Episode 91: Why You're Not Losing Weight (No Matter How Much You Cut Calories!)

We've gone our whole lives being told: "Eat less, move more, lose weight"

Why, then, at 1200, 1000, or even 900 calories a day is your body not releasing the weight?

(Spoiler alert: No, you're not crazy. Yes, your doctor IS wrong for telling you to just keep cutting calories.)

To book in for your (free) 1-1 Strategy Session, visit:
www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong Podcast: Why You're Not Losing Weight (No Matter How Much You Cut Calories!) 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
under eating, diet culture, metabolism healing, post menopause, calorie tracking, weight loss,
quick fixes, long ball, patient muscle, metabolism trust, nutrition education, weight release,
hormone balance, menopause impact, healthy eating

00:00
Welcome back to the becoming mind strong podcast. A while back, I did an episode called
calling all under eaters, and I want to take that topic and be a lot more specific about what's
happening in mind strong, we work with a lot of Peri and post menopausal women. And the
common theme, if I had to give a title to the TED talk of Perry and post menopause, it would be,
what in the actual hell is happening to my body? I am doing all the things I used to do in my
20s and 30s. I'm eating less, I'm moving more, I'm eating healthy, and nothing is freaking
working, and I plan to record a lot more Peri and postmenopausal specific episodes coming up
in this podcast. But for the purposes today, what I really want to dive into is the common theme
that we see more often than not when we're working with Perry and postmenopausal women,
the vast majority of them, not all of them, but I would venture to estimate a solid 80 to 85% of
the Peri and postmenopausal women we work with are not actually overeating. They're under
eating. And that is wildly confusing, right? Because we have grown up in a diet culture that tells
us, the less you eat, the more you lose. And if that were true, any period, post menopausal
woman would not be listening to this podcast, because we'd be like, cool. I've been doing this
for 45, 5060, years. I got it from here, and the proof is in the pudding. That is not how it works,
especially at this stage in life. So today I'm talking specifically, if you are someone who feels
like you're doing everything right? You're eating less. You're moving more, especially if at this
point you feel like potentially, you are under eating. This is for you. If you are familiar with any
of the work that we do at mind strong. You've heard me say before, the first thing we have
every single human do before we can do anything in one to one coaching is we have you eat
the way you normally eat, and pop your food into an app for five days. Now, a lot of times when
I'm talking about that, especially on this podcast, I'm talking about the concept of baby steps
momentum, right? We want to meet your body where it is and slowly work it from where it is to
where it needs to be. For today's purposes, there's another reason that I'm going to really dive
into more about why we need to know what your body's used to. Because when someone
comes to us because their body is not responding, because they've either been dieting their
entire life or they've never had to think about this before, and suddenly they hit perimenopause
and their body has just shut down. All the stuff they used to work is no longer working. There's
lower belly fat. What in the actual hell is happening to my body? Is the name of the TED talk,
right? The common sense one is, well, they're probably overeating. But as I said in the intro, I
would venture to estimate about 85 and that's a conservative estimate. 85% of the Perry and
postmenopausal women that come to us are not overeating, they're under eating. And again,
that is wildly confusing. That is a very tough pill to swallow, right? I get on calls with women, I
tell them, if your body doesn't have enough calories in it, it is not going to release the weight.
And they look at me like I have six heads because, again, we have grown up in a diet culture
that tells us move more, eat less, and the weight will fall off. But if that were true, those 85% of
women in Perry and post menopause that are coming to me eating 1200 calories a day, they
would be skin and bones, right? If you've checked out any of my content, you've heard me talk
about Coach Dory, when, when now? Coach story when, when she was Dory, not coach. Dory,
when she joined Ignite, she was she was eating 900 calories a day, 900 calories post
menopause, post hysterectomy. She called it stuck in her grandma BOD at 900 calories a day.
