Episode 173: The 2 Things That Actually Reduce Visceral Fat

Menopause changes more than your hormones, it changes how your body stores fat. This episode explains why visceral fat increases during this stage of life and how healing your metabolism, lowering cortisol, and supporting gut health can help you reduce it naturally.

Check out my (free) workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond right here: www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong Episode 173: The 2 Things That Actually Reduce Visceral Fat

Speaker 1  0:00  
Welcome back to the Becoming Mind Strong podcast. My name is Rachel, and I am the founder and CEO of Mindstrong, where we only work with perian-postmenopausal women because I've been doing this a really long time. And the thing that I hear time and time again is, Rachel, I give up hope. I'm doing everything right. Nothing's working, so I give up trying. I give up hope, and the thing as an educator that I want to shout from the rooftops is, you are not broken. It is true that the things that used to work when we were younger, they don't work anymore. Right? We're not crazy. They're not working. But that doesn't mean all hope is lost. It means we need what I like to call a new tool bag for this new menopausal body in which we're living. In today's episode, we are going to talk about one of the biggest buzzwords on social media. If your feed looks like mine, you have probably heard this word over and over again, and that word is visceral fat. The problem is most of us hear it all the time, but we have no idea what it means, and because of that, we're accidentally making the problem worse. So let's start with an understanding of what's actually going on in our body when it comes to visceral fat, and then we'll we'll dig our hands in the dirt a little bit deeper. We'll talk about what's causing it, and most importantly, we'll talk about what to do about it. So I want to start this conversation by understanding what visceral fat is. I'm going to hit you with some alarming stats, but don't worry, there's light on the other side of this tunnel. So what visceral fat is? It's the fat that that's deep in there. It's the fat that doesn't just lay under our skin, but it's surrounding our internal organs. Now, here's the shocking stats. Okay, obviously this is different for every single woman, but I'm going to talk in generalities here. On average, for most of us, visceral fat before this beautiful menopausal stage of life is hovering between zero and 5% then we start getting into this menopausal stage of life, and there is a massive leap in in visceral fat, from zero to 5% to 15 to 20% That is a huge leap, zero to five to 15 to 20. This is why you hear so many women say, "I feel like I woke up and I gained 20 pounds. There is a massive leap that happens naturally as our body shifts. So our job is to counteract it. Now, here's the problem: visceral fat is not fixed by eat less, move more, and this is so opposite of how we've lived life. Right when we were in that zero to 5% range, we didn't have to think about this stuff. So our 20s, 30s, early 40s-if we wanted to lose weight, we ate less, we move more, we cut out some junk food, and boom, we lost the weight. But visceral fat does not respond to the same things. It's a whole different ball game here. So what's causing this massive spike in visceral fat. There's a whole bunch of things: cortisol levels, inflammation levels, gut health, blood sugar, sleep, all the things that we talk about in this podcast. Because peri and post menopause are our jam. Now here's the problem: because most of us have lived a lifetime of eat less, move more. Most women in this menopausal stage of life are accidentally making the problem worse. Here's what I mean by that: We're eating 1,200 calories. Right, that's a common one we see in our world because there's a million diets out there that say eat 1,200 calories. We've seen results in our younger years eating 1,200 calories, so we're eating 1,200 calories. Menopause hits suddenly. That ain't working anymore. So what do we do? We drop to 900 calories, but that doesn't work. So we drop to 700 calories. If you've hung out here before, you have heard me say countless times that we have seen women as low as 500 calories a day, and not only are they not losing weight, they're gaining weight.

