The Gut-Weight Connection: Why Your Belly Won’t Budge (Even When You’re Doing Everything Right)

Okay, so there we go. Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of Weekly Wellness. This is where we unpack what's really going on in your body so you can stop chasing symptoms and start feeling like yourself again. I'm Eliza Riley, your holistic menopause coach and founder of Menopause and Chill. Today we're talking about something I know a lot of you are struggling with. That stubborn belly weight that just seems to show up out of nowhere and will not budge no matter what you do, right? That is you. Well, it's probably why you're here, and I appreciate that, but I'd like to hear from you anyway. Drop it in the chat, or if you're watching the recording later, please let me know in the comments if this is something that you are struggling with. Oh, I certainly have. So, um, even if you have been eating well, you are moving your body, you're cutting back on sugar, you know, you're doing all of the things, and yet the scale is stuck or your waistline just keeps expanding, you are absolutely not alone. And I want to offer a different perspective today because I truly believe that weight gain is not just a symptom, it is a message from Your body is talking to you, and today I'm going to show you how to actually understand what it's saying. So here's what we'll uncover today. First, why your gut controls your fat storage, your blood sugar, and your estrogen. What you can do naturally to shift your weight without dieting or punishing your body. And the simple daily habits that actually move the needle. My goal for you by the end of this session is to understand that weight gain isn't just happening to you, it's something that your body is actually doing for you, and it's like, yeah, I know, don't do me any favors, but it is, it's actually doing something for you, and when you can understand why, you can actually begin to shift it. So let's get into it. First off, weight gain, especially around your belly, is not a sign of failure. It is a sign that your body is actually trying to protect you, and the protection that it's offering actually starts in your gut. And here's how that works. When your gut is out of balance, maybe you're inflamed, you have inflammation, maybe you have lots of, um, The bad bacteria, or maybe you're just not digesting food very well, if you have poor digestion or leaky gut, these things trigger a domino effect in your body, and the first domino to fall is your blood sugar. So you know that 3:00 PM crash where you would sell your soul for a cookie? That's not a sign of a lack of willpower, it's actually your body scrambling to stabilize your blood sugar. Because your gut isn't processing food properly, or maybe because your gut isn't processing food properly, your blood sugar gets messy and your body goes straight into storage mode. It's like it's prepping for a famine even though you just had lunch. And it doesn't even stop there. When your blood sugar is constantly up and down, your body releases more cortisol, and that's the, the stress hormone. And cortisol, we talk about cortisol a lot, but cortisol is not actually inherently bad. It's, again, meant to protect you. So if you were, well, you hopefully are not ever running from a tiger, but our ancestors often did. So when they were running from a tiger, they needed that cortisol pumping in their body to get them to safety. And cortisol is actually meant to shoot up when we are in the stress response, you know, running from the tiger, and then go down again. And what happens with so many of us, stressors come at us from so many different ways, whether it's the traffic, whether it's our bosses, whether it's our spouses or our kids or our parents, or just the fact that the scale won't move. Like, all of these things are stressors. And so what happens is that our cortisol goes up for the stressor and and then it just stays up because we don't actually have that comedown on the other side. So when your cortisol is constantly elevated like this, whether it's because your blood sugar is swinging wildly or your gut is inflamed, or again, your body thinks, or you're under, you're running from that tiger, your body actually believes that you're under attack all the time. So what happens is that cortisol stores fat. Again, thank you, but no thank you. But it does it to protect you, and its favorite place to store fat is right around your belly. And it's not a coincidence. I mean, think about this. It's not— the reason why is because for most of us, stress was life or death. You know, way back with our ancestors, stress was life or death. And, and as far as our biologically, as far as our bodies go, We have not evolved that. We, our bodies still believe that when we have a stressor, it's still life or death. And so cortisol storing fat around your belly is a survival mechanism. Your body is literally building this buffer around your organs to protect you because it thinks, oh my gosh, that tiger might catch us and it's going to go for our organs. And this is why women who are stressed out, sleep deprived, or dealing with gut issues tend to hold weight right here. It's not laziness, it's not age, it's your body responding to what it truly believes is a crisis, is a life or death crisis. So let's talk about what actually helps, because I promise you, It's not another diet. It's not another 5 AM workout. So often I, I hear from women who are— who say something like, but I, I have always eaten like 1,400 calories, and I all— and I always— I've always gone to the gym 3 times a week for 5 hours. I'm exaggerating now, but you know what I mean. Like, like, you, you're, you're eating the minimum that you should be eating, and you're, you're exercising the most you should be exercising truly for most bodies. And they go, and so when I started to put on weight, or when I started to gain this, this tire around my belly, I started eating less and I started exercising more. And oh my gosh, like, that is such a huge stressor. So you're basically fueling the thing that you're trying to get rid of. So that's not a good— that's not real support for your body. So the first thing that we have to do when we're, when we are ready to start changing the way that our body is storing this fat, so you have to support your digestion. When you eat, do you take the time to actually chew your food? And I'm talking about chewing, chewing, chewing until it's almost liquid. Most of us don't. And that means that your gut Actually has to work double. Our digestion starts in the mouth, but if you are not chewing your food enough, you are skipping that process and you're giving your gut all of the food completely undigested, or nearly undigested, so that it has to work so much harder. It has to work double time because it now has to do the job that it was designed to do and also do the job