If it were true that the less you eat, the more you lose, Dory would have been a walking
skeleton, but yet her body wouldn't release the weight. So the only reason I knew what was
happening is because I use this method. Dory came to me way back in the day, the first few
years of mine, strong, and said, Hey, eat as you normally eat. Track your food for five days. And
what I saw was that she was eating 900 calories a day. So I told her, Dory, buckle in for what
I'm about. To tell you, you're not going to like it, but we have to meet your body where it is, and
we have to slowly, slowly, slowly increase your calories. Because this name the stage we're in
right now. The name of the game is that we have to heal your metabolism, and I'm going to
talk about that more in this podcast episode. But just like everyone else, in the seven years
since Dory looked at me like I had six heads and was like, Are you nuts? I came to you to lose
weight, you're sitting here telling me that I have to eat more food. Absolutely not. And I said to
her what I continue to say to people this day, like, What? What? What's the plan? Otherwise,
04:52
like, we're at 900 calories. You
04:54
want to go to 600 calories? If
04:55
900 didn't work? Do you truly believe that 600 It's going to work like, what is Option B So, and I
obviously say it a little sweeter than that, but that was, that was the gist of the conversation.
And the reason that Dory is now called coach Dory is she trusted the process. In the beginning,
she did not trust the process, but she trusted me, and we went super, super slowly so that her
body could not gain weight, which, again, I will talk you through in a few minutes here and on
the other side of it, if you've been on any of my pages of my website, any of my Instagram, you
have seen Dory picture because we love to shout her from the rooftops. She not only lost 35
pounds post menopause, post hysterectomy, but she started eating 1600 calories a day. She
went from 900 calories to 1600 calories a day, and her body shed the weight. And I talk about
Dory a lot, because it changed her life so much that she was like, I need to shout this from the
rooftops. And I was like, same, come be a coach for me. And Dory became one of my first
coaches, years and years ago when I started hiring coaches and stopped doing everything
myself. That's a podcast for another day. And since this day, like to this day into hearing it from
Dory is so powerful, because she's lived it right now when a new member comes in and they've
got that deer in headlights look of I had this call with Rachel, and she told me, I'm going to raise
my calories, and it's petrifying. Now Dory can be like, Yeah, been there, and I'm on the other
side of it, but this is so common that we actually built out a whole page of our website just for
under eaters. And if you go on that page, you will see just testimony, testimony, testimony,
testimony. And most of those testimonies, we've made videos so you can hear firsthand of
these women being like I thought Rachel was absolutely insane, telling me that I was going to
raise my calories. I'm like, I just, I just paid you to help me lose 15 pounds, and now I'm going
to go gain 25 Are you nuts? And on the other side of it, which true for every single one of them,
is that they're eating more food than they ever have, and they've dropped the weight. So let's
talk about why that happens. So if you watched as of the time this recording, I have a 90
minute deep dive training out there called How to fire up your metabolism and balance your
hormones and menopause and beyond. We have a little short and punchy 12 minute version of
that. A lot of my content out there about Peri and post menopause, I talk a lot about getting
your body to trust you, right? I use the analogy, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, and
you're holding tight to every single penny, and I come along and give you 2000 bucks and say,
Here bonus paycheck, spend it however you want. I'll be back next month. It's going to take a
while. You're not going to believe me right away. You're probably still going to hold tight, but
with enough time and consistency, if I keep showing up each month giving you that $2,000 at
some point you're gonna be like, Wow, this, this Rachel chick, is really coming through every
month, $2,000 and you're just gonna start to trust it's coming, and you're gonna spend freely.
I'm going through that quickly because I've talked about it endlessly, and there's lots of
podcasts on that. But a huge part of what happens when we're under eating is, biologically,
your body just doesn't trust you. It doesn't trust that it's having the fuel it needs in a day, so it's
not going to release what it has from a safety survival standpoint. And we can take this
conversation one step further, and that's what I want to do today. Your metabolism, by
definition, your metabolism is how well your body processes calories. That's what a metabolism
is. So if you're eating 1200 1100 1900 calories a day, I would even go as high as 1300 calories
a day. If you are eating around those numbers and your body is not releasing weight, that is a
glaring neon red arrow pointing sign saying your metabolism has left the building, ladies and
gentlemen, if you are eating that few of calories. And let me pause here and give you a little
startling statistic that I find shocking, but it's true that the textbook version, like if you were to
read a nutrition textbook, anything under 1600 calories by definition, is considered low calorie.
