26. 3 Tips to Help You Lose Belly Fat and Keep it off for Good!

Are you struggling with belly fat? Are you looking for ways to lose it and keep it off for good? Tune in to this episode to learn the secrets of the trade which will help you effect lasting change!

This episode is a treasure trove for anyone looking to revamp their eating habits for the better.

Together, we demystify calorie counting with an accessible formula and shed light on the myth of spot reduction, guiding us through the journey of sustainable weight management.

But we don't stop at what to eat; this episode extends into the kitchen with actionable advice on meal prepping, grocery shopping, and meal planning.

By embracing her strategies, including giving changes a solid four-week trial and embracing the habit of preparing meals twice a week for variety and freshness, you'll be equipped to make a long-term commitment to a healthier lifestyle.

It's not just about shedding pounds; it's about transforming your life, one meal at a time!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, my friends, welcome, welcome, welcome to my channel. Today we will be talking about three concepts, or I'll be sharing three important tips that will help you lose the belly fat and keep it off for good. These are simple steps that you can take and if you follow them routinely and if you think about the concepts, it makes so much sense. So I want you to listen in carefully. All right, for those of you who don't know me, I am Dr Inaka Yembe. I'm a family medicine physician. I work full-time in the emergency room and I have a part-time weight loss clinic.

Speaker 1: 0:39

Why weight loss? That's my passion. That's my personal life story. I hit the earth. I was born at about 10 pounds. My weight blossomed from there. I grew into a 300 pound plus person after I had my two children and since then I have been struggling with my weight pretty much throughout my life. So I have succeeded in losing the weight. It has taken me 14 years. My journey started in 2010. It's taken me 14 years. So I know all the things and I like to share what I do this way, the things that you are doing now. Maybe you can make a little change and I don't want you to make as many mistakes like I did, wasted so much time, wasted so much money. I am 56 years old now, and so I am in menopause. Of course, menopause changes things.

Speaker 2: 1:36

Welcome to the Thriving Through Menopause podcast. Dr Inaka Yembe, your host, is dedicated to helping you navigate the transformative journey of menopause and perimenopause, particularly focused on achieving menopausal weight loss and reducing belly fat. As a post-menopausal physician herself who has helped thousands of women experiencing the significant life stage, she understands the unique challenges you face. Listen in as we explore a wide range of topics aimed at supporting you in your health and wellness journey. Hopefully, the practical tips and strategies offered potentially help you adopt an empowering approach towards menopausal weight loss and belly fat reduction. And now here's your host, Dr Inaka Yembe.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Okay, so let's talk about three things that can help you lose the belly fat and keep it off for good. The very first thing, the biggest one, is eating whole, unprocessed foods. So that is, foods that are in the most natural state possible, that are in the most natural state possible, vegetables that are natural, unprocessed proteins, beef, chicken, eggs, turkey just anything that is unprocessed. Why is that? Because when the manufacturer takes food from the natural state and processes it, what they do is they take out the good stuff, like the vitamins, fiber, the nutrient, and then they make it more palatable, easily digestible and they make it to be able to last long on the shelf, give it a longer shelf life. So all those things that are added to the food, they just cause more belly fat storage.

Speaker 1: 3:24

One of the biggest things that we need to think about is that your food composition matters. What your food is made of matters. That's why, if you don't want to think too much, just think about eating food that is unprocessed. Another thing is that foods that are unprocessed do meet our nutritional needs. So they have the fiber, they have the vitamins, they have all the things that we need. Those that are processed do not. Another thing to consider is that the foods that are unprocessed are more satiating. They keep you full longer.

Speaker 1: 4:04

Of course, if you're trying to lose weight, the last thing you need is to be hungry. So if you are hungry, try eating foods that are unprocessed. Example if I eat 1000 calories in chicken breast, that's going to be difficult. It's going to be difficult to get it in. It's going to be difficult to eat it all. However, if you give me Oreos or potato chips a thousand calories, I could just eat that so quickly. That's the difference between processed and unprocessed foods.

