Why do women over 40 struggle with belly fat?

A lot of changes happens in a woman’s body once she gets to age 40, a lot of things start changing in her body. Read on to find out more

Once you hit the 40 figures, your body metabolism slows down. When you eat, it takes longer time to digest.  You start having bloating and indigestion more.  Fat starts accumulating in the abdomen.  The belly starts bulging out and you are struggling to hide the bulge.  The annoying thing about this is that you start getting flabby flesh on the belly, on the sides.  Your once beautiful sweet sixteen figure has flown out of the window and you are left with extra fats hanging around. 

Motherhood and belly fat accumulation

This most especially happens when you have become a mother. You have gone through childbirth.  You are struggling to shed the extra weight.  But it seems as it is not possible.  Sometimes, the stress of running a home, taking care of children and working full time is just too much for you to contend with.  The body system tends to break down more often.

At the age of 40. We are already at the premenopause stage and our body systems is slowing down gradually in metabolism and in the production of some essential hormones needed in the body.  When you over 40’s, weight distribution changes with the added pounds accumulating right around your belly.  After 40’s, your estrogen levels begin to reduce and your metabolism slows down, making it more difficult to lose weight around your middle. Women above 40 years suffers from insomnia, an extremely common symptom of premenopause.

What is  Preimenopause?

It is the transition period before menopause.

Causes of Belly fat

  • Lack of good quality sleep

 It has been discovered that when there is inadequate sleep, belly fat accumulation is inevitable.  You tend to accumulate extra weight on the belly. Lack of quality sleep is also attributed to belly fat gain.  Inadequate sleep impacts our hunger hormones ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin and leptin become dysfunctional when you don’t get enough sleep.  When you get enough sleep, you tend to eat more.  Eating more combats your weight gain problems.

  • Stress

And other thing is that when you are stressed, you tend to consume more sugary things.  You binge a lot which is not even helping your body system at all.

All these extra fats are nicely deposited on the area that we never wanted them to be. Then we have visceral fats, also known as belly fat.

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