1-Reduce Your Stress
The study explains that the prime level of cortisol (stress hormone) is often liable for fat storage around your midsection.
Simply put, stress formulates the right path thanks to the lower belly fat.
The more stress you’ve got, the more cortisol you’ll build-up, and more fat you accumulate, especially within the belly area.
In addition to a rise of fat storage around the abdominal region, stress also drives people to eat quite they normally do.
And for many women, when the strain hits and therefore the hunger skyrockets, they often reach out for comfort foods like fatty fries and sugary cakes.
British Nutrition Foundation calls this phenomenon “stress-induced changes in eating behavior (2).
In easier terms, we are wired to grab sugary, fatty food during cortisol surge and high-stress time.
This is true even for healthy weight women.
After all, all those foods we call comfort foods truly send our brain the signal of delight and luxury and comfort our brains at the time of stress.
This makes reaching for healthier alternatives hard when everything your body is craving is fatty, sugary foods.
All these excess calories don’t get distributed and stored as fat evenly throughout the body. Instead, cortisol promotes fat storage within the stomach area (3, 4). And this will be cyclical.
A recent study show women with a bigger waistline are more susceptible to secrete cortisol at the time of stress, creating a recurring cycle (5).
This constant battle of giving in can surely cause weight gain around the belly, including trimming lower belly fat.
Your Action plan: the primary strategy to fight the battle of stress eating is to remain clear. keeping sugary snacks and fatty foods handy just makes the matter worse.
Instead, stock your fridge with “healthy snacks” like Greek Yogurt, apple, hummus, cottage cheese— belly fat friendly foods.
And throw away anything you recognize you shouldn’t be eating or snacking on constantly.
Because with “chronic stress”, the probabilities are, you’ll be snacking them far more frequently than you ought to.
The folks at Harvard health also recommend these lower intensity exercises to scale back high cortisol levels.
Meditation // Taking a couple of minutes daily to meditate can reduce stress. Meditation can also benefit people in making more mindful food choices.
Exercise // High-intensity activities increase cortisol levels temporarily, but low-intensity exercise seems to reduces them consistent with researchers at the University of California (6).
Low-intensity exercises include yoga and t’ ai chi.
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