Speaker 1: 4:37

So if you're really struggling with belly fat and you don't want to think too much and it's just so complicated, there's so much information everywhere now the first thing that you can do is to clean out your pantry and fill it up slowly with unprocessed foods, foods that are not processed, all right. So that is the very first fundamental step. If you're struggling with belly fat, go with unprocessed foods. The second thing to think about and we make this mistake. So I had a weight loss clinic. Today was my weight loss clinic day. In the hospital I have women. Most of us come in. We feel like we don't eat too much or we feel like we are eating the right things. That's true. One thing you want to remember is that the amount of calories that you consume matters.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Of course it does Sometimes we don't want to count calories because it's too hard. Sometimes we don't want to think about the calories in the food because it's too difficult. Sometimes we're like, oh, it's too complicated, I can't be thinking about proteins, I can't be thinking about how many calories are in the protein. But I want you to consider one thing. Example if you are working and you are keeping your money in the bank, you are going to want to check and see how much money do you have in the bank and how much money are you actually spending? You want things to balance out because if they don't balance out, you're going to get into a state of imbalance. Maybe you owe the bank money now because you've been spending too much and not looking. You've got to balance your calories out somehow. You can't be eating the healthy foods. Yes, I get it, that's a good thing to do. Eat the healthy foods and then not worrying about how much you are eating the. How much of the healthy food is as important as eating the healthy foods themselves. So when I started my weight loss journey way back then, I didn't know about how much I needed to eat, so I was just eating chicken and salad. I could put away. Hey, don't laugh and don't judge me, I could eat a half a chicken sometimes. Don't judge me. I've done these things. I could eat salad and put any amount of dressing. I love Italian dressing. So, to me, I'm eating my vegetables and I'm eating my protein A lot of dressing. I love Italian dressing. So, to me, I'm eating my vegetables and I'm eating my protein a lot of it. And I felt that I could just eat any amount and it will not matter. Yes, it will. So if you're eating healthy foods, you also have to consider how many calories you are consuming. It's a big mistake if we just eat any amount of healthy food, especially if we are struggling with belly fat. Now. I have one principle in my clinic, one if it's working, keep doing it. If whatever you're doing is working, your numbers are good, your blood pressure is good, blood cholesterol, blood sugar is good, your waistline is below 35 inches as a female, below 40 inches as a male, you are at your ideal weight. You're healthy, happy. Keep doing it. Now, if things are not working, my belly is growing and I'm worried about it. My weight is inching up. I went to the doctor. My cholesterol was high. My blood sugar was high also.

Speaker 1: 8:03

This is a time that we want to stop and take a closer look and make some changes, because only action changes things. We can't continue to do the same things and expect things to change, and one of the things that we're going to want to look at is how much are we eating? It's a very simple calculation that you can do right now to change, especially if you are in my belly fat loss challenge. The formula is right there. Take your ideal body weight on a BMI chart, multiply that by 12. That gives you a number of calories that you are supposed to consume. When I say that, I get all kinds of questions. The BMI chart is not accurate. I know it's not accurate and I don't want to be that way on the BMI chart. I know you don't, but you need a number for calculation, especially now that you're slowly gaining weight and your waistline is growing. So now you need a baseline. If you don't measure something, you cannot quantify it and you cannot track it either. So we just don't know. So the easiest thing to do is to go online, google and find your ideal body weight. There's a range, pick one and start there, and whatever you pick, do it for at least four weeks and if things don't change? That's when you change things. You don't want to make too many changes. Change something now and tomorrow, and we're just all over the place, okay. So number one thing that you want to do to lose the belly fat is to clean out your diet.

Speaker 1: 9:42

One good thing about eating unprocessed foods is that they're so satiating you cannot really eat too much of it. You can easily eat a box. Well, let me speak for myself. I can easily eat six donuts. I can easily eat a dozen donuts it's easy. But I cannot eat six chickennuts. I can easily eat a dozen doughnuts it's easy. But I cannot eat six chicken breasts. I cannot eat a dozen chicken breasts.

Speaker 1: 10:05

So if you start eating whole, unprocessed foods, you will notice that you don't consume as many calories and you get more healthy, your skin clears up, you have a little bit more energy, you're sleeping better, systems are all falling into place, your joints hurt less because you're not eating all the sugar, you're not eating all the preservatives in the processed foods. So that's the first thing. Number two the amount of food matters. Do some calculations. If things are not working for you, change it and stop and do some calculations. It's not going to hurt you. Remember you have to balance things out in life for things to work. Think about not balancing your bank account right. So now go ahead and consume a correct amount of calories per day, not excess, all right.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Tip number three this third one rubs some people in the wrong way. I understand it, but one of the ways to control what goes into your body is if you actually prepare it. The life of convenience now is what gets us in trouble. I can wake up in the morning, get my breakfast from somewhere, get my lunch from somewhere, get my dinner from somewhere, and that may cause my waistline to slowly expand. However, if I prepare my own food, I know what's in it, and one of the good things that you can do slowly, whenever you have the time, is to pick one thing that you routinely purchase out there, that you really like and make it yourself.

