Before starting your battle with stubborn belly fat, you should know that fat in the abdominal area is divided into subcutaneous and visceral. Subcutaneous fat is more of an aesthetic problem and visceral fat may even be invisible since it is located on the internal organs. At the same time, visceral fat is the most dangerous for your health. It can slow down metabolism, accelerates aging, and lead to various diseases. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
How to Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Table of Contents
What causes lower belly fat in women?
Females can face a stubborn belly because of the high BMI index (excess body fat overall), hormonal disbalance, and even bloating that can look like a fatty pouch. What is more, as women naturally have a higher body fat percentage, dealing with stubborn fat deposits can be a real challenge for them. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Hormones and heredity play a significant role in the disposition of fat in women. Your genes define what type of figure you have. Are you a “pear” that stores most of the fat in thighs, hips, and lower belly; an “apple” with visible fat deposits in a midsection; or an “hourglass,” with a proportional figure with fat distributed among the lower and upper body?
Along with heredity, there are some other common reasons behind stubborn fat deposits in particular parts of the body, namely the abdominal area. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
How to Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Hormonal imbalancesHormonal imbalances
Hormonal belly in women happens less frequently than in men. This is because the main hormonal reason behind the large abdomen is a low level of estrogen
or progesterone. As a rule, women face a man-type belly fat during menopause when their hormonal portrait changes dramatically. During menopause, estrogen levels drop, and women are more prone to store belly fat. The testosterone levels predominately explain belly fat. If we have more testosterone, we’re more likely to store excess fat in the midsection. If a woman has more estrogen, she would probably store excess weight in her thighs and hips. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
If you’re a thin woman with a large belly, this is most likely due to hormonal imbalance or other health conditions. If you’re in a normal BMI range, but your hips to waist ratio is higher than 0.85, you should see your doctor.
Pregnancy
Women can also see that their bellies became bigger after pregnancy. This weight gain in a particular part of your body is due to the stretched muscles of your core and the larger uterus. Part of the postpartum belly will go away quite fast, and you might lose(1) up to 9 kilos in five to seven weeks after the delivery. When your uterus shrinks back, you can also see that your abdomen became flatter. Some women lose weight(2) quickly when they’re lactating, burning 400 to 500 calories per day to produce milk. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
According to the personal experience of thousands of new moms, the post pregnancy belly goes away in six to nine months. Moms do have more difficulties with getting into shape, but this is because their lifestyle changes dramatically! They sleep less, have more stress, don’t have time to work out, and have more disruptive eating. All these reasons accumulate and add pounds to their bodies.
Stress
Another hormonal reason behind belly fat can be high cortisol. Studies(3) show a link between uncontrollable stress and fat distribution in an abdominal area in women.
Alcohol
Some research(4) demonstrates that high alcohol consumption affects differently on fat distribution in men and women. Even though the link between alcohol and the risk of abdominal obesity was significantly higher in men (19,3%) than in women (2,3%), too much booze can affect a female’s body shape as well. As alcohol can shift your hormonal balance, making you store fat in a lower belly, refraining from alcohol can be a working strategy to help you lose belly fat faster. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Bloating
In most cases, you can easily distinguish stubborn belly fat from a bloated abdomen. When you’re bloated, you can feel it! In most cases, we’re bloated when we eat too much or too quickly or if we’ve consumed too much fiber or gas-provoking products like beans, cabbage, bread, or carbonated beverages. However, bloating can also be the symptom of some health conditions, including lactose or gluten intolerance and inflammatory diseases. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Why can’t I lose belly fat?
Recent studies(5) show that our fat tissue contains brown adipocytes that help you burn energy when you’re cold and white adipocytes responsible for fatty acids accumulation. Some dietitians assume that the lower belly contains more white adipocytes that are harder to burn. That’s why even when in a calorie deficit, your body chooses to burn fat deposits in your arms, breast, face, and buttocks (where you have more brown fat) first. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Some case studies composed by personal trainers and fitness instructors (these are pure observations that are not science-based) show that it might take up to 16 weeks to start losing belly fat. They state that as there are more white fat cells near your belly, this part of your body is so hard to get into shape.
So what should you do to get a flat stomach? You have to reduce body fat overall. All the myths about losing belly fat in a week by drinking some magic
vinegar or eating some particular fat-burning foods are just marketing. What we can do to get into shape is to help our body stop storing fat in the midsection and decrease the fat percentage in our bodies overall. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Some myths about lower belly fat
They are popular, they make you start hoping for quick fixes, some of them are expensive, and what’s most frustrating, they don’t work. Here is a list of myths on how to lose stubborn lower belly fat fast.
Drinking apple vinegar
We don’t know where the claim about vinegar health benefits came from, but there is no scientific proof that apple vinegar can boost weight loss or help you get rid of the stubborn belly. Moreover, as it’s quite acidic, it can affect your teeth’ enamel and digestive system. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Drinking lemon juice in the morning
There might be slight logic in this recommendation. The thing is, lemon juice is a low-calorie source of vitamin C which can inhibit(6) cortisol production. Cortisol stimulates belly fat storage and in theory, the consumption of vitamin C, helping with lowering stress hormone levels, can boost fat loss in the abdominal area. With this being said, lemon juice is not a magic pill, and it will never boost your weight loss if you’re not in a calorie deficit. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Diet Plan to Help You Lose Weight in 4 Weeks
Making 1,000 crunches
Personal trainers often recommend crunches, plank, and other ABS exercises to make your stomach flat. Remember that fat cannot contract, and you won’t make your stomach flat with thousands of crunches. You will have a strong core and ABS, hidden behind fat storages, waiting to be revealed by a proper diet.
Using a sweat belt while working out
Sweating more doesn’t equal losing more fat. Burning fat happens(7) through your breathing out carbon dioxide and not sweating in particular parts of your body. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Making a vacuum exercise
We can explain this method’s popularity among personal trainers. Vacuum exercises can strengthen your core muscles and make them more toned. But this exercise alone, without changes to your diet, won’t make your stomach flat.
Multiple videos on YouTube explain how vacuum exercise can help you lose up to three inches from your stomach in three weeks, but there is no reliable scientific evidence proving it works. On the other hand, this method will not harm either. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Using slimming body care products
Even research(8), sponsored by one of the world’s largest cosmetic groups, shows that the slimming effect of the newest body care product equals one pound of body weight loss in four weeks in women with the normal BMI.
Bodycare slimming products are expensive. They can tone your skin and can even have a draining effect due to their osmatic action, but they won’t make youlose fat. Reduce Lower Belly Fat Advice for Women
Some of these strategies can help you tone your muscles and improve the quality of your skin, but they will not directly lead to the decrease of your lower belly if you’re not in a calorie deficit!
