No one likes to be overweight.
And I acknowledge it’s hard to maintain a natural, healthy body weight with the nine million mixed messages from diet culture.
Just as you’ve adopted the latest weight loss system, a new one pops up! You think it must be better than the one you’re on, so you hit the buy button, order all the supplements, Instacart the recommended foods, and get ready to lose massive amounts of weight as it promised you would….only it doesn’t work. Or it works for a hot second, but then your weight stalls or you gain it all back plus some.
Once again you find yourself confused, disappointed, and bitter.
It’s a trap, ladies.
Diet culture knows how to push your buttons to get you to buy. They have mastered marketing to your pain and suffering. They know exactly what you want to hear and make promises they can’t keep.
And even worse, they don’t want you to succeed. If you did, they’d no longer make money off you. They need you to fail to keep you as a repeat customer and will happily take your money knowing full well the odds are against you.
I wish I could tell you this isn’t true, but it is.
It’s very rare someone loses weight and keeps it off on a typical weight loss program. If you don’t believe me, just ask the next woman you see. Ask her if she’s ever done a weight loss program that has taught her how to lose weight and maintain it. I’d be shocked if her answer was ‘yes’.
To me, this is morally wrong and one of my passions is to disrupt it through education and empowerment.
If you’re trying to change your body composition, here are three sustainable ways to do so.
- Exercise:
Specifically weightlifting. It’s one of the easiest ways to shed weight because you build muscle mass, which increases your resting metabolism. This means you can eat more calories without gaining weight.For men, resting metabolism increased by about 140 calories per day. In women, about 50 calories per day.Weight training also has other important calorie-burning benefits.Specifically, research has shown that you burn more calories in the hours following a weight training session, compared to a cardio workout.In fact, there are reports of resting metabolism staying elevated for up to 38 hours after weight training, while no such increase has been reported with cardio.This means that the calorie-burning benefits of weights aren’t limited to when you are exercising. You may keep burning calories for hours or days afterward.
To lose weight, maintain your current caloric intake, weight train three times a week, and you’ll start seeing results within a few weeks.
- Eat whole foods from the earth:
Our bodies haven’t evolved much over time, yet our food system has. We now have access to thousands of ultra-processed foods that have been carefully designed to activate the addiction center of our brain. There’s an insane amount of money spent on fabricating foods to be the perfect combination of fat and sugar, sight and smell, taste, and flavor to elicit a massive dopamine hit in your brain, leaving you wanting more, and more, and more. It’s a billion-dollar industry and it’s a huge contributor to obesity.Not only does it create a sensory orgasm when you eat it, it increases inflammation in your body, which causes weight gain. Think of it like this. When you sprain your ankle, your body floods the area with water to facilitate healing and the ankle swells.Nearly the same thing happens when you eat ultra-processed foods, only your entire body is flooded with water, cells, and fluids to counter the chemical shitstorm going on. Cue weight gain and most noticeably, your clothes feel tighter. You’re “bigger” overall.I have many clients message me in a panic, saying they gained five pounds overnight…which is impossible by the way. I gently explain they did not gain five pounds of fat; they gained five pounds of fluid, which is very different. I ask them what they ate and have them record it in a journal tracking foods that cause inflammation. Over time, they begin to see a pattern of eating processed foods, or foods identified as allergenic or inflammatory on their Dietary Antigen test, and weight gain. They are then empowered to make the decision to eat it or not and come to peace with the impact it will have the next day.You body is designed to eat whole foods from the earth (grow it, kill it, eat it). It knows how to digest, absorb, and use whole foods. And the beauty is, it has an innate mechanism to know what type of foods it needs, when it’s hungry, and when it’s full. It’s a beautiful system that we have completely ruined over time.Make “real” food a priority by with it being eighty percent of your daily intake. The other twenty percent can be used for processed foods or alcohol. If you’re not shifting your weight with this formula, you can increase it to ninety percent whole foods. And if this isn’t working, then I highly encourage you to dig deeper with testing to determine the health of your gut, identify food allergies, and check your hormonal status. (we can do all of those at Whole Woman Health)
- Breakup with yourself:
You must breakup with your current self that is creating your weight, shape, size, and health. Who you are now is beautiful; and she has some work to do…we all do!The most successful woman in the SHED adopts the beliefs, habits and behaviors of women who do what they say they will, stick to their nutrition plan, move their body with respect, and prioritize their health.They untangle outdated neural pathways and do the hard work of creating new ones.This is not easy, my friends. This is hard work and often needs the support of a coach or therapist to help you through the transition.It’s the path forward.You must be willing to no longer be the women you are to become the woman you want to be.
Exercise, whole foods, and mindset are the three pillars that need to be addressed to change your weight, shape, size, and health.
You can do this, but you’ll need to stop buying into diet culture quick fixes and over-promises.
You must choose to do it differently.
You must be willing to get uncomfortable.
It will take more time than you’d like.
And it will net you freedom from having to diet ever again.
Rachel Leigh
Certified Nutrition Therapist. Board Certified Health Coach. Women’s Health & Hormone Specialist.