Speaker 1: 11:42

The information is everywhere online. So, but on a daily basis, a couple of things. Make your meal prep simple, really simple. Simple, tasty, flavorful, so you enjoy it. But make it simple. I'll tell you what I do for meal prep. I meal prep twice a week, thursdays and Sundays. Why is that? Because when I meal prep food for the whole week, here I am. I may get to the fourth day. I may not even like it. So I have shrunk things down and I only meal prep for two, three days at a time. That's number one. Number two I make it simple Single macronutrient foods.

Speaker 1: 12:29

For example, today I got some ground meat and some ground turkey. I seasoned them differently so they have different tastes. Trick my brain into feeling I'm eating different things. It's just the ground protein. Use seasonings, use herbs freely. Make sure there's no sugar in there.

Speaker 1: 12:45

But you want your food to be tasty because you want to enjoy it. Don't take the turkey or the chicken and just boil it in salt and water. That is not enjoyable. Now you can even make your own sauces. I make sauces, marinades, anything. So long as you have some mustard, some Greek yogurt, some salt pepper, garlic powder, ginger powder, black pepper. I mean you can just make a seasoning mix and use it to make your food tasty, but make your meal prep so simple. Why do I say that? Because if you keep on looking up recipes to prep everything, it can get overwhelming. Remember, whatever we're doing now for our foods, we're going to be doing it for the rest of our lives, and if I want to prepare my food so I can control what's in it, then I want to make it so simple and tasty so that I can continue to do it for a long time.

Speaker 1: 13:42

So I got my meat and my turkey. I've already seasoned it, I put it away and then in the evening come back and I just do that in the pot. It takes me less than 30 minutes for both the vegetables. I simply steam it and I'm good to go. I'm done. All I'm going to add to that is either rice or sweet potato, and that's it. That's how simple my daily meal prep is. Of course, I come to a point where I say, hmm, you know what? I want something a little bit different, I want something a little bit out of my daily routine. That's when I say, okay, let me look up a recipe and modify it so that it is healthier and helps me stay on my goal. Okay, so when you meal prep, you are in control.

Speaker 1: 14:28

One of the things that happens when you buy food out there the chef in that restaurant is in control of the ingredients and of the portion size. So you may get served, say, one and a half portions of something, of chicken, of fried rice, whatever it is. The portion is too much and because you bought it with your money, you don't want to throw it away. So we tend to eat just a little bit more when we buy food. So when you prep your own food, you tell yourself four ounces is my serving. So when you prep your own food, you tell yourself four ounces is my serving. Look at it, it's not that much, but you get used to it with time. And because the four ounces of whatever you're prepping is unprocessed, believe you me, you're going to eat that and you're going to be full. Of course, for another lecture. I'm going to save it for another lecture of the things that you can use to make your food or your meals look bigger without adding too many calories. But bottom line, prep your own food. And in order to prep your own food, we have to plan.

Speaker 1: 15:29

I can't just go to the grocery store and start thinking what am I going to eat, what am I going to purchase, what am I going to do? No, no, I stay home. I take two, three minutes and I think what protein do I want? What vegetable do I want, what starch do I want? That's it. I take the basket, not the buggy, the basket, because I don't want to purchase too much. It takes me less than 10 minutes to get what I want and I am out of the grocery store quickly. So think about what you want to get, plan it, come home, prep it and that's it. Make it so, so simple.

Speaker 1: 16:03

I'm going to give you just some bonus tips here, other things that have helped me, also One of the biggest ones. Next bonus tip that you need to know comes to spot reduction. I met a lady in my clinic today. She told me well, I want to lose the weight in my arms and I want to lose the weight in my belly. But the problem is, the last time I lost the weight, I lost the weight in my hips and I did not want that, so I stopped my journey. So I'm going to tell you one thing when you lose belly fat or if you want to lose belly fat.

Speaker 1: 16:36

There are two types of belly fat. One of them is on the outside, the one you can pinch, that is subcutaneous fat. It is not dangerous to our health, even though we may not want it there. It's not dangerous to your overall health. The one we worry about is the visceral fat. It's on the inside, around your intestines, around your heart, around your liver. It's way on the inside times, around your heart, around your liver, its way on the inside.

