Episode 103: Putting all the Stages of Weight Loss Together (5 Part Series: Part V)

We now understand the 3 stages of weight loss…here’s how they all work together in what I call the Weight Loss Cycle (to ensure your metabolism stays healthy for life)!

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Transcript

 | 5 Part Series Part V Healthy Metabolism for L Mon, Aug 04, 2025 11:32AM 11:54 
 | 00:00 Welcome back to the becoming mind strong podcast, and we are wrapping up part five of five in our series, what weight loss actually looks like in menopause. So this episode is designed to put all the puzzle pieces together. If you have not listened to the other parts in this series, I recommend you do it, because this is I've introduced you to each puzzle piece, and now we're going to see what the picture shows to keep this terrible analogy going. So we've talked about big picture, what a weight loss cycle looks like. What I mean when I say weight loss cycle, and from there, we dug into each part of that cycle. We talked about a healing stage, we talked about a maintenance stage. We talked about a weight loss stage in this last episode, what I want to walk you through is what I mean, what it looks like when we talk about keeping your metabolism healthy for the rest of your life. And that's a phrase I use 100 times a day, because, you know, when I talk to people, they're like, there's a million diets out there. There's a million macro coaches out there. What makes you guys different, and my go to story will forever be the same one. You know, I really hesitated to start this company over a decade ago because you you've probably heard me say this in past episodes. I hate being associated with the nutrition industry to this day. I hate being associated with the nutrition industry because it is filled with snake oil salesman promising the world, and if they actually delivered, we wouldn't be here listening to this podcast, right? And what I ultimately decided, as you've heard me talk about in the past, is this industry absolutely does not need another 12 week diet. What it needs is an educator. And my whole spiel, my whole running joke, is, I have the worst sales pitch in the world, because you only need me once. It's like saying to someone, hey, you know how to ride a bike. Try to fall off of it, right when you master the skill of nutrition, you don't need me or anyone else. We hear from members all the time. The only way I could gain the weight back at this point is if I consciously tried. Because once your brain is wired for a skill, you can't unwire it. You you've mastered this skill, and part of the skill that we teach her, yes, it's the skill of nutrition. It's, How do I eat the foods I love while staying within my quote, unquote budget, the right balance for my body. But the the meta skill, the bigger skill, when we zoom out, is not only how do I heal my metabolism, it's, how do I keep it healthy for the rest of my life? So I never have to deal with this again. So in this final part of the series, we're going to zoom out. We're going to talk through this whole cycle in the name of keeping your metabolism healthy for the rest of your life. Check it out. As you heard me say at the end of the last episode, this this episode, the summation of this five part series might sound a little bit redundant, but I think it's important not to beat this analogy to death. You know, I've shown you each puzzle piece in depth. I want to put it together and show you what a cycle looks like, depending on where in this journey you came to, you came into us starting from. So what I want to do in this episode is take a hypothetical member, one that's starting eating more calories than they need, one that's starting eating less calories they need, and talk you through what their journey would look like, not only of what our work together would look like, but most importantly, how to keep their metabolism healthy for life, right? Cuz that's the whole point of this. So let's start with we're going to say Jane Smith comes to us. We look at her five days of tracking, and we see that Jane is eating, let's call it 2500, calories a day, but she's not very active. Okay, hands 

in the air. Hallelujah doesn't feel that way for Jane, but it does for us as coaches, because she doesn't know how tedious a healing stage can be. Jane gets to skip a healing stage and get right into a deficit. So right off the bat, as long as hunger feels okay, we're going to be pretty aggressive. We're going to do a decent cut and start getting Jane lower calorie. Jane's going to start losing weight. At some point, her body's going to say, This is who I am and what I do now. It's it's going to hit a plateau. It's going to stop losing our job is flick it in the bud and say, hey, that's cute. We're not quite done yet. So Jane has a choice. She can either amp up exercise or we can do it with nutrition alone. At that point, we're not going to be as aggressive, but we're going to baby step calories down. What we are absolutely not going to do for Jane is keep cutting gut and gut and cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting calories, because she will become another woman eating 1200 calories a day and not losing weight. Her body will adapt. So we're going to keep Jane in a deficit for 12, maybe 14 weeks, if her body's still responding. And on the other side of that weight loss stage right, it has to be a pop in, pop out. Kind of deal. We're going to get her back to maintenance. As Jane climbs back to maintenance, she has a choice. She can go to just 2000 and stay there, or because her body was already used a little higher calorie, we could keep the baby step going. We could climb her a little higher. The advantage of that is, the next time she gets in a deficit, she doesn't have to go as low. She doesn't have to stay there as long. But the purposes, the purpose of this conversation about Jane Smith, is that if she. 

