4 Steps to Burn Belly Fat (and Body Fat in General)

This is such a popular question, I wanted to create a resource for you.  I know it’s enticing to do ab workouts every day, thinking that you’ll see your abs faster, but actually, doing workouts that target areas where you’re carrying extra body fat will not “melt the fat off” that area.

Also, doing workouts every day – especially on the same body part – will reduce your ability to see results. When we train, we break down our muscle and create an inflammatory response. When we rest, recover and refuel, we rebuild stronger and that’s what sculpts the body.

This is even more important to remember if you’re in your menopause years (peri or post). As we lose our estrogen, we’re more sensitive to the inflammatory response a workout creates, and can more easily lose our muscle. Effective workouts are important for creating strength, but rest around them becomes even more important than ever so we don’t remain in an inflamed state, unable to progress.

We cannot spot reduce fat at any age – and I would caution you from taking any supplements that promise to do so, or use “cleanses” or other quick fixes like body wraps, as they are short-term strategies some of which have side effects you don’t anticipate like hormone impacts, and not give you real, long-lasting results.

You CAN get body fat off – and keep it off. Fat comes off our body systemically (which means all over our bodies), and in an order governed by our DNA. It will come off in the order it came on.

If fat burning is a focus for you, building muscle is one of the most effective ways to support that goal as with each contraction of your muscle, you’ll use more energy (and burn more calories). Adding muscle is what shifts body composition to a tighter, more “toned” shape, not fat loss alone.

I know it may not be on your radar to focus on muscle gain over fat loss because we’ve been so trained by diet culture to think about our “body fat” as the primary needle mover, but truly it is our valuable lean muscle tissue that has the biggest impact on our metabolism, long term health, and will help you become, and remain an efficient fat burner.

This becomes even more essential as we age, as lowering hormone levels in perimenopause and menopause impact our ability to hold onto our muscle and preserve strong bones. Strength training is a huge help at every age, so the earlier you start the better you’ll be set up for those later years. And, it’s never too late to start and get the benefit!

With that being said, let’s look at four often overlooked strategies that will directly impact your fat loss in a healthy, sustainable manner.

4 steps to follow CONSISTENTLY

1. Get Quality Sleep

Sleep is the most underrated, most important part of losing body fat and gaining muscle. When it comes to toning and sculpting your abs, quality sleep should be one of your top focus points.

Research shows that when we don’t get enough quality sleep, we are more likely to gain weight – specifically belly fat (1).

One study showed a group of people who had the exact same exercise regimen and diet were split into 2 different groups – 1 group slept well while the other group did not. The well rested group lost weight while the sleep deprived gained weight.

Furthermore, those who were sleep deprived had a 55% decrease in fat loss and an increase in the loss of fat free body mass (aka muscle tissue) by 60% (2)! This is why the foundation of my 4 Pillars of Health is SLEEP.

People who lack sleep produce more ghrelin (hunger hormone) (3), are more likely to consume sugary or caffeinated beverages (4), and have a 32% increase of carbohydrate consumption (5) – further perpetuating sleep patterns and creating a vicious cycle.

Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is essential to human growth and development, fat burning and muscle repair, and is most powerfully produced while you’re sleeping (6). If you’re lacking quality in your sleep, your body will miss the valuable time it takes to repair and will result in decreased strength and increased fat (7).

If you’re putting in the time to exercise and not getting enough sleep, you’re undermining your efforts. Just like you can’t out train a bad diet, you can’t out train bad sleep.

Changes to our hormones in our menopause years can affect and disrupt our sleep. Some options to help support better sleep include HRT (hormone replacement therapy), adaptogenic herbs, practices that support our stress response, and earlier bedtime.

⭐️ Here’s a great resource to follow up with about sleep: How to Sleep for a Longer, Leaner, Healthier Life

2. Nutrition, Nutrition, Nutrition

Every time you eat, you’re creating the foundation and tissue that make up the actual shape and structure of your body – and every time you exercise, you’re simply putting the finishing touches on the physique you’ve sculpted with what you put in your mouth.

Healthy recipes from The Body Fuel System

One of the MOST important parts to uncovering your abdominal muscle (and really any area of your body you want to sculpt) is eating a balance of nutrients from whole food sources.

I know we talk a lot about the macronutrients – the carbs, protein and healthy fats you need – but you also need the MICROnutrients from greens and plants for essential body, brain and hormone functions. Vitamins and minerals are essential for cell growth, function and development. For so many reasons, it is essential that you take your eating just as seriously as you take your workouts.

Once we get into our 40’s and beyond, we need to increase our protein intake slightly (as we don’t absorb the amino acids from protein as easily – meaning we need a little more than we used to to support all the important jobs it does), and the changes to our hormones once we get into our menopause years mean fiber and good gut health need to be a focus in our eating as well.

I know we have this tendency to have an outside in approach to health and stick to our exercise plan more religiously than we stick to our eating but you can not exercise your way out of a nutrient deficient body that is not functioning at it’s best.

My meal plans address women in all the life stages and contain balanced meals with optimal amounts of all the important nutrients you need!

3. Actively Manage Stress

If you’re in the habit of putting this at the bottom of your list, it’s time to make it more of an active priority. Chronic stress has been scientifically proven to cause us to reach for comfort foods, undoing your efforts to have a balanced nutrition intake (8).

While stress is an important adaptive mechanism that protects us, constantly getting stressed by traffic, family situations and even negative thoughts about ourselves can lead to disruption in our hormone cycles and cause fat storage.

Elevated levels of stress cause the body to produce more cortisol. While cortisol is an important hormone, when it is chronically elevated, over time it affects where and how much fat is stored. And more often than not, that place of storage is in your abdomen (9).

Starting in our menopause years, the dip in progesterone leaves us with less buffer for the impacts of cortisol, and we feel the impact of stress more strongly than ever before.

Chronic stress greatly affects our brain which in turn lowers our immune response so we get sick more often, causes us to recover slower from injury, and results in a decreased ability to maintain a state of health and vitality (10).

In order for you to build lean muscle, lose unwanted fat, and have a great impact on you health it is imperative that you begin to actively cultivate habits that support a healthy stress response.

Practices like meditation, mindfulness and gratitude are all great ways to combat stress in the here and now. Journaling, getting therapy for unresolved (and ongoing) issues, and practices like neural feedback can also be very beneficial. The act of booking things for yourself you enjoy like a massage, acupuncture or even a facial can be a way to unwind, and also practice self-care. Taking a bath, reading a book, setting aside time for yourself and anything you find relaxing can all be ways to balance out the demands of your busy life.

⭐️ Here’s a great resource to follow up with about stress management: 5 Ways to Beat Stress and Get More From Your Workouts

4. Exercise

a) Add Interval Training (explosive cardio): Whether that be High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) circuits, plyometrics, or Tabatas, explosive cardio is one of the best ways to maximize overall fat loss during  your workouts (11).

Explosive cardio is well-known to be highly beneficial and efficient at every age, and is one of the recommended training types in our menopause years as well.

Here are a few ways I add it into my workouts:

• Super-setting power resistance/strength moves with explosive cardio intervals – think jump rope, jump squats, etc.
• Adding finishing circuits to a weight lifting workout
• Doing bodyweight circuits that combine strengthening moves with explosive cardio

b) Resistance Training

Resistance (or strength) training helps to sculpt lean muscle, which makes you a more efficient fat burner and will change your body composition and shape (12).

Resistance training also elicits the release of HGH, (especially in training sessions that utilize many large muscle groups at once) (13) – so you’ll be a more efficient fat burner and muscle builder (but let’s not forget – this won’t work unless you’re sleeping well and managing your stress).

Resistance training is advisable at every age, and essential as we age to help support strong bones, joints and maintain muscle.

You can begin resistance training using your own body weight and gravity (think push ups, body squats, lunges) and ramp up the resistance over time as you get stronger, adding in resistance bands, dumbbells or heavier equipment as you progress with your strength.

I’ve got workout programs that use no equipment, programs that use home equipment (like dumbbells), and programs that use heavier equipment (like a mix of dumbbells and/or a barbell and weight plates). And all of my programs include training schedule optimizations for women in every life stage!

c) TRAIN YOUR CORE 360 DEGREES AROUND, not just your front abs. Focus on training your ENTIRE core to see real ab definition

That means workouts like this awesome yoga core sequence, where we targeted the abdominal wall from the inside out, and all the way around.

We were working on the front, side, AND back muscles that stabilize our core and aid us in all the movements we do. Targeting the deep core stabilizing muscles is key to greater balance and alignment of our spine and pelvis.

The body is super smart and designed for balance. If you only focus on building muscle on one portion of your body, like only doing a lot of crunches, leg lifts or sit ups, you will actually only go so far in the amount of muscle you’re able to develop.

This is your body’s natural way of protecting you, as too much muscle on one side will put undue stress on your underlying bones and pull you out of alignment (read Building a Balanced Physique and Protecting Your Joints).

So what’s the recipe for burning fat off your stomach (or any part of your body, really)?

Get a good night’s rest, fuel your body with whole foods, practice self care and lower your stress, and top it all off with a combination of full body explosive cardio and resistance training!

All of my workout plans combine resistance training and explosive cardio – plus they include customized schedule options for training in your cycling years, or in peri or post menopause  – so you can build lean muscle, and lose body fat at every age!

SHOP WORKOUT PLANS HERE!