Fighting menopause belly fat - please share your top tips!

[Pegs11]

I’d be grateful to hear your top tips for getting rid of belly fat post-menopause… I’m really struggling here! Thank you 😊

Work out your tdee and reduce the amount by 20% to get a calorie target to stick to to reduce to the lower end of your bmi range.
tdeecalculator.net/

Log everything you consume on My Fitness Pal to keep on track.

Im thinner, with a flatter tummy, now post menopause than I’ve ever been in my life. Gutted I didn’t have this figure when I was young enough to wear stunning figure hugging clothes!

I'm perimenopausal but was definitely spreading in the belly area. It's reducing now. I refuse to weigh myself or count anything, so I'm doing: no eating between meals, lowish carb breakfast and lunch, no sweet stuff/junk except one treat at the weekend. Lots of water. 45 min hilly, speedy dog walk plus alternating weights/yoga through the week.

It's awful, I couldn't really eat less if I tried. But my stomach is fat with ridiculously skinny legs which makes it look worse, plus my bum disappeared. I am not fat in the least, I am very skinny, but the distribution is all wrong now.

I think it depends on food types, absolutely no alcohol, lots of water and no carbs.

But you know what? I can't be bothered ATM.

Thank you to all for your replies. I have been thinking more about all this and am considering trying natural appetite suppressors, doing strength exercises, and also getting a nutritionist who offers a 12-week monitored/personalised programme for a few hundred quid. I don’t do well with weight loss apps and feel I need a professional to help me. I think it’s going to take me investing some money to give me the motivation to stick to a healthy eating pattern as well as tell me exactly what foods I should be eating with for my particular set of physical issues. I have always been great at sticking to healthy eating for two weeks but I always, always break. So this is going to be a challenge, particularly if the results happen very slowly.

I don’t mind so much if I can’t get rid of all the belly weight but it’s the fat round my neck I can’t stand.

Only thing that worked for me was very low carb. It also decreased my appetite.
I lost 2.5 stone. Most of which was on my abdomen!
I've kept it off 2.5 years so far by staying low carb (but higher than in the beginning)

I'm 58. I started running about 10 years ago, which was hard as I hadn't done anything since school.
Now I run 5k every other day, walk on the other days. Avoid alcohol, cook from scratch, eat lots of fruit & veg. Do some yoga and stretching to avoid injury. It works but if I take a break (really cold weather or injury) it takes weeks to get back to my normal weight.
It's definitely getting harder as I age.

@Pegs11 firstly, I'd say avoid calorie counting. Have a read of Why We Eat (Too Much) by Dr Andrew Jenkinson, who explains very clearly why calorie counting ultimately doesn't do us any favours.

While it's true that we need fewer calories as we age, it's depressing to think that if you go down this path you should eat less and less, and life becomes more and more dreary.

And have a look at Dr Mindy Pelz's website . She focuses on fasting, but also has a particular interest in the menopause, and how that can be helped.

Overall, a combination of fasting and lower carb eating is much more likely to work for you.

(Apologies - her site/contributors can sometimes be a bit irritatingly 'cheerful', but there's some really good information on there)

@BIWI. I’m right with you when it comes to calorie counting. Any sort of counting or portion weighing just does not work. At least not for me. It takes all the fun out of eating and just puts more pressure on. I’ve always known how to lose weight, it’s just sticking to a healthy eating regime that I have so far found impossible. I can do it for about two weeks, then the bad foods start creeping in again and I stop being mindful and before I’ve even realised it, I’m back to eating my usual diet of carbs and sugars. So the two things I need help with now are, how to change my diet permanently, and what to eat post-menopause that will help fight the body’s natural tendency towards laying on belly fat. I think I might like the fasting thing, because then I’d only be depriving myself for one day at a time, as opposed to every day! I will have a look at the website you recommended, thank you.

I also think we have to adjust our mindsets a bit - we can't all be perfect, every day! So as long as you're eating well 90% of the time, nothing wrong with indulging yourself for the rest of it!