My Top Belly Fat Reducing Tips

“Tara, How Can I lose the fat around my belly?”  This is a question I’m asked about a lot so I thought I’d give you my top tips on how busy mums can reduce belly fat. This will also give you a bit of an insight as to why fat on your tummy can be so stubborn to shift.

Hormones That Can Cause Weight Gain

Without going too deep and scientific, there are many hormones that can have an effect on your weight and body fat.

Here are the 2 most important:

Insulin

This is released to control blood sugar levels, decreases fat release, increase fat storage and decrease fat burning. The more carbohydrates (starches & sugars) you eat, the more you encourage this to happen.

Cortisol

Cortisol is also known as the stress hormone. It encourages fat storage, especially around the belly.

Both cortisol and insulin along with oestrogen (which again encourages fat around your tummy) is a recipe for fat storage that can often be hard to shift.

Another thing about this type of fat is that it’s subcutaneous fat (the stuff you can grab), which has less blood flow than visceral fat (the deep fat), so it will take longer to burn.

Additionally this type of fat has more receptors that are slow releasing, so you can see many reasons beyond calories as to why so many of us get frustrated with this problematic area.

Tips For Reducing Belly Fat and Losing Weight

However there are a few things you can do to help:

1. Decrease carbohydrates to decrease insulin – avoiding sugars and starches in favour of lean protein, healthy fats and non- starchy veg.
2. Sleep  – this will help reduce stress as well as switching on fat burning hormones whilst your sleeping.
3. Don’t ‘Diet’ and do extreme things as this can cause stress and increase cortisol. Instead focus on a healthy eating plan with plenty of whole foods and balanced meals (like any of my recipes).
4. Do resistance training with weights or body weight (this creates a great hormonal response to switch on fat release) and some low intensity activity like walking (which is fab for using up the fat released and also enjoyable to reduce stress). Plus, exercise is great for increasing blood flow.
5. Take time out to relax. Even if this means not working out. Exercise is a stressor too and if you’re going extreme, this will increase cortisol. So remember, rest is just as important as exercise.
6. Dry skin brushing – this is great to do for the whole body, invigorating and can stimulate blood flow.

If you want some help losing stubborn fat around your tummy, check out my Life Transformer Program, where we have a library of workouts and nutrition plans especially for busy mums who want to lose weight and transform their bodies.

[Article Updated December 2019]