probably heard that pear shape tend to store their fat in their butt and their thighs and they you would have heard that that's a much safer place to store fat you don't have that increase in cardiovascular risk when you have belly fat. That does increase your cardiovascular risk because it shows us that as healthcare practitioners, it shows the researchers that your body has a tendency to have insulin. Let's call it dysregulation or insulin resistance. So I'll get into that in a minute.

Speaker 1 5:41

Like this is a pretty complex topic. So where to start? Let's talk about belly fat initially, as in some numbers, let's look at some numbers, all right, so what should your waist circumference be? What is a safe waist circumference. A really easy one to start with, I guess, is know your height. So let's say your height is 170 centimeters that's my height, 170 centimeters then your waist measurement should be no more than half of your height. It's pretty easy. So half of that is 85 centimeters. So if your waist circumference is under 85, that's a pretty good start. If you're 170 centimeters tall, there is one other number I'd like to briefly mention. If your waist circumference is 100 centimeters or more, then the research tells us that 100% of people that have a waist circumference of 100 centimeters or more, then the research tells us that 100% of people that have a waist circumference of 100 centimeters or more have a degree of insulin resistance. And this is super important in the context of a conversation around belly fat, because essentially, the people that tend to store fat around their waist tend to be more prone to that insulin resistance. And so what is insulin resistance?

Speaker 1 7:09

If you're a long time listener, you know I've spoken about this a lot. I've got a bunch of blog posts on this as well, but essentially what happens and this is just a normal part as we get older is our insulin doesn't work so well. So insulin is a hormone and it does a number of things. I'm just going to talk about a couple of them. So, firstly, you would have heard of insulin, probably when we talk about diabetes and people that have diabetes often end up on insulin. If it's type two, if it's type 1 diabetes so that's the one that starts in childhood then they are always going to be on insulin, and I describe insulin as a key that unlocks the cell so that glucose can get from the blood into the cell, which is where we can actually use it. So that's pretty simple, right? Insulin is the key that unlocks the cell, gets the glucose out of the blood into the cells, and that's how it regulates our blood glucose levels, and it's a pretty important job.

Speaker 1 8:13

The other job, one of the other jobs that insulin has, is to store fat. So if there is excess sugar in our blood, then insulin will help to store that as fat, because we are wired for survival. We are wired for back in the day where we didn't have access to supermarkets and refrigeration and cooking and electric lights. Whenever we wanted to, we could eat, and electric lights, you know. Whenever we wanted to, we could eat, we could get access to food, and in our Western culture, we can have food whenever we like, and that has led to this situation for many of us, where we are putting on excess weight and the body will just keep putting it on and putting it on and putting it on, because we have an unlimited capacity to create and store fat. Fat is just simply energy that we can use later on. And now there is another factor here. There is another critical factor here. It's not so much that we can have food whenever we want.

Speaker 1 9:19

The problem is the type of food that has now become a huge part of our staple diet, which is completely unnecessary, and that is processed foods. And this is a major, major problem. And this is why and I'm talking to any of you out there that are struggling with your weight it is not your fault. It is not your fault. We have been absolutely duped by what I like to call big food. Yes, and what this means is that when we look at processed foods so processed foods are shelf-stable foods they come in a packet and it is what they've got in them. That is really, really disturbing. And that is going to lead me down into the two different foods you should really avoid eating if you want to avoid belly fat.

Speaker 1 10:14

But before we get there, I want to spend a little bit of time on processed food. The body just doesn't know what to do with all of the chemicals that are in processed food and this is why I get, when I start, people on the GLOBE protocol and metabolic balance, which is a whole foods diet fruits, veggies, meats, legumes, bread all of these things completely prescribed for the individual based on their blood tests, their body measurements, their medical history. We don't have processed foods and packaged foods in the program. We just don't, because your body is is an organism, it's an animal and it doesn't do well with processed foods. Now that doesn't mean you can't have treats. Let me be clear. I love my treats, I love them, and you've got to enjoy life as well as have a good quality of life and a good length of life. So it's getting the balance. It's absolutely getting the balance.

