It would be so easy to blame the hormonal decrease for the increase in menopause belly fat during menopause, but that is side stepping the real culprit. It is true that fat cells manufacture estrogen. It is also true that, when your body senses the diminishing hormone level, it tries to compensate. The menopause belly fat cells are told to get bigger and fuller and immature fat cells are "turned on" so that they, too, can help with hormonal balance.
This may seem like a vicious trick your body is playing on you, but in actuality, it is your menopause belly fat that is helping you get through menopause. By trying to help regulate the estrogen levels, your hot flashes and night sweats, your irregular heart beats, increased allergy symptoms, insomnia, irritability, and all the other manifestations of menopause would be worse than you are currently experiencing! Menopause belly fat is actually a good thing.
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Of course, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, as we all know. So here are some tips on shedding some of that menopause belly fat.
1. Reduce Your Stress Levels
If your life was stressful to begin with, prior to the onset of menopause, then your change of life is simply going to make things that much more stressful. With the symptoms, like sleeplessness, tinnitus, irritable bowel, depression and the like, menopause is only going to make them worse, in spite of menopause belly fat trying to help. The best thing you can do for yourself is de-stressing. Eliminate as much external stress as you can, and for stress that is unavoidable, learn to meditate and breathe. Tranquility, even for short periods of each day, will go a long ways towards reducing your stress levels.
2. Get Plenty Of Good Sleep
Stress increases cortisol in the body. Cortisol is a metabolism killer. A slow metabolism means the calories you ingest will not be burned off and will increase menopause belly fat. Restful sleep brings the nasty cortisol level back to normal.
3. Exercise
Needless to say, exercise helps get rid of menopause belly fat. But another advantage of exercise is that it will help ease any insomnia you may be experiencing. By putting your body through its paces, you train it to regulate its cycles and sleep will come more naturally, provided your mental stress is also relieved (see tip number 1).
4. Get Help For Depression
Part of reducing stress should be a course of counselling to help retrain your thinking. Cognitive therapy goes a long way towards easing fears and worries.
5. Help Your Body With A Healthy Diet
Do not leave the work of regulating your hormone levels to menopausal fat. Help it out by eating healthy foods and providing the much-needed nutrients and building blocks for your body to help itself. Many plant foods have a nutrient called phytoestrogens, which will be an excellent (and natural) replacement.
So, it is not just decreasing estrogen levels that are causing your menopause belly fat gain. Your lifestyle, activities and eating habits are all involved as well, and actually play a bigger role in the weight gain of menopause belly fat. Help your body as you go through menopause and you will end up happier and healthier.
Menopause Belly Fat - Do Not Blame Estrogen For Your Menopausal Belly
Choosing the right healthy and easy to follow diet plan may be the breaking point in losing menopause belly fat. Lets face it; you probably already tried at least couple of different diets through out your life that didn't work. To lose menopause belly fat you need weight loss techniques that will not only let you lose your weight in the short term, but also to be sustainable for long term. You can find more insights about losing menopause belly fat at http://menopause-weight.blogspot.com