Why it's Harder For Women to Lose Weight & Belly Fat. 20 More Reasons You Won’t Lose Belly Fat Unless You Make a Change Today.
Sometimes losing belly fat & weight, even with Best Weight Loss Supplements seem just impossible.
You may be eating the right fats, the right proteins, fruits and vegetables, portion control but still cannot lose belly fat or weight. Sounds familiar?
OR
You have worked hard, you have controlled your portions and cranked up your exercise gears but you have hit a plateau where you cannot seem to break through.
OR
You have lost most of the weight but your belly fat is still there. Your belly is still big no matter how many back breaking sit-ups you do in a day.
BUT FIRST
When you lose even one kilo of weight, your body fights back! This is a natural way of the body to protect itself against destruction.
EVIDENCE:
You may be able to lose quite a bit of weight at first but once you get to a certain point, you hit a plateau that seems impossible to penetrate.
Evidently, most of the people trying to lose weight are not obese. They just have it in their head that they are fat and they need to lose weight.
Seemingly, most people – even those who are not overweight – are willing to try weight loss pills. One study found out that 30% or more of people taking weight loss pills are not even obese (1).
Why Most Women Cannot Reach Their Weight Loss Goals No Matter What. Evidence-Based.
1. You Have Estrogen Dominance:
Estrogen dominance is a condition where normal and healthy women with higher, normal or low estrogen level produce little or no progesterone hormone to counter the effects of estrogen.
Every woman on planet earth – even men and children suffer from some effects of environmental estrogen exposure leading to an increased risk of breast cancer (2).
Women with estrogen dominance have pear-shaped bodies
DIM Estrogen Hormone Balance Supplement
2. You Have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
21% of all women have polycystic ovary syndrome and only less than 2% ever get diagnosed.
Besides a small percentage caused by genetic factors, PCOS is also caused by estrogen dominance.
The main difference between estrogen dominance and PCOS is that PCOS sufferers tend to have facial & body hair, problems conceiving or carrying a baby to term or total infertility.
Women with PCOS has Apple shaped bodies.
3. You Have Lipedema
Lipedema is a condition that affects 1 in every 10 women where women tend to accumulate more fat in the hips and legs than any other part of the body (3).
It is commonly misdiagnosed as common obesity or may seemingly fit the estrogen dominance shape.
4. You have Hypothyroidism.
Hypothyroidism is a condition where your thyroid glands produce less than normal levels of thyroid hormone, leading to slow metabolism and weight gain.
Here are 16 signs and symptoms that you could be suffering from hypothyroidism.
5. You Have Insulin Resistance or You are Diabetic
Insulin resistance is a condition where your muscles fail to optimally utilize insulin to burn sugars, leading to higher than normal blood-sugar levels.
In most clinical settings, insulin resistance is also called prediabetes.
Skin darkening under the armpit and neck region is an indication of insulin resistance or pre-diabetes
Darkening on skin folds around the neck could indicate pre-diabetes or insulin resistance.
6. Your Intestinal Bacteria is Out of Balance:
Recent medical research has discovered that intestinal normal bacteria (normal flora) plays a major role in the development of obesity and diabetes (4, 5, 6).
This is the reason why detox has become popular in the past few years. But detox alone without proper replacement of these bacteria can and will cause more harm than good.
Detox programs that do not incorporate bacteria replacement with probiotics are dangerous and can lead to weaker immunity and overgrowth of bad bacteria.
7. You are Not Keeping Track of What You Are Eating.
Weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise combination. Most people, especially in Kenya and other African countries do not measure calories count.
We eat until we are full or until there is nothing more left to eat.
Tracking what you are eating makes you aware when you are overeating or eating bad food balance.
8. You are Not Eating Enough Proteins
If you are serious about losing weight, losing fat, you should realize that protein is the single most important nutrient for weight loss.
Proteins help in overall fat loss (7), healthy weight maintenance (8) and keeping your metabolism active to burn fat (9).
9. You Are Eating Wrong Foods.
Eating processed foods with chemical additives is not only dangerous for your health but it means you can eat more than you should.
Whole foods are more filling, takes longer to digest and leads to slow glucose release.
They are scientifically said to have low glycemic index.
“Here is the rule of thumb, if it is made in a plant, it will kill you. If it comes from a plant, it will save your life. In other words, if it is manufactured, it will kill you.
If it is plant-based whole food, it will save your life.”
10. You Are Not Lifting Weight or Resistance Exercises:
Resistance training and weight lifting build muscles.
Muscles are metabolic furnaces for burning calories, leading to a healthy and balanced weight loss.
Research has demonstrated that resistance training increases glucose utilization by the muscles preventing or controlling insulin resistance and diabetes (10,11).
Most misinformed women think lifting weight would make them look masculine.
Women bodybuilders who look masculine MUST supplement their hormones with testosterone.
