You work hard at your ab crunches, watch what you eat and pride yourself on being able to wear a tight fitting dress without a midriff bulge. You pride yourself on your slim silhouette and fitness regime but, one day, you wake up and notice belly fat around your middle.
I am indulging in some artistic licence here. In reality, the belly fat creeps on you. It doesn’t just arrive overnight while you are asleep and attach itself to your middle section as if it were some earth landing alien. On the contrary, you hardly notice the belly fat creep till it makes itself visible. Most annoyingly, this moment of reckoning will probably happen when you want to wear that Bodycon dress which you have comfortably worn for years. This time, however, the zip won’t do up.
What do you do next? Well, you diet and raise your exercise levels but the belly fat stays stubborn as hell. That which you cannot seem to get rid off easily, is apparently, an inevitability of midlife.
“This is a physiological change that, unfortunately, really happens to virtually all women as we age,” said Victoria Vieira-Potter, an associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/well/move/belly-fat-women.html
Apparently the dreaded belly fat is down to the menopause and the levels of hormones shifting within our bodies. These hormonal changes cause, among other things, changes in our body shape. These changes result in fat being stored in women’s bodies in the tummy/middle section of our bodies. Eeks. This fat, referred to as the ‘trouble maker fat’ has been found to be linked to certain illnesses like diabetes. Double eeks.
The suggested solution is exercise and a good diet and, by the sounds of it, crossed fingers as well. It’s worth reading the comment section to the article (as well as the article) to pick up tips on what other people find helpful. Right, I am off to peddle furiously on my exercise bike.