Speaker 1 11:20

But if you eat a diet that's rich in whole foods, you probably aren't going to have an issue with obesity, being overweight, having insulin resistance, having belly fat. I'm not guaranteeing it, but I'll tell you what. That's a really good place to start and the reason I say it's not your fault is because big food have big budgets. If you've ever watched any of those documentaries on big food, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. I'll never forget watching one, and they were talking about corn chips. It was a really good example. And they have this machine that we're using to test the crispness of an individual corn chip to calibrate it to the exact and I'm talking by microns exact crispness of a corn chip that people gave the best feedback on, and that would be the crispness that they would manufacture this food to so that people would buy that brand preferentially because they enjoyed the mouthfeel better. And there's other aspects to this as well, with all of the flavorings and things that get put on there. But if you pick up a bag of corn chips that are flavored, have a look at the ingredients and I'll guarantee you there'll be things there that you don't recognize and you don't know what they are. They're not actual, real food. And this is across the big food industry.

Speaker 1 12:53

Now, I have worked in big food. I have seen for myself some of the things that go on and it is all about getting you to buy the product. I have seen for myself some of the things that go on and it is all about getting you to buy the product again and again and again. You notice you'll rarely see ads for fruits and veggies and even meats and other unprocessed foods, unless they're by the supermarket or unless they're by a government agency that's trying to get people to eat more healthily. And if you look at those budgets compared to the budgets with big food have to throw around, they don't even compare. So not only are you getting gosh I feel like I'm really on my soapbox now, but it's so true Not only are you getting beaten over the head with this advertising, you're also manipulating the food to make sure that you want to buy it over and over and over again and that you will actually crave this food. And the reason you crave it is because of these two ingredients that I'm about to talk about that contribute big time to belly fat.

Speaker 1 14:05

So let's get into them. The first one I'm going to talk about and you're going to roll your eyes and go well, of course it's obvious, but clearly it's not because it's still a big problem and that is the first one is refined sugar. Refined sugar, as you can imagine, is a massive contributor to belly fat because it, just as soon as it goes into your bloodstream, the glucose shoots up, the insulin is right, let's go. And it's going to store fat. And the thing is, when we think of refined sugar, you might be thinking, well, I don't have sugar in my coffee or you know that kind of thing, but the big problem is what I would call liquid sugar. So this is.

Speaker 1 14:42

I'm talking about things like soft drinks or sodas. If you're one of my American listeners, it's just like shooting sugar into your veins. Things like your chocolate milk, for example. I know a lot of people think that's a healthier option because it's milk, but it is. There's so much sugar in these things and I used to eat them and drink them rather, I used to before I got trained in nutrition. I used to think they were a healthier option than having a soft drink, but they're dreadful.

Speaker 1 15:13

Orange juice is another classic. People still have orange juice for breakfast. Have an orange, not an orange juice. There is so much sugar and that's not even refined sugar necessarily, but it is just putting it into your veins. It's terrible, yeah, so any of those energy drinks is another classic, even some of your things like kombucha. That's another one that people think is really healthy. Not necessarily. It depends on how they've made it and how much sugar, because we definitely use.

Speaker 1 15:48

I've made kombucha, I used to make it for quite some time and you put quite a lot of sugar in it. It's quite extraordinary how much sugar you put in it because you've got to feed the SCOBY, which is what gives you your bacteria, and the SCOBY will use a lot of that sugar. But depending on how long you spend with that fermentation time will influence how much refined sugar is still in that product. And I don't know for sure for this, but I'd be pretty confident to say that there's probably a fair amount of sugar in this product, that they probably don't do the fermentation time for as long so that it tastes better, so that you buy it again. What this is all about is getting the customer to repurchase the product, so refined sugar.

Speaker 1 16:36

So when you're looking for this, you're looking for high fructose. If you're looking on a label, is what I mean high fructose? Corn syrup is sugar in disguise. Glucose sucrose, all those sort of things. They're all sugars in disguise. Be very, very mindful of those sort of things. On labels You'll rarely sometimes you see things like cane sugar, as if that's healthier, organic cane sugar.

Speaker 1 17:05

You know, it's just not. It's really just not. The alternatives to that are things like I mean, rice malt syrup's not a bad alternative, stevia is not a bad alternative. They're both plant-based, they're not artificial. Now, I'll be honest, they do not give you the same kind of buzz I guess I'd call it as sugar. They don't satisfy necessarily that sugar craving because they aren't sugar. So just be aware of that. If you're going to substitute stevia, for example, in your coffee or your tea, then you will know you'll go oh, it doesn't taste as good.

Speaker 1 17:46

What I would suggest, alternatively, is to actually wean yourself off the sugar so that you're not having any of it. No sugar replacement, definitely no artificial sugar. We know that there are plenty of people that that, people that have like the diet sodas, the diet soft drinks and have the artificial sweeteners. A lot of those people have obesity and so it's. There's definitely a link there. I won't go into it because I don't have the researcher in front of me now, but I've seen the research, probably a couple of years ago. Now it's been around for a while and, yeah, we know for sure that there are links there. So just of the research in front of me now, but I've seen the research, probably a couple of years ago now it's been around for a while and, yeah, we know for sure that there are links there. So just stay away from those soft drinks altogether. Have sparkling mineral water instead. You just need to retrain your taste buds and I know you're going to miss it. You are.

