Are you searching for a different way to lose belly fat? Perhaps you’ve tried all kinds of fad diets and exercises and none of them worked. Maybe you’re tired of cutting out food groups like carbs and fats and eating like a bird.
Well, no more!
Forget what you’ve ever been taught about how to lose weight, and explore a natural alternative. It’s a whole new way of eating that will change your life forever. All you have to do is create a simple caloric deficit that you can maintain for life.
But how do you do that?
Let’s explore.
Are You Eating Too Much?
First, I wanted to address the obesity problem.
Society eats way too much and it’s killing us. Give a puppy too much food and their little stomachs twist causing death. Same thing if you feed any pet too much. They will become overweight, sick, and die.
There is a reason you shouldn’t overfeed animals.
Yet, we humans seem to think we can have a snack every couple hours and nothing will happen to us. Reality is, if we continue eating like gluttons we will age faster, gain weight, and develop a myriad of health problems that will surely lead to our demise if we don’t stop overeating.
That’s a reality!
We eat way too much, and WAY too often. We fill ourselves up with food (even so-called healthy food) and THAT is making us fat. It’s not WHAT we eat, it’s HOW MUCH we eat and HOW OFTEN we eat it.
If you started tracking your calories, you’d be surprised how much you’re actually taking in every day. I don’t recommend tracking calories as a way to lose weight, but it’s good to do for a short time, just to see how many calories you’re actually taking in.
I started tracking calories with an app called ‘Lose It’ and I was shocked at how many calories a glass of milk has or a lemon slushy, or a piece of cheese. I started adding my calories and realized I was taking in way more than my body needed.
How could this be? I didn’t feel like I was eating too much. I was eating when I was hungry. But is hungry really so bad? We are taught to eat at the slightest rumble of our tummies, but is that true?
I started questioning that.
Who made up the rule that you need three square meals a day? Was it the food and drug administration? Do they want us to buy their food products? That’s a multi-million dollar industry you know.
I think they want us to get sick so we have to take medication to counter the effects of over-eating. Big Pharma is another multi-million dollar industry that profits from the obesity problem. It’s a vicious cycle.
So how do you stop this?
After a lot of research and trial and error, I figured it out and it’s pretty easy. Once I did, I lost 50 pounds and managed to keep it off. I am a middle-aged woman in menopause and found the solution to getting rid of stubborn belly fat.
It wasn’t by doing some fad diet. I didn’t have to spend money. I just had to do it.
I had to work on caloric reduction and come up with a consistent plan of action.
Let’s find out how I did it.
Start Reducing
When you think of reducing your calories, you think of throwing everything out of the fridge and cupboards and starting over with new (so-called) healthy foods.
Wrong!
Do NOT start doing this! The reason is, when you deprive yourself of ANYTHING, you will eventually go back to eating it. You KNOW I’m right.
An example of this is when people cut bread from their diet. Yes, they may lose weight, but someday down the road, they will want to have that piece of garlic toast with their meal again. And when they do, they will gain all the weight back and then some. It’s inevitable.
That (eliminating food groups) is a bad diet. Diets DO NOT WORK! They may help you lose weight short term, but are not sustainable long term. I’m talking THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!
Don’t fall into this yoyo problem. It will make you miserable, and OBESE!
Instead, eat whatever you want and find a solution that allows you to reduce your calories at the same time. You might not think that’s possible, but it TOTALLY is!
Don’t Cut It Out
You may have heard about Keto. It’s very popular because it works. But that’s not what I’m promoting here. It’s just another fad diet that gives results. It gives results because you ARE creating a caloric deficit. I know many people who do this and it works wonderfully for them.
I’m not picking, I’m just making a point.
You can choose almost any kind of diet and see results. There are many ways to lose weight. But sustainability is the key. If you have to remove entire food groups from your diet, then you will eventually go back to them and gain the weight back.
If you eliminate ice cream, one day you will want to have a treat with your grandchild again. That’s common sense. Not only that, but we enjoy eating. We love food. It’s sad to see so many people choosing to eat rabbit food at a luncheon where pizza is served. Come on! Enjoy the pizza!
You CAN if you don’t cut out food groups.
