Three weight loss fails you’re probably doing right now
Do you ever have these thoughts?
“Just looking at a donut makes me gain five pounds!”
“How can one glass of wine add an inch to my waistline?”
“Why doesn’t an extra hour on the treadmill shred the extra fluff like it used to?”
“How can my husband lose 10 pounds just by giving up beer for a week?”
What the kale is going on here?
I hear ya. I’ve been there. I’ve said those same things. It’s not pleasant.
These are very common thoughts, unfortunately. Many, many women struggle with their weight at some point. Sometimes it feels more like a constant struggle.
When I hit 30, no more Skinny Bitch t-shirts for me. It was like my body drew a firm line in the sand - “Pack on the pounds no matter how much she exercises! Pack it on!”
Everyone has their own version of this story. Maybe yours began when you were a kid or after you had kids. Maybe yours is a struggle to lose that extra 10 pounds that won’t seem to come off no matter how hard you try (or how many meals you skip!). Or maybe your goal is to fit into a dress you haven’t worn in years.
The goal doesn’t really matter. The approach does.
I’m willing to bet, that if you’re in a seemingly never-ending battle with the scale, you’re making a few very distinct mistakes that are sabotaging your efforts. Through no fault of your own, Diet Culture has us thinking up is down and down is up. It’s no wonder we’re all so confused!
But that confusion stops today.
Here’s the reality of the situation…
✅ Your body is not the same as it was in your 20’s.
✅ It is more difficult to lose weight as we get older.
✅ You cannot continue to do the same things you’ve been doing (eat the same foods, drink the same drinks, exercise the same, etc.) and expect your weight to drop.
But the good news is that nothing has gone wrong!
Your body is behaving exactly how it should. Remember, your body’s job is to keep you alive. That’s what it's doing. You just might not like how it’s doing it!
As a Holistic Nutritionist, I have worked with a lot of women with different weight goals. Hell, I have my own! So needless to say, I have a lot of experience in this area.
While everyone is different, there are common themes I see when it comes to weight loss. I’ve put together the top 3 mistakes I see women make when trying to lose weight.
You are not eating enough.
Yes, it’s true, if you eat less food, you will lose weight. That is not exactly a “weight loss” plan that I can get behind. That’s called starvation. And it’s no bueno for your body. Starving yourself is not the answer. It never is. I promise.
If you want a surefire way to mess up your hormones and do damage to your body, all you need to do is eat a lot less food (calories). It’s almost a guarantee that you will throw your hormones out of balance if your body is not getting enough food. (Please don’t do this, it’s a terrible idea.)
When your body senses food is scarce, it will conserve resources.
As soon as it senses a threat, it goes into starvation mode. No matter if there’s an actual threat or you’re trying to fit into a dress for your daughter’s wedding. Your body doesn’t know the difference.
Guess what the most precious material in the human body is when you are not eating enough?
Fat.
In times of starvation, the body will conserve fat to keep you alive. Unfortunately, your body doesn’t know the difference between “starving”, as in not having enough food to fulfill the nutritional requirements for basic body functions, and “starving”, as in your table reservation isn’t ready and it turned into a 2-hour wait at the bar before you could eat lunch.
It does the same thing - conserves fat.
So when you skip breakfast and then have just a small container of yogurt and a piece of string cheese for lunch, your body thinks food is scarce. You are sending a signal to your body that you don’t know where your next food will come from so she better conserve resources.
This is how eating less sends your body into survival mode.
What else sends it into survival mode? Stress.
Constant stress puts a higher demand on your body. And if you’re stressed all the time and not eating enough food or enough healthy food, you probably can’t fulfill that demand.
The crazy thing is that if you’re not eating enough fat, your body also takes it as a signal that fat needs to be conserved and refuses to let it go.
Most women need to eat about 2,000-2,200 calories a day for their bodies to function properly. Most women are not eating anywhere close to that.
This is a generalization and can vary widely based on individual needs including things like activity level and health status. Working with a nutritionist can help you determine what your body needs to meet your goals.
If you’re struggling to lose weight, increasing the number of calories you eat and tweaking the breakdown of carbohydrates, protein, and fat will be a game-changer.
2. You have an “all-or-nothing” mentality.
If something is good, more must be better, right? This seems like a solid plan, especially for our primitive brain that still hasn’t realized it’s 2024.
As humans, we are wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. From an evolutionary perspective, that has served us well.
