How to Lose Stubborn Belly Fat FAST

Today we're diving into one of the most frustrating topics in weight loss. That is belly fat. Why does it seem to be so stubborn? Why does it feel like it doesn't respond to the same effort you put in everywhere else? And more importantly, what can you do to actually change it? Now, if this is one of the first videos or episodes that you have listened from me, I am Dr. Ashley Lucas. I'm a PhD nutritionist and a registered dietitian. I'm the owner and founder of PhD Weight Loss, where to date we have helped over 11,600 people collectively drop more than 480,000 pounds. And my goal with this channel is to give you the information you need to be able to create sustainable and positive change in your own life.

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So let's start by talking about why belly fat is so stubborn. Belly fat is strongly influenced by three systems. Insulin regulation, cortisol patterns and metabolic flexibility. When insulin stays elevated, fat breakdown slows and fat storage around the midsection increases. I want you to think of insulin like this switch. It has control over the switch. It's either going to turn on fat storage or it's going to turn on fat burn. When insulin stays elevated, we know that the switch is going to be turned on to storing fat instead of burning it. Chronically high cortisol pushes the body to preserve the central fat, specifically around the belly, as protective fuel reserve. Right. So think about about the belly fat as this quick energy source. That's why the body stores this fat around the belly area. The the body never makes a mistake. So it's pushing all of this excess fat into the belly so that it can access it when it needs it when you're under high stress. So elevated cortisol levels is not going to be conducive to Letting go of the belly fat, low metabolic flexibility means that your body struggles to switch between burning carbs and burning fat. And that's where 95 or 97% of Americans live and most people in the world. We're not metabolically flexible, so we can't easily switch between the different fuel sources, which is not good. Improving these systems creates the internal safety that the body needs. It signals the body that it can release the stored fat. Now, if you feel like you have done everything possible to try to get rid of the belly fat, I call it collapsing the belly fat. And no matter what you do, you cannot make a dent, then you need to check out PhD weight loss. Just go to myphdweightloss.com to learn more. If you're watching this on YouTube, go on over into the description, click the link for my PhD weight loss and there we will guide you to give one of our nutritionists a call and we will learn about you and create a specific personalized plan that will help you burn that belly fat so you never have to deal with it again. So let's talk about three shifts that you can make that will actually reduce the belly fat. Number one is to stabilize insulin in the first half of the day. Your morning glucose patterns heavily influence appetite and cravings and fat storage for the rest of the day. So what you want to make sure that you do is focus on your morning routine, focus on what you consume and what you drink throughout the morning day. Like the first half of your day needs your focus, needs your attention. How you set that time up in the morning, what you do when you first wake up is going to drive the ultimate results of the latter half of the day, which ultimately will let you see movement on the scale or not. So what we want to do is focus on protein forward meals that help to lower glucose and help to flatten the mid morning crash. We also want to make sure to reduce early sugar exposure to prevent the store and not burn metabolic response. Remember that when blood glucose is elevated, we've got elevated insulin and when insulin is high, it's going to tell the body to store fat. It really doesn't matter what you're consuming. If you've got elevated insulin levels, that's going to push more likely into fat rather than being burned. And that's what we want to do when we lose weight. We need to be burning fat free fuel. So what you do in the morning. Now I have a video where I talk specifically about morning habits that will set you up for success. So if you feel like your morning is a mess, then you definitely want to check out this video. Just head on over to the description and click the link to learn more on that. All right. Once insulin is steadier, the next factor is how your body manages cortisol. So shift two is to reduce cortisol overexposure. Cortisol is not a bad thing, but when it's out of balance, when it's out of rhythm, that's when it creates havoc in the body. Chronic stress is what does this. When you are under chronic stress, it's going to keep the body in conservation mode, making belly fat harder to mobilize. If you're under eating, if you're over training, if you have poor recovery, it's all going to elevate cortisol. If you're not eating right for your body, not sleeping well, overworking, it's going to encourage your body to store this fat specifically around the belly because the body thinks that it's in survival mode. So what you want to make sure you incorporate into your daily routine is brief recovery windows, balanced meals and moderate training to help bring cortisol back into its normal rhythm. Shift number three is to improve metabolic flexibility through movement. Remember that metabolic flexibility reflects how easily the body can shift between using glucose or carbs. Those are the same things to using fat for energy. Daily walking. We tell our clients at PhD weight loss to move at least 30 minutes a day, specifically by walking. Walking is so healthy for you. You want to make sure that you're participating in a 30 minute minimum brisk walk a day. It helps to increase fat oxidation without overstressing the system. I have a video specifically on the benefits of walking. So again, head on into the description to check out the link there. Strength building builds muscle, which raises baseline metabolic demand. You need to make sure you're overloading the muscles. Strength training, overloading the muscles in some way and walking are the two types of exercise that improve metabolic flexibility the most. And then occasional intervals improve mitochondrial efficiency and support fat utilization, basically adding in there some kind of high intensity movement. So my example that I like the best is using a stationary bike. It's just my favorite. It's easier on the joints, but you can do this in the pool. You can do this with your feet on a treadmill or outside, or on a bike or a rower or anything. Get on there, warm up for five minutes, push really hard in a sprint for even just 10 to 20 seconds and then pull back and go easy for 60 seconds, whatever the length is for you to fully recover. And then hit it really hard and do it again. Maybe six times would be a first good goal. Up to 12 times on and off and pull back. That's good. High intensity intensity interval training. And it increases the area in your cells that are in charge of producing energy and burning fat. So we want to get those to be really healthy. Those are your mitochondria. And these types of movements will help to support that. Now, there are also some common patterns that interfere with fat loss. And I see these within our clients at PhD weight loss as they're coming into the