You can actually lose weight eating only fast food as well. It’s been done over an over with great results. The myth that ONLY eating healthy food results in weight loss, is ridiculous. It’s simple math. Create a caloric deficit and you can have as many hamburgers as you want and still lose weight.
But then the argument goes the other way. People say you won’t be healthy if you eat junk food and fast food all the time. But is that even true? What is fast food anyway?
People say there are fewer vitamins and minerals in fast food, but I’m sure that’s made up as well. Perhaps if anything, fast food has more calories because it’s made with more sugar or fat. But even still, just eat less of it. We don’t have fast food every day. Usually, it’s just a treat.
I started to question what exactly was wrong with fast food, and I came up with an answer. When I ordered a hamburger one day, I started picking it apart. A good bun. Yum! Some vegetables like pickles, onions, tomatoes, and lettuce (that’s a salad). Nothing wrong with that. Then there’s meat. I love meat. I’m sorry, but to me, meat is a necessity. The meat patty was lean and a good source of protein. So, what’s bad about that? It’s the IDEA of it being bad that people get hung up on.
The idea that SOME foods have less nutrition somehow is total malarkey! Just because it is prepared by someone else in a restaurant, fast or otherwise, doesn’t mean it’s suddenly drained of nutrition.
People say that so-called healthy food has fewer toxins. That’s also not true. All foods have toxins. The rain has toxins. Groundwater has toxins. It’s ridiculous that people get caught up in this kind of thinking.
Just eat!
It’s not about WHAT you eat, but how MUCH you eat! Just don’t start cutting out entire food groups. There really is no reason to do that. You can still lose weight and trim that belly fat no matter what kind of food you put into your stomach.
Understand The Deficit
Most people don’t understand the deficit. They eat eat eat without a thought of how much their body really needs. It’s a good idea to do some research. There are BMI(body mass index) calculators online that can help you determine how many calories you need in a day according to your age, lifestyle, and height.
As I said before, I am not saying it’s a good idea to track your calories to lose weight, but it is good to start out knowing. Some people don’t know. If that’s you, then find out. It will make a world of difference.
Some people are sedentary. They don’t get the exercise they need to maintain the calories they are taking in. It’s common sense. If you have a physical job, you use more calories and also require more. If you sit at your desk typing all day, you won’t need as much.
When we talk about losing weight, we have to determine the ratio between exercise and eating. It’s important because you can’t eat 3000 calories and barely move all day expecting to lose weight. That’s just not possible.
So, understand the deficit and how to create it. Cut out half of what you eat consistently, and then you’ll lose that belly fat little by little over time.
Practice Makes Perfect
No matter what type of caloric deficit you create, you will have to be patient. It took you a long time to put on the pounds so it will take you a long time to take it off.
You will have to experiment with your body. See what works and what doesn’t. Over time, practice makes perfect. You will see results eventually if you stick with it.
When I lost 50 pounds, it didn’t happen overnight. Success was found in consistency. Once I found the magic weight-loss formula, all I had to do was rinse and repeat.
Not A Diet
What is this non-diet, magic weight-loss formula?
I started experimenting with this thing called Intermittent fasting. I hadn’t heard of it before. I knew what fasting was, but I had never tried it. I didn’t want to. I thought I would pass out without food. All these myths danced around in my head, and I believed them.
People said it wasn’t healthy. People said I’d become anorexic. People said I would harm my body.
None of that was true.
I began experimenting with different fasts. I started with something called the 5:2 Fast. I researched it and found that it was developed from a doctor in the UK called Michael Mosley. He experimented on himself for years getting great results. He said you don’t even need to exercise or cut out food groups.
I joined a facebook group with over 50,000 members that helped motivate me to take the leap. Many people posted before and after pictures. That inspired me! Some people couldn’t even walk because their knees had given out from obesity. They still lost weight and kept it off.
The premise behind it was to cut down your caloric intake for the week by fasting two days out of five. Men are allowed 600 calories and women are allowed 500 calories on their fasting day. At first, I didn’t think that was really fasting, but as I said before, you might be surprised how many calories are in something. I remember drinking a lemon slush drink and blew my 500 calory allowance in one shot.
I quickly started to just have water on my fast days. It was easier for me to track and less of a chance to blow it. I continued this process for several months and by the first year doing this, I lost 50 pounds. That was when Intermittent fasting wasn’t even a thing.