Speaker 1 18:38

I'm a sugar fiend myself. I love sugar and I really continually have to work on my addiction to it, and if I stay away from it it gets easier and easier and easier. But if I go out and I have a dessert because that is my sweet, my absolute kryptonite is dessert and ice cream and chocolate and things like that If I go out and have a dessert, oh man, I am done for probably for weeks afterwards until I go okay, I've got to get a handle on this again and I have to. Yeah, just stop. So I would highly recommend and this is coming from someone for me I used to have tea with milk and three sugars.

Speaker 1 19:26

Yes, I did, and I started doing that when I was probably in high school I think grade 11 or 12, because I didn't actually like the taste of tea very much and I definitely wasn't going to have coffee, because that was just disgusting to me at the time and so clearly I was just having sugar water with a bit of tea in it and yeah, I really found it very easy to just wean myself off sugar by just reducing it by half a teaspoon every few days to get myself down to no sugar in the tea and it was completely fine, completely acceptable. So I strongly encourage you, if you are someone that has sugar in your tea or coffee, start to wean yourself off it, because you're really doing yourself damage, even if you're someone that's quite slim. I'm quite slim, but I know I'm someone that you would call skinny fat. For sure, where I tend to put on weight, if I do put on weight, it is around my middle. I've got quite slim legs and I know because you know I am a woman in perimenopause that I'm going to have more of a tendency to store fat now, as well as my natural tendency because of the hormonal changes that are going on, I'm going to be way more likely to store fat on my middle. So I have to be very, very mindful. So if you're a perimenopausal woman and I know from my stats that the majority of you that are listening pausal woman and I know from my stats that the majority of you that are listening are. I know I've got some blokes as well, which is great, um, cause I love working with men also, uh, but yeah, I really recommend that you get the sugar out of your coffee and your tea.

Speaker 1 21:13

If you are someone that has soft drinks, even if it's just once a week or twice a week, get rid of it. Get rid of it, because these things do just keep building that attachment and that addiction that we have to sugar, and that extends to things also with some of the alternative milks. Some of these alternative milks are so full of sugar, even if they're organic and they might have organic sugar in them, they're still not good. So if you're thinking that swapping out to almond milk, for example gosh, that is a con. Please don't have the almond milk, please go. If you really must have milk, then go for an organic dairy or organic, whether it's cow or whether it's a goat or whether it's sheep, whatever. Do that, but make sure it's organic and full fat, not skim. But yeah, the switch to oat milk, to almond milk.

Speaker 1 22:12

There is virtually no protein in those products, and same with rice milk as well, and usually, to get it to be palatable, they're filling it with sugar and also gums and things that give it a better mouthfeel, so people enjoy it. Go for your black if you want to. I would even say a very good quality soy milk and some people might crucify me for saying that as a natural health practitioner but if you're looking at a very good quality soy milk, soy is a complete protein Obviously you're wanting an organic, non-gmo soy, but that is a complete protein and it's going to be better for you than going for an almond milk or rice milk. I will just clarify that and say if you have a thyroid condition, soy is not a good option for you, but other than that, it's quite fine to have. Uh, I think that's all I want to say about sugar. So that's my number one food to stay away from to avoid belly fat.

Speaker 1 25:21

The other one, of course you probably already guessed, is wheat flour. That's what I'm talking about Refined white flour. So substituting that with something like buckwheat flour can be a good one. Coconut flour can be a good one. Almond flour can be a good one. There's quite a lot of options.

Speaker 1 25:42

I used to make my own almond flour. I actually used to. I'm just going to contradict myself now. I used to make myself some almond milk and that was making it myself. So if you want to make it yourself, you use a good amount of almonds with water and you might want to chuck a date in it or something like that to get some sweetness. But that is not a bad option to make your own almond milk. I used to do that quite a lot. And then I do get the almond pulp and dry it out in the oven, throw it in the blender to get it really nice and fine, and I'd use that to make cookies and things like that. When I was into having snacks before I got a little bit more education around not having snacks, so we'll talk about that in a minute.

