If I told you that the best way to get rid of belly fat is to rest would you believe me? I doubt it. Most of my clients are skeptical when I tell them this.
Before I explain why it’s true, I want to clarify that I appreciate and totally respect you might have weight loss goals and that you believe losing weight will be better for your health. But, I don’t market my services as a way to lose weight. When you work with me and you have weight loss goals, I will almost inevitably help you spend more time working on mindfulness, stop hating on your body (it is you you’re hating on!), and work on re-regulating your nervous system way before I will counsel you to count calories or eat less.
If you are someone that considers themselves a chronic worrier or if you have had a lot of stress and anxiety in your life, then you should hear me out because I’m talking about you.
It might feel counterintuitive to suggest that resting and relaxing is the key to losing belly fat but I’ve actually got science on my side.
I hear from a lot of clients that they are frustrated because they are working out regularly and have tried special diets but they can’t make their soft middles get smaller. Our cultural obsession about being small and hard is just so problematic in so many ways but that’s a whole different email. That said, the reason for the inability to change it, may be because their nervous system is dysregulated.
Our autonomic nervous system controls our metabolism. It controls the release of hormones that manage how all of our body systems work. We have what are called stress hormones that increase when we are in, or believe we are in, stressful situations, to make sure we have the energy we need to respond to the stressor. These hormones decrease when the stressor or perceived stressor is gone and other hormones kick in to bring us back to homeostasis and to rebuild our energy stores that were depleted.
When we are facing a stressful situation or are perceiving something as stressful, stress hormones pull blood flow away from the digestion process and actually turn it off so that all energy goes into “surviving” what is stressing us out. While these stress hormones are secreting in high amounts, our appetite is inhibited, we cannot break down food, and we can’t absorb nutrients into our bloodstream. It is critical then that we bring the nervous system back into rest and digest mode after stressful situations so that we can kick our metabolism back into gear.
In addition, the fat cells that are stored around our abdomen are especially sensitive to stress hormones and tend to accumulate in response to high levels of stress hormones as a way to store more energy for recovery and protection for the next stressful event. Our belly fat is taking care of us!
For some of us, depending on our hormonal make up, our appetites can be kicked into high gear as a balancing response coming off of a stressful situation so we may eat more than we need.
When we are chronically stressed, which it’s not hard to be these days, our body systems don’t get the chance to fully recalibrate. We don’t come back into homeostasis with our metabolism and other systems. We stay stuck high stress mode.
Plus, as we age, our reproductive hormones, which are the balancing hormones to our stress hormones, naturally decline, making it even harder for our nervous system to balance out.
With all that in play, we are essentially exhausting ourselves into dysfunction and wearing ourselves out. Our metabolism slows down and never revs back up to normal speed. We keep having that perpetual stress response of storing extra weight around our abdomen as protection.
Exercising harder and eating foods that are hard to digest (raw foods, salads, etc) may be perpetuating that exhaustion and can do the exact opposite of what you want it to do.
I have a colleague, who is also an Ayurvedic Health Counselor, who advocates sitting on the couch and eating pudding as a way to lose belly fat. It’s humorous but there’s truth in it.
We need rest. We need to teach our nervous system to come back to normal. We need to practice letting go of worry and spending time cultivating presence and showing up exactly where we are at versus constantly striving to be somewhere or something or someone else. We need to eat rich, filling, nourishing foods that build up our resilience and vitality.
In Ayurveda, we call that resilience and essential vitality Ojas. I love that word. It looks cool and sounds great. It takes a long time to make and replenish Ojas. It gets created at the very end of the digestive process after all of the nutrients have nourished all of our tissues. It is a critical component of our immune system. Here is a recipe for golden milk, a delicious Ojas builder. Add drinking a cup to your night time ritual and see how well you sleep:
GOLDEN MILK RECIPE (serves 1)
1 cup whole milk or milk substitute
1 tsp ground tumeric
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ghee or coconut oil
pinch of freshly ground black pepper
1/2 - 1 tsp honey or maple syrup (optional)
In a small saucepan, heat milk over medium high heat for 2-4 minutes, or until you see steam rising out of the pan. Add all the other ingredients except the honey (or maple syrup) and whisk by hand or with an immersion blender until combined and heat for 1-2 more minutes. Pour into a mug and add sweetener if using. Drink immediately.
Enjoy!
If you want to learn more about Ayurveda and how it can help you check out my upcoming Ayurveda Health Clinic on January 21st and my Nourish event for rule free eating on .