program. They're eating too little. This will slow metabolic rate and raise stress hormones. I see clients come into PhD weight loss all the time before they've got started with us. And they'll say that they're eating so little, they know that they just need to eat less and move more. That's what their doctors told them. That's what they understand from the diet industry. And they just don't see how they're going to experience any kind of difference with us. And the body is so much more complicated than calories in and calories out. I'm not saying that we defy the law of thermodynamics, but I am saying that we are much more complicated than a simple in and out equation. And, and I talk a lot about this in my other videos, how not all calories are equal and the calories that we do consume impact our body. And they push on the different levers and they tell the fat cells either to store more fat or to burn the fat for fuel. So what you eat and how you eat and the amount that you eat impacts the body. It's much more complicated than just eating less. I'll often ask my clients at PhD and I'll say, you know, what you've eaten over the last two years, does it equate to carrying this 80 pound excess fat mass? And they'll say, heck no, I'm really not eating that much. And I believe them. It's this metabolic interference that we're dealing with that does not allow them to collapse this belly fat in an efficient way. So another common mistake is relying mostly on cardio instead of including strength training. I see this all the time, specifically with women. I was at Disneyland with my family, and my husband and I went into the gym before we went to the parks with the kids. And there were men in the gym, and there were women in the gym and all the men were lifting weights and all the women were on the elliptical machine. And I see this Happen all the time. So if you are listening to this and you find yourself just having an affinity for the elliptical machine or the rower or the treadmill, I'm encouraging you to get off of that thing and go lift something heavy. I swear it will benefit you significantly more. Another common mistake is that we overlook stress patterns or we have inconsistent or poor quality sleep. Another thing that I will often hear from our clients at PhD is they'll say, oh my gosh, I'm following everything exactly right. I don't know why I didn't drop weight this week or last week. And I'll ask them, okay, after I check out their food record. Because we do have our clients, if they're open to it, record what they're consuming throughout the day. Because we find as you slim down, your dietary needs also change. So we're constantly tweaking our clients meal plans. It's a very dynamic process. So if you're in a program where your meal plan stays the same, then that's likely not serving you. Losing weight is a very dynamic process. So I'll look at their food record. If everything looks right on par, then I'll ask them how their sleep is and I'll ask them how their stress is. And I will tell you, 99% of the time they're in a high stress state and they don't recognize it or they're not sleeping well. And how you fuel your mind, the stress that's coming in and how you deal with that is just as important as how you're fueling your body with food and drinking. It's just as important. So if you are stuck and you can't figure out why, I encourage you to take a look at your stress and a look at your sleep. And then I often find people trying to spot reduced belly fat rather than improving whole body physiology. I'll have folks ask me, well, can I just drop the fat under my arm or on my thighs and not in my butt or just on my belly? And unfortunately, we can't sleep. Spot check. I find from my clinical experience of over 10 years with more than 11,000 people that we lose weight in the opposite direction that we put it on. So if you put it on in the belly first, that's going to be the last to go. And most people don't go all the way. They don't fully collapse the belly fat. They say, I look and feel good enough. Or maybe they're using specific medications that allow for some weight loss but not for the body to fully get where it truly needs to be. And they say, gosh, I just can never let go of the belly fat. And that's because that person didn't lose enough total weight. They still have this excess belly fat. It was the first to come on, it's the last to go. If you've heard me speak before or any of my previous videos, I talk a lot about the belly fat and how it acts as a tumor. It's in there working against you. So if you don't fully get rid of it, you're at extremely high risk of all of the fat coming back at some point. It's just a matter of time until the belly fat eats its way back up again. So I really encourage you to understand where your true optimal weight is, where you need to be to be in full alignment with a healthy body composition. Looking at your body fat percentage and that visceral belly fat specifically, we need to fully collapse that. And you will find at that time the belly fat becomes pretty darn full flat. And that means that you've improved your whole body physiology and you haven't just tried to spot check. Unfortunately, spot checking never really works. When these underlying patterns shift, the body becomes far more responsive to fat loss, especially around the belly area. Now, if you feel like you have tried all of these things and that your body responds to supplementation, well, you could check out some different supplements that could help aid your weight loss journey. I have created some specifically for people in a weight loss or weight maintenance phase. You should Definitely check out drashleywellness.com Go to drashleywellness.com if you're listening to this on a podcast platform or just head on into the description here in this YouTube video and click the link. For Dr. Ashley Wellness, you'll receive a special discount code. I've got three specific products that I'm so proud of because we've seen such raving responses and positive impact from our clients at PhD weight loss. I've got a special electrolyte mix for people who are wanting to support their adrenals and thyroid during the weight loss phase. I've got Glucocet plus where we really focus on stabilizing blood sugar levels, helping to support preserving muscle during weight loss and reducing cravings and hunger. And then my newest product that just recently launched is GLP1 gut longevity plus. Super excited to support the gut with a next generation probiotic called Akkermansia. It includes Iroman which increases natural GLP1 secretions, plus grape seed extract and resveratrol. So definitely check that out. Okay, guys, so let's recap. Belly fat does not respond to punishment. It responds to physiology. You learned that insulin, cortisol, and metabolic flexibility are the three systems that make belly fat so stubborn. You also learned the daily shifts that create a fat burning environment, like stabilizing your mornings, reducing your stress load, and improving movement patterns. When you work with your physiology in this way, belly fat becomes much easier to change. All right, if you are watching this on YouTube, please subscribe so you do not miss another video. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, please leave a review. And remember, you've got to step up to make the change. Lead with your heart, train your mind, and do not negotiate with your body. I'll see you next time.