that your mouth should have done. So you want to start by slowing down, uh, not just with, with your chewing, but also before you start eating. You really need to get into rest and digest. Most of us live— even, even when we don't realize it, most of us live in fight or flight. So you need to switch into Rest and digest, because that and digest part is key, right? So you have to slow down. So when it comes to eating, slow down. Start with, um, I suggest at least 5 deep breaths before you eat. And, you know, it doesn't have to be anything fancy. You don't have to count it. You don't have to hold it. You don't— just 5 deep breaths in and out, in and out, in and out, 5 times. This alone is like flipping a switch into rest and digest. And if you want to take it a step further, you can try adding something like Um, bitters or some diluted apple cider vinegar. I'm talking like a teaspoon in a glass of water. These, um, this is not just a health hack. This actually signals to your body to start releasing those digestive enzymes so that when your food gets into your gut, you're already setting yourself up to succeed and digest it well. Secondly, we need to Balance your blood sugar. And we don't talk about enough, we don't talk enough about how huge this is. Protein and fat with every meal, not just carbs on their own, no naked carbs. Think of it like putting a log on the fire instead of just kindling. Carbs alone burn up very fast and leave you crashing, but they add— but adding fat and protein gives you this slow, steady burn. And another thing that you can do is simple. Another simple switch that you can do is eating, changing the order that you eat your food. I often recommend that to my clients that you start, you know, you don't even have to change, you don't even have to change what's on your plate, just change the way that you ingest it. Start with those good vegetables. which hopefully have a little, ideally have some fat with them. So you start with your vegetables, then you move on to your protein, and finally the healthy carbs. Just this shift alone changes how your blood sugar responds to what you eat. So if you and another person, now of course we're all different, let's say instead of another person, a clone of you, because all bodies are different, but if a clone of you and you are eating the exact same food, and one of you eats in this order, and you eat in this order, and then the other, the clone of you you doesn't, you will notice that your blood sugar stays more stable and the clone will have more increases, so it'll— it's better for your blood sugar to stay stable. And the last piece about balancing your blood sugar I'll go over is breakfast matters, and I am not talking— I know our parents always said that, it's true, I'm not talking about a muffin and coffee, I mean real food. You should be eating within 60 minutes of waking up. You should have protein, fat, and carbs. This balances your cortisol and sets your blood sugar up for the entire rest of the day. And finally, the hydration. Hydration is so good. We talk about it all the time, but it's so good for so many things. It's, it's good for our hair. It's good for our skin. It's good for lubricating us. In all ways— eyes, mouth, lower down. Like, yeah, it's gonna, it's gonna lubricate all of the things. It can help to lubricate all of the things. But drinking more water is not the best way to hydrate yourself properly. In fact, just guzzling plain water all day can flush out minerals that your cells desperately need. Real hydration means absorbing water, not just drinking it. If you are, if you like myself, if you were, if you've also, if you've already tried like, oh, I drink, I tried drinking half my body weight in ounces of water every day and I just peed all day, well, you're not drinking, you're not absorbing it, you're just flushing it through. One of the simplest things that you can do to is to add a little, add some electrolytes to your water, whether that's through a pinch of sea salt, A splash of coconut water, or those electrolyte packets, you can get one of those, you don't even need to use the whole packet, like literally, you don't need the whole thing, just put a little bit in your water, and that tiny bit of electrolyte support helps your body to actually use the water that you're drinking, instead of just having it run through you. It's a tiny shift, but it makes a huge difference. So I hope that you find some help, some healing with the belly fat and weight struggle today, but to recap, we covered why your gut is controlling your fat storage, your hormone balance, and your blood sugar, why weight gain is not just a symptom, but it's a message. One of the biggest things that I think that we can begin to do is to change our mindset. You know, we get so angry with our bodies because The scale keeps going up. We get so frustrated with our bodies because our bellies continue to get bigger and we don't understand what's happening and we get so angry and so frustrated and so stressed out and again, that simply feeds the problem. So if you're able to look at this challenge and it is a challenge, I know that. But if you can look at it as a message from your body that it is protecting you and, um, and needing something from you, then you can right there, it's a simple shift where you can, where you can stop the stress roller coaster and start to support your body in the way that it is needing from you. So if this resonated with you and you're tired of feeling like your body is fighting you, I'd like to invite you to keep an eye on your inbox. I've got something special coming up for you that I'm really excited about, my free gut health challenge. We're going to go even deeper into this work and how you can start to heal your gut so that you can lose the weight and balance your blood sugar and do all of those things. So I wanna make sure that you don't miss it, and if you want to make sure that you don't miss it, you can sign up for my newsletter, and I think that, well, okay, so there's a button on the link on the page here where you can book your free strategy session, but I'm not talking about that today, 'cause honestly, I don't have any spots available, but if you would like to make sure that you don't miss the gut, the free gut health challenge, make sure that you are on my newsletter, and I can drop the link for you for that. So I look forward to sharing that with you, and I thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I'd love to hear what resonated with you most. Whether if you're here with me, you can tell me in the chat. You can leave a comment if you're watching the replay, or please feel free to send me an email or a DM. I love hearing your experiences, and you will absolutely hear back from me. I will see you guys next week for another episode of Weekly Wellness, and until then. Take care of yourselves and, uh, goodbye. Bye.