So people think a lot of times, people think 1500 calories, oh my gosh, I'm eating so many
calories by textbook definition. And I'm not a big believer in, like, blanket statements like that.
I'm but right now I'm talking very logistically, that is the definition that low calories considered
under 1600 but for the purposes of what we're talking today, I'm going to stick with if you're
1300 calories or under. If you are 13 calories or 100 1300 calories or under, and your body is
not releasing weight, there is there's no debate here. There is nothing open for debate. Science
is science? The math has to math. What we are learning is that your metabolism is not
functioning the way it's supposed to. It is just simply data, right? There's nothing to shame,
blame, guilt ourselves about. There's nothing to freak out about. It's not great news, but it is
what it is. Your metabolism is not currently working as well as we would like it to. That is simple
science, because what your metabolism is is how well your body burns calories you. You're
eating tremendously few calories, and your body's not releasing weight. Now here's the
problem. When women come to me and let's just stick with 1100 because we see a lot of 1100
calorie eaters, women come to me, they're eating 1100 calories, and they say to me, Rachel,
I've got 15 pounds of meat that I cannot get rid of. How do I get rid of it? They're not going to
like my answer, but it's the only answer. I mean, there's, well, no, that's not true. I'm going to
give you two paths you can go down. Number one, go on a drug like ozempic, and I promise
you, six months from now, you are going to be kicking yourself for making that decision,
because the world of health problems that are now coming out. This is a very new drug, and
the studies are just coming out, and they are not looking good. That is the understatement of a
year. This is terrible for your body, unless the purpose of ozempic, by the way, now I'm just
going on a rant. It is a diabetes drug, so what I'm saying right now does not apply to you if you
have diabetes, but if you are using it to get those 10 pounds off of you, Lord Almighty, buckle in
for your future self. Because, number one, the host of problems that are coming out now.
Number two, you have just took, if your metabolism hole, we're going to call it the metabolism
hole.
11:14
If, right now, it is a foot deep.
11:16
You just made it a mile deep.
11:17
When you go on drugs like this and you are trying to trick your body, absolutely it'll be a quick
fix. You will lose those 10 pounds like that overnight and come talk to me in six months.
Because a lot of women are right now, I can't even begin to tell you the amount of calls I'm
having with women who said I went on ozempic. I lost 40 pounds, I gained back 60. And now
it's like, rush job. The pounds are piling on. It's like, yeah, because your metabolism doesn't
know how to function, right? Goes back to what I said a minute ago. Your metabolism is your
body's ability to process calories. When you start tricking it with drugs. You put a blindfold on it,
spun it around 10 times and then told it to go run a marathon. What in the actual heck is
happening? But that is option one, if that's what you want to do. You know my favorite
expression? Do you boo boo Zero out of a billion recommend option two is, we have to play
some long ball. And this is where a lot of people don't like the answer, but I love you too much
not to tell you the truth. If you if you're eating 1100 calories, and you come to me and you say,
Rachel, how do I get these last 15 pounds off me. My answer is you're asking the wrong
question. I did a podcast a little while ago about how long do macros take. And I use an analogy
in there that I love, and I'm going to repeat it here, where, if you come to me and say, Rachel,
how do I invest 10 million but then I look at your bank account, and you got 300 bucks in there.
