A Day in the Life of Your Waistline

If you’ve got a significant amount of mid-section fat, it is likely that most of those pounds are a consequence of poor habits. Let’s walk through one day in the life of your belly and see if we can figure out where some of that belly fat might be coming from.

A Typical Day

5:00 AM – You and your waistline are sound asleep and doing good. You haven’t eaten in a while, so your body is starting to shift from fat burning mode to fat storing mode.

6:00 AM – Your mid-area is in for a rude awakening. You were up late last night, but you have work in the morning so you have no choice but to get up early. Your belly is not happy. Lack of sleep means your body was not able to get its full rest. As a result, it releases stress hormones that wear out your systems and actually cause your body to hold on to fat.

7:00 AM – Your stomach bulge is pressing against those pants and shirt. They must have shrunk in the dryer. No time for breakfast. Instead, you wash down some coffee. Now your adrenaline is up, but your body is calorie starved. It shifts into full time fat storage and sinks your metabolism to save calories.

7:30 AM – Traffic is bad as usual. More stress hormones. We have one unhappy belly, and you haven’t even gotten to work yet!

8:00 AM – A happy surprise. Someone has brought doughnuts. How thoughtful, and since you didn’t have any breakfast, you’ll take two. Your belly is suddenly full of refined carbs and sugars and empty calories. Because your body has already shifted into calorie storage mode, it gobbles up these easy calories and stores them as fat. Your blood sugar spikes rapidly then crashes, leaving you woozy and tired only a little while later. At this point your belly hasn’t been given any real, nutritious food.

8:00 AM – 12:00 PM – The office is full of minor (and sometimes not so minor) stressors. You occasionally get up and seek out a coworker, but for the most part, you completely stationary. You write emails, make phone calls, research online. Your belly is equally sedentary. No movement means few calories burned.

12:00 PM – By noon you are crying out for some good food, but you forgot lunch. You hop in the car and go to the nearest fast food restaurant. You order fries, soda, a burger and a salad. Nice try with the salad, but this meal is full of fat and grease. It spikes up your blood sugar again and plunges it back down. Your stomach is swollen with too much fat. Even the salad offers little of the real nutrients your body needs. Your belly has no choice but to turn this huge truckload of calories into fat.

12:00 PM – 5:00 PM – There is no chance to even begin burning off the huge meal you had for lunch. More sedentary work. More little stressors. Your body is a cauldron of toxic hormones, calories and manufactured food chemicals. Woe is your belly.

5:30 PM – More traffic. You pass right by the gym, but you’re too tired from getting up early and a long day at the office to even give it a passing glance. The last thing you feel like doing is huffing and puffing on a treadmill, but you could use some exercise. An hour of moderate exercise would be ideal, but even a half hour walk would help you burn calories, build muscle and manage stress.

6:00 PM – Dinner comes out of the microwave. You can’t taste the preservatives, but your belly can.

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM – You help the kids with their homework, check your personal email, then sit back and watch your favorite TV shows with the spouse. A bowl of popcorn appears out of nowhere. Even though you aren’t really that hungry, you still reach in and snack throughout the show. Without even thinking about it you both empty the entire bag.

9:00 PM – Time to put the kids to bed. They beg, so everyone gets a bowl of ice cream. Just another helping of fat and calories. You notice your oldest daughter is getting a little round. You worry about how being overweight will affect her at school.

10:00 PM – Another long day. You get ready for bed and look at yourself in the mirror. You don’t like what you see. How did you gain so much belly fat? Where did it all come from? You shrug. No time to worry about that now, you have another early day tomorrow.

10:30 PM – Lights out. You had another very full, very bad day. While you sleep, it takes inventory of those doughnuts, that fast food lunch, the microwave dinner, popcorn and ice cream along with all the stress of the day. With no exercise to counterbalance the calories, your belly simply can’t burn all the caloric energy you put into it nor can it fight off the destructive stress hormones. It layers on the fat and hopes you have an extra notch left on your belt buckle.