Speaker 1: 17:06

You cannot do crunches, sit-ups, planks and all the exercises to lose visceral fat. Those exercises will tone your abdominal muscles, which is nice. It would help your posture, it would help your confidence, it would help even just your ability to perform other exercises. That's great. We always want a strong core, but the exercises do not help you lose belly fat. The belly fat we're trying to lose is on the inside. In order to do that, you're going to need to lose overall body fat. And where your body loses fat from you and I have no control over your body knows in its energy blood circulates. The energy comes from different places from your thighs, from your arms, from your back, from your belly. Also, mother nature determines that. So if you want to lose belly fat, please don't think about I'm going to lose it from my belly only. We're going to need to lose it from all over our body and then, yes, we're going to lose the belly fat.

Speaker 1: 18:12

That is the reason why I hear people some of my ladies come and gentlemen, come in the clinic and say I've been working out so hard every single day and my belly is still here why your nutrition is about 75 to 80% of your weight for some people. Next, we cannot exercise and burn off the things that we are eating. Nutrition first and lastly. Nutrition first and lastly, you cannot burn off fat from a specific body part Very important. So we're going to backtrack and start eating whole unprocessed foods. All right, the next thing, next tip, bonus tip, is tracking. We've got to measure something. You've got to check your weight.

Speaker 2: 19:02

Nice idea to measure your waistline If you don't measure it.

Speaker 1: 19:04

You can't quantify it. I know some of us are so terrified of the scale. If you're somebody who gets so discouraged by weighing yourself, don't weigh yourself every single day, because sometimes we just get a little too discouraged from doing that. But weigh yourself at some point. Once a week is okay. Weigh yourself so you know. You should see at least a half a pound difference in your weight. If you're trying to lose belly fat, half a pound is great. One pound is the maximum. Don't try to lose five, 10 pounds every single week. It means you're doing things that are too restrictive and may not be sustainable lifelong. Okay, the next thing this is the next one, and it's a big one is consistency. Consistency simply means I'm going to do it, regardless, whether I like it or not, I'm going to do it. I'm not going to do it because I'm motivated. I'm not going to do it because I feel like it. I'm going to do it because I'm disciplined.

Speaker 1: 20:04

I gave this example the last time you had baby. Little Johnny turned four. It's time for little Johnny to go to pre-K. So you, mama and daddy, you took baby to kindergarten and he did not want to go. You did not want to leave him either, but you did it anyway. You did that every single day and fast forward three months down the line. Little Johnny is used to it and so are you. You did the same thing consistently for your child to get an education for at least 14 years. You were involved physically, mentally, emotionally and everything. This is the same kind of discipline that I want you to apply to yourself.

Speaker 1: 20:45

Why? Because losing weight, the things that you have to do are simple. They're not easy. There's a difference between easy and simple. So there's simple, simple things Eat unprocessed food. But when you actually have to do it, you will notice it's not easy to do. What are you going to tell yourself? You're going to do it regardless. The good news is, after some time it's not as difficult and you're not struggling as much. But don't quit after a month or two months, because these are things that we want to do lifelong.

Speaker 1: 21:22

If you did something to lose belly fat or to lose weight and you got there, then stay there. You don't go back and say, wow, look at me, I hit my goal, so now I'm done, I can go do what I want. This is the reason why even the people who had bariatric surgeries that lost the weight. Most of them are gaining the weight now because they just feel well, I had the procedure, so I'm good for life. That's not true. You have to continue doing the things that worked. Eat the healthy things, all right. I think that's it. Remember healthy, unprocessed foods. Stay on that. That will help you lose the belly fat and keep it up for good. Number two energy balance matters. How much you eat definitely matters. Number three prepare your own food. If you're struggling, prep your own food, because that gives you full control. And then the other things. All right, everyone. Thank you, thank you, and I will see you on the next video.

Speaker 2: 22:23

Bye. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Thriving Through Menopause. We hope you found valuable insights and practical advice to support your journey. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast, share it and review. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Remember, menopause doesn't have to be a challenge. It can be an opportunity for growth, renewal and self-care. Connect with us on social media, where we share additional resources, tips and advice to help you along your path. Once again, thanks for listening in and we hope you'll join us again on the next episode of Thriving Through Menopause. Until then,