As a species, we wouldn’t have made it very far if we did not learn that touching fire hurts and stabbing others with a sharp object makes them bleed profusely. So, yes, avoiding pain is a good thing.
But is it a good thing to constantly be seeking pleasure?
Simple answer, no.
Constantly seeking pleasure more often than not, leads to the all-or-nothing mentality. What does this look like in real life:
“If exercising one day is good, then exercising 7 days a week must be better.”
“If drinking coffee gives me energy, then drinking 12 cups of coffee must be better.”
“If eating a bowl of ice cream makes me miss my husband/kids/dog less, then eating the entire pint must be better.”
While each one of those examples isn’t the end of the world, when you add them together, as most of us do, we run into problems. Making these choices day after day really adds up.
But where this all-or-nothing mentality really becomes a problem when it comes to weight loss is that it leads to the thoughts of, “If I can’t go all in, I shouldn’t do it at all.” What does this look like?
“I ate a donut so I might as well eat 6 more.”
“I didn’t go to the gym today, so I’ll just wait until next week to go.”
“I don’t want to give up drinking alcohol, so I won’t hire a health coach.”
This is where excuses are born, my friend!
It’s not true that you have to eat 6 more donuts because you already ate one. You could simply eat the one and go about your day.
It’s not true that missing a day at the gym requires you to miss the next.
And it’s certainly not true that you have to “be healthy” before you hire a health coach.
The need or desire to be perfect is an excuse and is at the heart of all these examples.
What excuses are your brain giving you?
Let’s just decide right now that you don’t need to be perfect to take the next healthy step, whether that’s eating just one donut, going to the gym tomorrow, or simply making a plan to get healthier.
Taking small steps will get you to where you want to go so much faster than living in a world of all or nothing.
3. You are punishing your body for gaining weight.
Let me be really clear right now. Your body is doing exactly what it should be doing. Your body is not the problem.
Your actions are the problem.
I know, tough love. Sorry, not sorry. Time to put on your big girl pants.
Blaming your body for being overweight is an excuse. You are pushing the blame from your actions to the thought that your body is doing something wrong. Yes, sometimes things are going cra-cra in your body. But even in those situations, your body is doing what it’s supposed to do - keep you alive.
What does this look like in real life? Here are a few common thoughts:
“Gaining weight is a part of getting older.”
“My mom gained a lot of weight as she was approaching menopause so I will, too.”
“My thyroid doesn’t work right and it’s making it impossible to lose weight.”
Those are excuses. The sooner you acknowledge that the sooner we can get to work.
If something is wrong with your thyroid, fix it. If you’re having intense menopause symptoms, work on improving them.
Gaining weight is not a “normal” part of aging. We like to blame our hormones for many of the symptoms we experience and chalk it up to just being a woman.
Nope. I’m not buying that. And neither should you.
The mindset shift that can be helpful if you’re punishing your body for gaining weight is to take a few steps back and look at your symptoms objectively. Having a practitioner who can help you do this will make it so much easier.
What trends do you notice? What could be causing the weight gain? What other symptoms are you experiencing? What are you missing?
Another more helpful thought to adopt is, “My body is doing exactly what it should be when I give it these tools.”
Give your body bad tools and it will act accordingly.
If you feel super stressed and guilty after eating something, you are giving your body the tools of stress and guilt.
On the other hand, if you learn to love your food and accept that you might not eat “perfectly” every time, you are giving your body the tools of compassion and grace.
I don’t know about you, but my body responds better to compassion and grace.
Recently, I was talking to my trainer about this. I felt like if I ate one thing “off plan”, I would gain 5 pounds. Yes, that was actually what was happening. Can you guess why? Because I was so hyper-focused on trying to eat perfectly I stressed out my body. You know what doesn’t go well with chips? An extra shot of cortisol from all that stress.
And his advice to me? To chill the f*ck out when I eat. 😳
So I did. And I stopped gaining and losing the same 5 pounds. We all need help sometimes. What’s obvious to others isn’t always obvious to us. That’s why you’re here, my friend. I see you. And I’m here to help.
Getting to the BOTTOM of all the nutrition info out there is overwhelming! 📑Figuring out which foods are best for our digestive health is hard to, well, digest. Can I get a kale yeah!?
That’s why I’ve created a FREE cheat sheet with the Top 10 Digestive Superfoods! 👊