Speaker 1 26:25

But yeah, that would be a way. Okay, if you wanted to use almond milk, that would be a way to do it. But just do it for flavor. Don't do it because you think you're doing something more healthy for yourself, because you're really actually not. But absolutely, if you're plant-based and you don't have any animal product, then that way of doing an almond milk to enjoy, to have with your oats or to have with your what else your tea or coffee. That's fine, but do know you're not getting a lot of protein with that, so you will need to make sure you're getting your protein from other things. A lot of people think that almond milk is full of protein and it's actually not All right. We digress.

Speaker 1 27:08

So let's get onto flour. So, yeah, wheat flour and I'm talking the highly refined white flour, flour, and I'm talking the highly refined white flour is a problem for many people in terms of bumping up blood sugar levels. And, yeah, the alternative flours can be fantastic, depending on what you're making, because remember, like, for example, coconut flour I quite like using, but it does have that coconut flavor. So if you avoided refined wheat flour and refined sugar, you would have a massive improvement in your health and, most likely, your waistline. Now, I did mention snacks, so I will cover that today in today's podcast. But I can see already in today's podcast, but I can see already I've got so many notes of things I wanted to talk about today and clearly we're already at, you know, half an hour almost, and I don't want to make this podcast a one hour podcast. So let's talk about snacks and then we'll wind up.

Speaker 1 28:12

So snacks man, oh, I used to love having snacks, loved it, looked forward to it. I was a snack queen. Of course, during the course of my nutrition training, I learned a little bit more about snacks. Snacks are completely unnecessary and a lot of you probably are aware of that. Anyway, these days, because of all of the fasting ways of eating that are out there, they're all about avoiding snacks, and the research that I have seen that I connect with is the three meals a day, no snacks. Now, I did talk about intermittent fasting last week and one of the big kind of drawbacks of intermittent fasting can be the muscle loss that takes place, and three meals a day, no snacks, seems to avoid that. So, yeah, I would highly recommend making sure that the meals that you're having definitely have a good amount of protein, that they have healthy fats and obviously lots of brightly colored fruits and veggies, things like that. I can tell you that that, yeah, you definitely again need to wean yourself off the snacks because you crave them. The snacks because you crave them Because what happens is your blood it's sugar.

Speaker 1 29:47

So, firstly, just a habit is probably number one. It's habit Sometimes it can be boredom that leads to snacks, because it's something to do when it's three o'clock in the afternoon something to break up the afternoon. You go and have a coffee or you go and have. You know, when I worked in an office I'd have cream biscuits, which was the beginning of the end for me in terms of weight gain. And yeah, so there's the combination of habit but also sugar craving if your meals aren't beautifully balanced.

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Speaker 1 30:15

And what happens when you have snacks is you're just keeping your insulin and your glucose being produced all through the day. And when your insulin is being produced all through the day, you're just gonna keep storing fat and keep storing fat and keep storing fat. You're not gonna get into fat burning when you are sticking to three meals a day and no snacks. You will go into fat burning in between meals. Sort of five to six hours between meals is a really kind of sweet spot to get that good regulation of glucose and insulin. And guess what? Your brain will work better, you'll think more clearer, you'll make better decisions, you'll feel calmer, you'll feel more in control and you won't get that afternoon energy dip, as long as your meals are beautifully balanced, exactly for you. So that's where I'm going to leave it today. It will also help burn your belly fat. That's where I'm going to leave it today.

Speaker 1 31:16

I would love any questions that you have so I can address in a future episode. I'm definitely going to do one next week. This may even stretch into three weeks of episodes just looking at belly fat, because I know how much it plagues women, and particularly women that are getting into their perimenopause years and postmenopause. So I hope you've enjoyed it. I'd love to hear your feedback.

Speaker 1 31:40

I want to give a shout out to a beautiful listener who left me a review. I don't see many reviews because it's really hard to get people to actually write them. A lot of people give me a five star, which I love, so I do appreciate it, thank you, but it really warms my heart, and I think this lady's name might be Jane left me a review, I think a couple of weeks ago now, and I just wanted to point out to you, jane, that I have seen it and it really meant a lot to me. So thank you very much. Anyway, guys, I will be back on Thursday with Q&A. Have a great week Until then.

Speaker 1 32:17

Thanks so much for joining me today on the Ageless and Awesome podcast. If you liked today's episode, please make sure you click the little plus button if you're on Apple Podcasts, or the follow button if you're on Spotify, so that you get each new episode delivered to you every week. If you like free stuff, then head to the show notes and click the link to receive my free Radiant Reset Hormone Detox Guide for Perimenopausal Women. Or if you'd like to continue the discussion, head over to Instagram and DM me at suzygardenwellness. I'd love to connect with you.