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Belly Fat - Why it Exists & How to Lose it · Doctor Turned Health Coach

• 0:21
  There's probably no other question that's as popular as trying to lose belly fat.
• 0:27
  So what is belly fat? Belly fat is the protrusion of the abdomen,
• 0:32
  of the center, right above our pelvis.
• 0:36
  So when our stomach sticks out...
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  A lot of people, of course, are visually disturbed by that, but there are also
• 0:43
  some health implications that are worth reviewing.
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  The good news is that many of us are going to have a little bit of a protruding
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  abdomen, mostly because of genetics, the way our back is structured,
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  how loose the tissue is around our abdomen.
• 1:00
  It doesn't always mean that we have visceral fat, But a lot of people who have
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  visceral fat, which is the fat that is around the intestines,
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  that is around the pancreas, that is around the kidneys.
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  That's all going to push the abdomen out.
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  And it's always difficult to know who is actually having visceral fat and who
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  just has genetics, where their belly is going to stick out.
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  For example, if you feel bloated, if you're on your menstrual cycle,
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  if you've eaten something that makes you gassy, or if you just had a lot of
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  food, your stomach might stick out, and that may not be a major problem.
• 1:35
  Of course, hormones can be an issue, such as with menopause or testosterone drop as we get older,
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  and age itself is going to generally cause a little bit more laxity in the tissues
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  holding the belly up, and that could also make it protrude further.
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  And then, of course, if you're not exercising, right? If you're sedentary,
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  if you're not exercising, if
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  you have no abdominal muscles, there's not a whole lot to keep things in.
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  Okay, so now that we know what causes it, let's talk about hormones and belly fat.
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  Now, basically, estrogen and testosterone in both men and women are responsible
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  for maintaining how much fat we deposit in different places.
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  And fat storage is a big issue for women because a lot of women are going to
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  deposit a lot of fat around the belly as they are in the perimenopause menopausal stage.
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  So if you're also noticing some perimenopausal symptoms from mood to skin to hair to.
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  Constipation, joint issues, any of those could be early signs that there are
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  some hormonal problems that can sometimes be remedied with lifestyle changes,
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  but sometimes even medications can be incredibly effective.
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  And if you're a man with age, testosterone generally does go down and there
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  are a few other hormonal changes that affect testosterone.
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  So regular exercise, some resistance training, avoiding really hardcore aerobic
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  exercises can all help you maintain a good testosterone balance,
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  which is going to help men have a good estrogen balance.
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  Yes, men have estrogen and it is quite important in us as well.
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  If somebody comes to me and we know that they got a little bit too much belly
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  fat, what do we do? Okay, so we just talked about hormones.
• 3:20
  When it comes to dietary strategies, we always want to lean more towards the complex carbs.
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  So this is the brown rice the quinoa instead of the refined flour and the white
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  rice that's always what we want to try to do we want to make sure the individual
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  is getting enough healthy lean proteins enough fiber and well probably alcohol
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  is another big one because alcohol in a way is a sugar.
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  So simple sugars are going to increase the deposition of fat because they increase the insulin.
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  And generally, we're going to deposit that fat in the visceral area.
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  So if we can cut back on those things, that's going to help a lot.
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  Closely tied to diet is exercise. Exercise strategies include strength training.
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  Some aerobic exercise is fantastic, like every day,
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  every other day, 20 minutes, 15 minutes on a bicycle or going for a longer walk
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  where you're really burning some calories can be really effective because it
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  helps balance out all of your hormones and that can help prevent you from depositing
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  any further fat in the visceral area but also help remove fat from the gut.
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  HIIT training which is basically an alternate of low intensity and high intensity exercise.
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  So you take a break and then you go high intensity, take a break, go high intensity.
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  That can be really good and is a little bit easier to tolerate for some people
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  and can help decrease abdominal fat.
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  Streep and sleep and stress management, these two.
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  So think of sleep and stress as the two things that really balance out your cortisol.
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  And if you balance out your cortisol, you're less likely to get a huge insulin spike.
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  So getting enough sleep is important.
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  Making sure your overall day-to-day stress is manageable. The key here is manageable,
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  that you can cope with the amount of stress.
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  Some people can handle a lot of stress, but you have to be able to cope with it.
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  And the final one is going to be intermittent fasting. I only recommend doing like an 8 and 16.
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  So 8 hours of basically no eating. That's your overnight sleep.
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  Now a lot of my health coaching clients unfortunately have to get up in the
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  middle of the night to eat something.
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  And that has a lot to do with blood sugars etc. But just being able to not eat
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  for about 8 hours is going to give you a really solid eating window of 16 hours where you can eat.
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  And of course over time you can stretch that out and you can change that so you can go to.
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  Basically only eating in eight hours so you wake up
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  at 7 8 a.m you eat something and you try not to eat after 5 p.m or so that's
• 6:00
  an even healthier window for a lot of us especially if you're dealing with belly
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  fat so for the top three wins i think in this arena is to really think about your diet,
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  make one adjustment from a simple carb to a complex carb and go for a little
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  bit of exercise and start lifting some weights.
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  Lifting weights is going to replace some of that HIIT training that we talked about.
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  It's going to help you put on muscle mass and help balance out your insulin levels.
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  Don't worry. The good news is everybody can make a huge difference in their abdominal fat.
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  You can make a big difference, but
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  remember, don't just assume sit-ups and exercises aren't going to do it.
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  Really, the dietary part is the biggest one.
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  Unfortunately, supplements, medications, all of those things are just temporary
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  fixes. They're probably not going to do what you really needed to do.
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  Most of my health coaching clients who've tried those things have been disappointed.