When you are in the middle of a weight loss and body transformation, you might get to a point where your results plateau and you stop seeing as many weekly changes as you were before. This is mainly because you have less weight to lose than you did at the start of your journey, but one area that always seems to cause problems in the home straight is the belly! For some reason, belly fat appears to be the hardest to shift, but believe me, it’s not impossible! Here are five reasons you can’t shift that stubborn belly fat.
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1. Bad Sleep
One of the key reasons for belly fat sticking around is you not enjoying a regular and healthy sleeping pattern. If you don’t get enough sleep, you are at risk of retaining your belly fat because of a couple of reasons. Firstly, your body doesn’t get to shut down and digest food in the way that it wants to, and secondly, you aren’t giving your body a chance to reset and boost your metabolism.
2. Stress
Stress is a big factor in belly fat being stubborn. Chronic stress and feelings of depression can cause inflammation within the body in the same way that eating too much sugar does, and your fat cells react to this inflammation by growing.
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3. Not Enough Fibre
It could be very likely that you aren’t getting enough fibre in your diet. Studies have shown that women who have more bacteria called bacteroidetes in their gut are more likely to have extra belly fat, and you can break down that bacteria by adding more fibre to your everyday eating.
4. No Probiotics
Something else that plays a huge role in the controlling of bacteria in your body is anything classed as probiotic. Things like natural yogurt, kefir, anything fermented in fact, are perfect probiotics foods to add to your diet to improve your gut health. And the more you improve your gut health, the less inflammation your will suffer, resulting in a better environment for burning off that extra belly fat.
5. BPA Free Water
Take a look at the plastic bottles that you drink your water out of every day - they might just contain things called persistent organic pollutants which are hormone-disrupting chemicals. If they do, they could be at fault for slowing down your metabolism and not allowing your belly fat to move. Avoid plastic altogether if you can, instead opt for aluminium cans that are marked as BPA free.