Same thing you're asking the wrong question. The first question is, how do I get to my first
1000 then we can start talking about investing right? If you're only eating 1100 calories and
your body's not releasing weight, glaring neon sign your metabolism has, I don't want to say
shut down, but it is not looking good. The question we need to ask is, number one, how do I
heal my metabolism? How do I get my metabolism back to doing what it's supposed to be
doing, meaning burning calories. Because when my metabolism is fixed, the weight will come
off right now, the reason that those pounds are not coming off, no matter what you do come
hell or high water, is because your metabolism is not burning calories. Your body is not burning
calories the way it's meant to, when we heal your metabolism, which is very doable. There's a
this step by step process that we take people through, it has to be very personalized and very
specific, and you cannot cookie cutter it, but and when you go through it, it will work when we
heal your metabolism. Well, then it then it's time and consistency. When we get your body used
to processing calories again, of course, the weight is going to drop off. That's the how the
human body is designed. But most people aren't willing to put in a little time to play long ball.
Right? Most people at a point where they're like, I don't recognize my body. I never had to think
about this before. I'm doing everything, I'm cutting calories, I'm eating clean, I'm moving more.
My body's not releasing the weight. Get it off me now, now, now, and I love you, and I try not to
be a black or white person, but on this topic, it is a black or white answer. You're either going to
destroy your metabolism further by going on some kind of drug that's a temporary fix, and
digging the hole a mile deeper, 10 miles deeper. Or number two, you're going to buckle in.
You're going to flex your patient's muscle. You're going to do it for your future self. We're going
to play long ball and say, how about I heal my metabolism first? Because once that's healed,
once my body is back to burning calories the way it's designed to be, then the weights going to
fall off, okay? And in some podcast episodes ahead, I'm going to talk more about why this
happens, specifically in menopause. I mean the quick and dirty answer. You guys know, if
you've hung out here before, in our 20s, we haven't had as many years under our belt of yo yo
dieting. In our 40s, 50s, 60s, we have more years under our belt. And for some people, that's a
very. Distinct statement, right? They're like, Yep, I have yo yo diet in my whole life. For some
people, they're like, I haven't really yo yo dieted though. I've mostly eaten healthy, and you
probably have. But eating healthy is not the same as fueling your body the way it needs to be
fueled, unless you have consciously known and paid attention to giving it the balance of carbs,
fat, protein. Guess what? You have somewhat yo yo dieted. It might not be as extreme, which is
great news, because the healing process is going to be faster than someone who's yo yo dieted
longer. But at the end of the day, unless we have consciously been fueling our bodies with
those correct proportions for years and years, we are now undoing decades upon decades upon
decades of running our metabolism into the ground. And there are more specific menopausal
and postmenopausal things that we'll talk about in podcast episodes today, but
15:48
I don't want to get too in the weeds today,
15:50
but understand that, you know, we're we're raised in a society of quick fixes. And when I tell
people, you're asking the wrong question, the question is, how do I how do I heal my
metabolism first? Because when I do that, the rest is going to come. We don't want to hear
that, right? It's like, well, how
16:07
do I get it off now? And
16:08
my answer is,
16:09
how many years have you destroyed your metabolism? And I don't say that with shame guilt. We
16:14
didn't know, right? If
16:15
there's one thing that that infuriates me, it's that we're not teaching this stuff in school. If we
learned about macros in high school, I would be gladly out of business. Put me out of business,
because we're educating our youth on this, and we're healing generations of trauma when it
comes to weight loss with our bodies, with our nutrition. We need to be teaching this in school,
because the damage starts when we're young, into our 20s, when we're abusing our bodies the
most into our 30s, where we were still kind of abusing but somewhere along the line, kind of
chill out with that, and then our 40s hit and we and we pay the price for it. We have had
decades upon decades upon decades of putting our body through the ringer, and now we're
like, well, give me the quick fix. It doesn't work like that. Again, I'm going to refer back to that
earlier podcast of, how long do macros hate to work. And this is my new favorite analogy, but
17:04
it's also a terrible one. Like,
17:06
you know, if
17:07
your spouse had been cheating on you for five years, and then you go to one therapy session
and they're like, cool, can we get over this now? Like, I would pay money to see the look on