Without hormonal alteration, you cannot look like a chiseled female bodybuilder no matter how hard you do weightlifting.
11. You are Not Doing Cardio Exercise:
Cardio or Aerobic exercise is the single most important exercise for weight and fat loss.
I know – this sounds like running and you hate running or finds it boring. Without raising your heart rate to an optimal level for a certain period, you do not burn the fat.
Your body stores calories in 4 main storages as follows.
Free-floating glucose: This the ready to use glucose in our body systems. It takes about 15 -25 minutes or cardio/aerobic exercises to burn this glucose.
Glucose in the Liver (Glycogen): This is only a small amount of sugar stored for an emergency where the body has exhausted free-floating sugars.
With optimal heart rate, once you deplete the first storage, this will take you about 5 minutes to deplete.
Fat storage: This is the largest energy storage in the body. Your body MUST deplete the first two storages to start burning fat.
Therefore, how long you do cardio exercise is important in burning fat at about 70% of your maximum heart rate.
Muscles: This is the last option the body has before you die of exhaustion.
Without immediate replacement of calories, if the body has burnt out all the fat, the next option is to destroy the muscles.
Long distance runners often get to this level and this explains why long-distance runners are thin and sometimes unhealthy looking.
An advanced type of cardio is called High-Intensity Intermittent Training (HIIT) recommended for well-trained individuals.
Unlike regular cardio, HIIT heart rate targets are above 80% of your maximum heart rate.
HIIT can burn fat much faster than regular cardio (12), improves blood circulation (13) but motivation level and dedication level to do HIIT makes it difficult or simply impossible to the majority of the population (14).
Comparatively, both HIIT and moderate cardio training give the body the best exercise benefits (15) including sexual hormones surge.
12. You are Still Eating Sugars:
Sugars are the most fattening foods ever known to humans – Period.
Why? No matter how much sugar you eat, your brain does not compensate for the added calories when you eat (16). Instead, it increases appetite and hunger (17).
You can eat or drink 200 grams of sugar and still eat your regular meal 5 minutes later.
Each gram of sugar has 7 calories. 200 grams of sugar will give you 1,400 calories out of an average of 2,000 calories required for human beings a day.
13. You Are Drinking Too Much Alcohol.
Just like sugars, alcohol is high in calories as seen in this alcohol calorie calculator.
Per every 1 gram of alcohol, your body gets 9 calories.
Most beers have both sugar and alcohol, making them, even more, calorie-rich.
On average, a single 300ml beer with 5% alcohol has about 300 calories.
Taking 6 beers adds you 1800 calories out of 2,000 daily calorie intake recommendation.
14. You Are Not Sleeping Enough:
I bet you have heard this before. Getting enough sleep is essential and an important weight loss factor.
Research has demonstrated that adults not getting enough sleep have 55% higher chance of becoming obese and 89% higher chances in children (18).
The amount of sleep you get per day has a lot to do with weight management (26).
15. You Have Not Cut Back on Carbs.
Earlier, I mentioned that proteins are the single most important calorie in weight loss.
On the other side, carbohydrates – including sugars – are the worst and most fattening foods for anyone trying to lose weight.
Low carb diet has been linked to not only weight loss but other metabolic, health and brain functioning benefits (19)
16. You Are Not Eating Often enough
There is mixed evidence about whether you should eat small frequent meals to keep metabolism busy, or if you should eat regular meals.
Some scientific researchers have failed to find any benefit of frequent meals in weight loss. Some studies show that frequent meals have little or no effect on fat loss (21,22).
Other studies show the potential benefits of frequent meals in fat loss, indicating frequent meals leads to weight loss (23, 24, 25).
The evidence is stronger about eating more frequently is better than skipping meals or eating less frequently.
17. You Are Not Drinking Enough Water or Not Drinking Before Meals:
Did you know, people who drink a glass or two of water before meals lose 44% more weight? (26).
This is associated with the fact that drinking water leads to lesser calories consumption.
There is also sufficient evidence that drinking water causes more calorie burning through heat production (thermogenesis) (27,28, 29).
18. You Are Addicted to Food
Foods rich in sugar, fat, and salt are known to be addicting, especially to women before monthly periods.
About 20% of people are addicted to foods but they just do not know according to Yale Food Addiction Scale.
19. You Are Not Eating Enough Beans
Some of the most effective weight loss and dieting pills are made of white kidney beans (Phaseolus Vulgaris) extract known to block carbs, lower cholesterol and decrease appetite.
White kidney beans contain a compound called IQP-PV-101 that has been shown to block carb absorption. (30,31,32).
This extract from white kidney beans is available commercially and it is not cheap – because it works.
Eating kidney beans is very healthy, good source or proteins, soluble fibers that keep you full, prevent constipation and colon cancer.