Speaker 1  4:04  
Continuing to cut calories is making the problem worse, and here's why: we already know visceral fat is not fixed by eat less, move more, and we already know that what's causing this massive spike in visceral fat are things like cortisol and inflammation and gut health and blood sugar and sleep and all the things we just listed. And if you've hung out here before, you already know. And if not, I'm about to tell you that under fueling your body is one of the biggest stressors that menopausal women tend to put on themselves, meaning my favorite super cheesy analogy: I buy a big fancy sports car, I get in the car and I slam on the gas, but there's no gas in the car. Am I putting more or less stress on that car trying to slam on the gas with no gas in the car? Cheesy as it sounds. Calories are our body's energy. It's what we burn for energy. So if we are under fueling our body, and we are living in a body that already naturally has spiked cortisol levels, because in menopause our estrogen naturally drops. One of estrogen's main roles in the body is cortisol control. So as our estrogen drops, our cortisol naturally spikes. Menopause is a time of life where we are naturally walking around with high levels of cortisol. You cannot lose weight in a body with spiked cortisol. So, if it is true, which it is, real quickly before we keep going in this episode, we are talking a lot about metabolisms in menopause in today's episode, so I want to offer you a chance to deepen your knowledge. If you haven't yet checked out my free workshop, "How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond, it is one of my go-to favorite pieces of content that I have out here in the interwebs. You can use the link in the show notes below, or go to mindstrongfitness.com, and you'll get a cute little pop-up that'll get you straight into the workshop. Now, let's get back to the show. That we are already walking around in a body with spiked cortisol, and then we are under fueling our body. We are spiking those cortisol levels higher and higher. Just like that car, we are trying to slam on the gas with no gas in the tank, and those cortisol levels are only getting higher. The techniques that most women try to use-they make sense. They've worked in the past. Eat less, move more has always worked. Ramping up cardio's always worked, right? To various degrees for different people. But in a menopausal body, where we are talking about visceral fat, continuing to cut, cut, cut calories, it is driving those cortisol levels higher and higher. It is making the problem worse and not better. So, how do we how do we fix this this mess called visceral fat? There are certain keys to getting visceral fat under control in menopause. The bad news is we have that massive spike, right? But I told you there's light on the other side of the tunnel. Here's the good news: if you are newer to the world of Mindstrong, start binging the podcast. We go in depth about these things. If you're not new, you already know. In our world, we always talk about there are two capital M musts when it comes to overall health and weight loss in a menopausal body must number one is we capital M must what we call heal your metabolism, which means if you're already under eating, eating less than 1,800 calories a day and not losing weight, there's no other option besides a drug. We have to get your metabolism better at burning calories, so that the old rules of eat less, move more, go back to working. That is a non-negotiable. Unless you're going to go on a drug, which I do not recommend, that is a capital M must. We must heal your metabolism. Thing two, capital M must number two for overall health and weight loss in a menopausal body is we must tackle what in our world we call the big three: cortisol, inflammation, and gut health. I have endless episodes on that in this podcast. We will continue to do more. Here are the cliff notes.

Speaker 1  8:11  
In a menopausal body, one of the natural shifts that happens-this happens to every woman in a menopausal body-is that our estrogen starts to drop. You heard me refer to this about cortisol a minute ago. One of estrogen's main roles in the body is cortisol control. So as our estrogen drops, our cortisol naturally spikes. It is impossible to lose weight in the body with spiked cortisol. One of estrogen's other main roles in the body is to fight against inflammation. So very similar to the cortisol conversation, as our estrogen drops, inflammation naturally rises in our body. It is very difficult to lose weight in a body with increased inflammation. The third natural shift that happens in menopause is that there is a natural shift in our gut microbiome, which can affect inflammation. It can cortisol and gut health go hand in hand. There's a million symptoms, and one of the big ones is that it can impact our body's ability to absorb nutrients. Gut health is a huge one. It affects anxiety. It affects brain health. It affects depression. There is a laundry list that comes along with gut health. It's happening because of a very natural shift in our gut microbiome. In our world, we call these the big three: cortisol, inflammation, and gut health. And guess what? When you do both of these things, when you heal your metabolism, get it better at burning calories, so that the old rules of eat less, move more, go back to working, and especially this one for the topic of visceral fat. When we get the big three under control, when we get cortisol in check, when we get inflammation reduced, when we get gut health in check, visceral fat will get under control. Here's the best part: you can do all of this. You can heal your metabolism. You can get cortisol inflammation and gut health. The big three, as. Like to call them under control, without pills, without shakes, without injections, using nutrition alone. Those two things, healing your metabolism in the big three. They are capital M must. This thing, if if you hung out here, you know that we don't work with every woman we talk with. We always start with the free strategy session. The first thing we always tell them. Spoiler alert! If you've never had a strategy session, grab a pen, because whether it's with us or anyone else, if you want to be healthy and lose weight in a menopausal body, here's the answer: If you feel like you're banging ahead your head against the wall, saying I'm doing everything right, nothing's working, here's the answer. Here is your silver platter with the answer of why nothing is working. We have to heal your metabolism. We have to tackle the big three: cortisol, inflammation, gut health. When you do, your body will get healthy, and you can lose weight. Yes, even in a menopausal body, because that is how you tackle visceral fat. For more information on Mind Strong Fitness or to apply for a free one-to-one strategy session with my incredible all-female team, visit www.mindstrongfitness.com.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai