Fat storage on your bum and thighs is harmless to your health. Excess belly fat, however, not only dramatically increases your chance of incontinence and prolapse, but also increases the risk of health problems, including type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, stroke, and even some forms of cancer.

Can Belly Fat Wear Down Your Pelvic Floor?

This is a simple mass management issue. Your pelvic floor muscles need to contract at appropriate times to increase the seal around your urethra and back passage and to stabilise your pelvic organs in place. The heavier your internal content due to fat deposits the harder your pelvic floor muscles must work to do this.

“It’s hard for the donkeys to win the race
if they’re going to carry the elephants on their backs.”
Jim Hightower

If the load and demand become too much for the pelvic floor it may not be able to work well, or at all! This is when incontinence is experienced and prolapse is promoted. So, when such situation gets lighter because of fat loss, bladder and bowel control are likely to improve and so as a prolapse.

Here are Seven Ways to Lose Belly Fat

Exercise

Let’s start with the transparently obvious. Being physically active affords you the best chance of losing belly fat and keeping it off. Aim for 150 minutes of moderate sweat-inducing cardiovascular activity in a week and add resistance training too. To ensure long-term success, choose something that makes you feel good while you do it, immediately after you have finished, and the following day. Be choosy about who trains you and where you exercise. Settle in for the long haul.

Eat minimal tolerable amount of sugar

High sugar intake has been associated with excess belly fat. Moderation is a good guide when it comes to sweet foods, such as cakes, lollies, ice cream, muffins, frozen yogurt, and processed foods containing sugar.

Sweet drinks, such as soft drinks and fruit juices, deserve a special mention. These beverages are easy to consume in large volumes over a short period of time, but when you drink them, they don’t make you feel full, so you don’t compensate by eating less.

Just to give you an idea, a can of Coke breaks the bank in terms of daily recommended dosage of sugar.

Moderate alcohol intake

Here is the good news: Alcohol CAN have positive health benefits. Red wine for example, IF consumed in moderation, may lower your risk of a heart attack and stroke and make you jolly.

But here is the catch:

Experimental evidence from several metabolic studies revealed that alcohol consumption can suppress fat burning. Ouch!

How a person is impacted by alcohol intake depends on many factors, including preferred beverage, how much is consumed, so moderation is a good guide here too.

As for the pelvic floor, alcohol makes you pee more and reduces your ability to hold it.

Avoid Trans Fats

We are not talking about transgender-ism of course, but food stuff. There is a great deal of disagreement in nutrition, but the one thing everybody agrees on is that artificial trans fats are bad news for your health, and they can potentially nestle in as a spare tire on your body.

These differ from natural trans fats, which are not harmful and can be found in meats such as beef and lamb, as well as dairy.

The nasty trans fats live in products containing partially hydrogenated oils such as processed or fast foods, bakery items, fried foods, and snacks.

It is best to avoid these impostors as much as possible so consider cooking your own meals, baking your own cookies, opting for butter instead of margarine, and using olive oil or coconut oil.

Stress can make you store fat – get rid of that too

Cortisol is known as the “stress hormone” because it helps your body to mount a stress response.

However, when produced in excess – most commonly because you are chronically stressed – it may lead to weight gain. And, unfortunately, cortisol – you guessed it – promotes stubborn belly fat. In this case conscious stress management is a good place to start to initiate weight loss.

Eat enough protein

We know from a number of large studies that people who eat a high protein diet are the least likely to have excess fat. Oh yeah! A high-protein diet makes you feel full and satisfied after eating and enhances your metabolic rate.

These days, it is not that hard to make sure you have enough protein in your daily meals, since this diet is trending anyway.

On the other hand, a low-protein diet increases your appetite and promotes belly fat.

Colonise good gut bacteria

We know that a healthy colony of good gut bacteria is important for a healthy immune system and for shielding off diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. However, gut bacteria also play an important role in warding off tummy fat.

Some research suggests that having an imbalance of gut bacteria promotes weight gain, including abdominal fat.

Researchers have found that obese people tend to have greater numbers of harmful bacteria than people with a healthy body weight.

We also know from research that the human gut microbiome is shared among family members – not exactly, but at the core – which can influence a person’s prevalence toward weight gain.

You CAN influence the composition and population of your gut flora with probiotics and prebiotics.

Ok…. I might be brave enough to try kombucha again……eek….