Nowadays you hear about OMAD(one meal a day) and the 16:8 or 20:4 fasts. They have all become quite popular since the days of me doing the 5:2 Fast.
I graduated to the 16:8. That was just skipping breakfast basically. People think breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but that’s bogus. Sure, if you own a cereal company and want to make money it is, but, yup it’s a myth. You can ‘break’ the ‘fast’ anytime. That’s why they call it breakfast.
I told you this article would be totally different than all the other ‘lose your belly fat’ articles out there.
But it works.
I now do OMAD. I love not eating anything all day and coming home to just eat supper in the evening. I even allow myself a snack for a movie later. Intermittent Fasting allows ME to be in charge. Food does not enslave me, I enslave it! Intermittent Fasting allows me to be in full control of my eating habits and I just love that.
It’s not a diet, just a different way of eating.
If you have a weight problem or suffer from obesity-related health problems, if you do one simple thing right now, you will change your life forever. Just eat one meal a day. Your caloric intake will be significantly reduced overnight.
Give it six months and see how you feel.
You will probably see the weight fall off of you. Even stubborn belly fat. You will probably notice health improvements. You will feel light and fit.
In fact, there are so many health benefits from Intermittent Fasting, it’s hard to name them all. Everything from reversing diabetes, to repairing damaged cells in your body. They say Intermittent Fasting is the fountain of youth and I tend to agree. I look and feel younger than I have in a long time.
Intermittent Fasting will allow you that freedom to chose what type of fast you want. Not all bodies are created equal. What works for one person, may not work for another. You have to experiment. I like to mix things up. I do OMAD and 16:8. Sometimes I do 20:4. Sometimes I go back to 5:2. I even do long fasts.
I created my own Fasting regime I do once a month. I call it my detox fast. Sometimes I do a 4 or 5-day water fast. Sometimes I do what I call a 2-20 detox fast. That’s when I fast for two days and 20 hours to purge the toxins from my body and allow for Autophagy. That’s when your body finds the damaged cells in your body and repairs them. You can completely overhaul your entire immune system that way.
Intermittent Fasting has changed my life. I’ve written about it, and you can check it out through my Amazon affiliate link here, Hungry Old Lady – Intermittent Fasting for Menopause. I’ve talked about it on my Crunchy Menopause Youtube channel.
I have many other articles as well. One of which you can check out through the following link, Lose Weight During Menopause by Intermittent Fasting. It really has helped me become fit and healthy.
And guess what? I eat whatever I want!
Maintaining For Life
I started doing Intermittent Fasting in 2014 and I’m still going strong. It’s a way of eating that I will never give up. When you talk about doing something for life, this is it. I do it without even thinking about it.
I feel so good when I do a fast, and I really don’t feel deprived at all. I can eat whatever I want, just not always when it’s presented to me. If we have donuts at the office and I’m fasting, I tell myself I can eat it, just not now. I bring it home or have it later once my fast is done. Easy peasy!
I don’t feel faint or have any negative side effects from Intermittent Fasting. It’s improved every aspect of my health. The benefits are huge.
When other people start fad diets, I cringe. I wonder how long they can sustain it. With Intermittent Fasting, I never wonder. It’s so easy to just do it because it isn’t a diet. I haven’t cut out food groups. I can eat guilt-free and just be normal.
That’s one thing about fad diets. You can’t be normal. You’re the oddball out who only gets carrots for lunch. I don’t have to worry about that. I can eat normal, but just on my own schedule. And even if I’m fasting and a surprise luncheon comes up. I have the power to end my fast if I want to and go out for lunch with my co-workers. That flexibility is awesome. I just pick up where I left off the next day.
It’s so sustainable! I highly recommend it if you want to live a long and healthy life. Especially if you want to lose weight or just get rid of stubborn belly fat.
Just try it. You might be surprised that it actually DOES works!
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References
- Science Daily
- The North American Menopause Society
- Harvard Health
- Endocrine Web
- NCBI (Pub Med)
- Alternative Medicine for Menopause (LCBI)
- Healthline
- WebMD
- Women’s Health Concerns
- Reader’s Digest
- Mayo Clinic
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Author Kathleen Morris
Kathleen Morris is a successful published author, blogger, and Youtuber. She enjoys writing about things she’s passionate about and making a difference in the world.