Belly Fat and Women over 50

Why Rushing Through Life Can Stop You Losing Weight

Bellyfat

This has to be the most common issue women over 50 talk to me about, belly fat and how hard it is to lose.

Do you ever feel like you’re doing everything right — eating well, exercising regularly, but the scales refuse to budge? Or worse, the weight seems to be settling stubbornly around your middle?

If that sounds familiar, you’re far from alone. For many women over 50, the real culprit isn’t a lack of willpower or calories — it’s stress which is impacted by the change in hormonal status.

🌪️ Why Stress Hits Harder for Women Over 50

Once we reach midlife, our levels of oestrogen and progesterone begin to drop. These hormones don’t just affect periods and hot flushes — they also help keep cortisol, your main stress hormone, in check. Want a bit more detail on oestrogen, progesterone and cortisol, download a wee factsheet here.

So when oestrogen and progesterone fall, cortisol can run wild. And that’s when many women start noticing:

• More fat around the belly

• Poor sleep

• Afternoon fatigue

• Sugar or carb cravings

Even if you’re eating “clean,” your body may be stuck in stress mode — interpreting the constant rushing, overworking, and early workouts as a threat.

PS It's possible you may not think you are stressed, that it's just day to day life, or that you have no major stressors in your life. Here's the thing,chronic stress is a build up of 'ordinary relentless stressors'.

💥 Your Body’s Stress Mode

When you’re constantly rushing — from early alarms to busy days and late nights — your body doesn’t see that as “getting things done.” It interprets it as danger.

To help you cope, it releases cortisol, your main stress hormone. Cortisol’s job is to keep your body alert and fuelled for survival — which means keeping blood sugar high and storing fat for later use. And guess where cortisol loves to store that fat? Around your belly.

WHY the belly? Cortisol loves the belly. When stress is high, your body goes into self-protection mode — releasing extra glucose for quick energy and then tucking away what’s not used as fat. And it stores that fat right where it’s most useful: around your middle, close to vital organs, where it can be easily accessed for fuel in the next “emergency.” The trouble is, the belly area also has more cortisol receptors than anywhere else, so every stress signal tells your body to store even more there. It’s clever biology for short bursts of stress, but when life feels like one long rush, that stress belly becomes much harder to shift.

This is why even women who “eat clean”, "eat less" and "move more" can struggle to lose abdominal fat if they’re living in constant go-mode aka chronic stress.

⚙️ What Cortisol Does Behind the Scenes

• Raises blood sugar and insulin, blocking fat burning

• Encourages fat storage, especially around the middle

• Suppresses thyroid function, slowing metabolism

• Increases cravings for quick energy foods

• Interferes with sleep, which further raises cortisol

  
  

Over time, your metabolism starts to feel “stuck,” even though you’re doing all the right things.

💪 Can Exercise Make It Worse?

Exercise is usually a good stress — but too much, too early, too late, too intense, too long,  can backfire if your system is already overloaded. If you’re doing high-intensity weight training at in the early AM, with insufficient sleep, rushing on to work or busy home life, from pillar to post all day long, your body might see that as yet another stressor, not a healthy challenge.

It’s a common pattern: the harder you push, the more your body digs in its heels.

🌿 How to Switch into Rest & Repair

The key to losing belly fat isn’t more discipline — it’s more recovery.

Here’s how to help your body feel safe enough to release stored fat again:

✅ Get 7–8 hours of sleep

✅ Slow down meals — sit, breathe, chew

✅ Reduce training intensity for a few weeks: think lighter weights, slower tempo, or fewer sessions. Completely contrary to advice I'm often giving to women over 50.

✅ Add restorative movement — walking, yoga, stretching, mobility work

✅ Support your stress system with real food: protein, healthy fats, and plenty of veg

✅ Practice nasal breathing or 5–10 minutes of deep breathing daily. Even more ideal is 1-2 minutes of slower breathing x 10 times throughout the day.

💬 The Takeaway

You can’t burn fat from a body that thinks it’s in survival mode. When you slow down, breathe, and give your body time to recover, your hormones start working for you again — not against you.

So if you’re feeling stuck, maybe it’s not about doing more. It’s about doing less, better.