Apple-Shaped Body In Menopause - 5 Ways To Slenderise

If you've developed an apple-shaped body during the menopause, here are 5 great tips to help slim your midriff.

Have you said goodbye to your waistline and hello to the typical apple shape that settles on to so many women's bodies sometime past the 40th birthday?

Before you launch into a crippling regime of ab crunches and a low-carb, low-fat, low-everything diet - think again. The way to lose belly fat in menopause lies in a far healthier and more holistic approach. Take these five tips as your starting point.

5 ways to tackle the apple-shaped body

©Istockphoto.com/Tracy Whiteside

1 - Drop the diets

Yo-yo dieting - a pattern of going on and off a series of weight-reducing diets - is disastrous for your waistline. There are many reasons why menopause diets don't work. All you need to know is that it's time to stop depriving your body of food, and start a new, healthier eating pattern.

2 - Eat smaller meals, with regular snacks

Yes, you did hear right, healthy snacks eaten mid-morning and mid-afternoon can tide you over a hunger attack and keep your blood levels from switchbacking. Couple that strategy with a routine of smaller meals based on healthy, fresh ingredients while you also keep a very close watch on your food serving sizes, and you've got yourself a menopause diet that's easy to sustain and will help you peel off the pounds as well.

3 - Take plenty of exercise

Changing your eating habits alone won't be enough to make that apple-shaped body a thing of the past. To lose belly fat in menopause, you've just got to get active. Aerobic exercise is easy to fit into your daily life, and you can include different types of aerobic exercise. You can do it simply by walking more, running upstairs, getting your bike out or doing an exercise routine at home. The trick is to increase the amount you do gradually. You'll find that exercise makes you feel a whole lot better, as well as helping you fine down, so that once you've started to include more, you'll want to continue.

4 - Build valuable muscle

A key strategy for menopausal women, but one that's often overlooked. Lose fat and gain muscle by using strength training exercises , and you'll raise your metabolism, burn more calories all day long, not just when exercising, and build up valuable strength for the decades to come.

5 - Be kind to yourself

What's that got to do with trimming down an apple-shaped body? Well, taking good care of yourself involves finding and using ways to relieve stress, as well as identifying the things that make you feel better and doing them, regularly. Because stress and cortisol, one of the hormones that influences weight gain in menopause, are so closely linked, by de-stressing you're nurturing not just your psyche and your soul, you're reducing the amount of fat-building substances circulating in your blood stream. It's as simple as that.

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