your face of, are you freaking kidding me? And if our metabolisms could talk, that's what they
would be saying to you. Are you're kidding me, right? Because it has been 50 years of not
giving me what I needed of low carb, high carb, low fat, high fat. Insert diet here, whatever that
looks like. And now you're paying attention to this for six weeks, eight weeks, and you want a
magic you want me to just fire up and be okay, like no boo boo buckle in. This is going to take a
little trust and a little work, and it's repairable. We can 1,000% heal your metabolism, if you're
Peri menopausal, if you're postmenopausal, if you've spent decades yo yo dieting. If this is a
new roadblock that you hit in this stage of life. But what we have to understand, if you are
under eating right now, this is not a quick fix. There is no quick fix unless you are willing to do
even more damage. If you're of the mindset of, I don't care, Get it off me and I will pay the
price for it six months from now. Cool. There are tons of options on the market for it. I don't
suggest it, because you're going to kick yourself for it. And there are more women than I can
count doing that right now, and we're not even touching on the the inner health issues that are
coming out now. But if you are an intelligent being who understands that we're in this for the
long haul, that we're here to to not just take care of our health, but conquer this thing, put
ourselves in the driver's seat, then we have to flex that patient's muscle. We have to say, okay,
yeah, I get it. You know, I've spent a lot of time not treating my body then way it needed to be
treated, and that's okay. We all do it, right? That's That's life. We learn and we grow, and
there's going to be a healing process first, before I get to the weight loss process. Now I will
leave you with a bit of good news. It is not black or white. It's not like when you're in this
healing process, and we are slowly, slowly, slowly getting your metabolism used to to eating
more food. It's not like nothing, nothing, nothing. Okay, now it's healed. Now weight loss starts
coming off. There are changes. You're going to start to notice immediately. You're going to
notice your sleep improves. You're going to notice your ability to deal with stress is better.
You're going to notice that your energy skyrockets. You're going to start to notice some
changes in your clothes like this is not zero to 100 there are changes that are going to happen,
but it's expectation management that the question is not, how do I get these 15 pounds off me
in two weeks that the answer is, don't, don't do that. I mean, if you want to do it, but don't do
that. The answer is, how do I heal my metabolism? So I set myself up for success in the long
run. And once I do that holy grail right here, once I do that, this is how I put myself in the dry.
Ever see I conquer the skill of nutrition. I am in complete control of my health, not just talking
about weight loss, I'm talking about cholesterol, blood sugar, energy, all of the above. Conquer
this skill, put myself in the driver's seat and literally never diet again. So if you are a Peri or
postmenopausal woman, and you were listening to this, and you're like, oh my god, Rachel
must be in my brain right now, because she knows what I'm feeling. It's not my first rodeo.
2500 women later, you hear a lot of the same things. And for better or worse, this is what
happens, and it sucks. If I could wave my magic dumbbell, there are two things that I would
change in life. Number one, I would make weight loss a much faster process when done
correctly. I mean World Peace too. So we'll make it three. But on this topic, number two is that
we wouldn't have these symptoms of menopause, but this is how the human body is designed.
These things are supposed to happen. What's not supposed to happen is that we're not
supposed to be driving our metabolism into the ground, and we didn't know any better when
we were younger, but we know a heck of a lot better now. We are strong, independent,
intelligent women, and we know better than to do these quick fix BS things that are doing more
harm than good. So if you need some help, as you know, as of the time this recording, I'm still
doing one to one strategy sessions, reach out to me. We'll jump on a call. We'll talk about what
this process looks like. But for the purposes of this podcast, there is hope. There is hope. There
is hope. There is hope. I can't even tell you how many women I work with that feel like they're
just out of hope because they are doing everything right and nothing is working. And if there is
one thing you hear me say today, it's that there is hope, and we have to heal your metabolism
through a very specific method where we get it used to processing more food in baby steps. So
our body's not freaking out, our minds not freaking out, we are not gaining weight. We're doing
it in a very slow, controlled way. But once we heal that metabolism, that's it. It will be on fire.
You'll be eating more food than you've ever eaten in your life, and that is when the weight
sheds off.