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Eating more than her body needs. We get to go straight into a deficit. We don't stay there indefinitely. We tweak and adjust to bust through plateaus. We get her back to maintenance until she's ready for her next deficit. That's one end of the spectrum. The more common end of the spectrum in our world. It's not everyone, but it is more common one. We'll call her Susie Smith. Okay, Susie Smith comes to us. She's eating 1200 calories a day. What we are not going to do is jump smooth. Susie Smith to 2000 calories a day. She will peace out before we can even get to work, because she's not hungry, right? She's not coming to us saying, I'm only eating 1200 calories a day, but I'm starving. She's saying, Yeah, but I'm not hungry, right? And she'll absolutely gain weight if we're that aggressive. So we're going to start Susie either right there at 1200 maybe bumper up to 1250 

05:48 

as her hunger comes back online. In our world, we throw a freaking party for hunger. When you come to us and say, I don't know what's happening. Whose body is this? I woke up hungry this morning. Our coaches were throwing a celebration behind the scenes. We're looking at at energy. We're looking at sleep. As her body is responding, we are going to start baby stepping her calories up. Our ideal is 50 calories a week. It doesn't always happen that way. Most times it's not an airplane taken off, smooth, steady journey, right? For a lot of people, it's slower in the beginning, and then as their body starts to trust, it skyrockets, and we get to move a lot faster. We're going to try to if Susie will buckle in and play the game with us, we're going to get her up to 2000 calories. If she refuses, we'll take her minimum 1900 but 2000 is really my ideal, then we're going to stay there. I hate the three week rule. We can go by it if she insists, but I'm going to say minimum a month more if she can handle it. At that point, Susie's at the top of the cycle, right? We're going to stay there again, minimum month, ideally longer, if she's open to it, and then we're back to the weight loss stage. We can be more aggressive with that first cut. 

We can cut her down to, let's say, 1700 because hunger feels okay. Just like Jane Smith, she's going to hit a plateau. We're going to baby step our way down. We can do it through exercise. We can do it through nutrition. What we are not going to do because Susie will hate us and everyone in the world is just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut her calories until she needs another healing stage. The name of the game. If we want to keep our metabolism healthy for life, we have to think of weight loss as pop in, pop out kind of deals. So Susie is going to stay in that deficit for 12 weeks, maybe 14, if her body's still responding, we're going to baby step her way to maintenance. I'm using baby step in air quotes there, because we can go a little faster this time, right? Her body's used to higher calorie now. It's not as scary from a mindset perspective. As long as she feels good, as long as her body's not gaining we can get her back to maintenance faster, just like Jane Smith. I'm trying to keep these names straight in my brain, Susie has a choice. She can either go back to the same 2000 or if she wants to play long ball, which I recommend, maybe we go up to 2100 this time, because now she's going to stay at maintenance for a while, and when she's ready for her next deficit, we don't have to go as low. We don't have to stay there as long she has a metabolism that's more on fire when we start thinking of weight loss as these pop in, pop out cycles. It gets faster, it gets easier, it gets more effective, and it gives our mindset a break. Right? Expectation management. We are not living in the same body that we were in our 20s and 30s, you are not going to get into a deficit one time and lose 50 pounds. And the more we can play long ball, the faster and easier this gets, because we have a metabolism that's more and more on fire. And I get it, it's frustrating. It's not ideal. We all want our 20s back where we can say, I'm just going to, you know, eat a little healthier, maybe go on a run once a week, and my body responds. It's not human biology. It's not we are not living in the same body now that we were then. And we have two options. We can drive ourselves nuts saying, I wish, I wish, I wish, or we can practice radical acceptance and say, Cool, I am not the same person that I was in my 20s. And thank goodness I'm not. I am so much more self confident. I practice so much more self love. Look at this gorgeous life I've built, and with that comes a different body. It's a beautiful body. I may not recognize it right now, right for a lot of women, we've struggled with this our whole life, but for a lot of women, we never had to think about this until menopause, and then it becomes this self identity, thing of like, whose body is this and a conversation we have a lot inside ignite inside. My 12 week program is, how do we learn to stand in our power? How do we learn to love ourselves? How do we learn to stand in that confidence while we're going through a healing stage, right? It's going to take time. We are not going to get our body back overnight. It might take a few cycles. So what we're being tested on right now is look at this gorgeous life you've built. Look at this gorgeous adult you've become. Now, can you stand in your power and love yourself and exude that confidence when you don't feel 100% confidence in your body? That's a big bit of a rabbit hole, but it is an important conversation to have with ourselves, right? You. 

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And the more that we can go into this with expectation management, this is not the same body, and it shouldn't be, and weight loss is not going to work the same way it did in our 20s, and it shouldn't biologically, chemically in our body. It shouldn't work the way, the same way, because it's not the same body. And the more we can come into this with that understanding, with that mindset, the more we're going to set ourselves up for success. So this was a big topic, right? And of course, you know, I was talking big picture about calories and numbers. What I did not get into the weeds about is how much protein, how many grams of carbs, how many grams of fat, because that is so individualized, I would be doing you a disservice if I threw out blanket ranges here. If you need help with next steps, we've got you, no matter where you are in your journey, if you're new to the world of mind strong I as of the time of this recording, I have a 

workshop called How to fire up your metabolism in menopause. That is the starting place I recommend for everyone. I deep dive into a lot of this stuff. Once you've watched that workshop, you have options. If you're someone who's interested in one to one coaching, we always start with a free one to one strategy session. Those are a deep dive. There are 45 minimum 45 minute session, usually about 45 minutes. And my team is all female. They're incredible. We dig deep. Where are you right now? What are your goals look like? We want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we can help you. If we can, of course, we'll talk you through what one to one coaching looks like. So we but we always start with that, that free strategy session to make sure that it's a fit. If you're someone who's just kind of dipping your toe in and you're not ready for coaching yet, you can always send us an email to Team T, E, A, M, at mind strong fitness.com we have a plethora of free resources that we can send you just to kind of dip your toe into this world. Alright. I hope this five part series helped in terms of big picture, what weight loss actually looks like in menopause, it is a big topic, and one that will continue to talk about in the season ahead. I hope you'll buckle in with me and I will see you in the next episode.