Episode 171: How Do I Know I'll Get Results?

You're eating healthy. You're exercising. You're doing everything you've been told to do... so why does the scale keep going up? In this episode, we uncover what's really happening in menopause and the two things your body actually needs to start seeing results. 

Check out my (free) workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond right here: www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong Episode 171: How Do I Know I'll Get Results?


Speaker 1  0:00  
Here's what's going on in your body. Here's why what you're doing is not working. Here are the two capital M musts for overall health and weight loss and menopause. I've been doing this a very long time. I personally have been in this industry for over a decade. Mind strong has been around for almost a decade. I have helped close to 8000 women in a perian postmenopausal body. I've seen the data, I've seen the stats. Number one is you must heal your metabolism, which means get it better at burning calories. The vast majority of women that we work with are already doing all those right things. They're eating less, they're moving more, they're eating healthy, they're cutting out junk food, they're eating organic foods, they're eating clean, whatever the case may be. Any combination of that doesn't have to be perfect, but they're doing all the right things the majority of the time. And not only are they not losing weight, but things are going in the wrong direction. And the answer is, if you are already eating low calorie and not losing weight, continuing to cut calories is making the problem worse. It is digging the hole deeper. If you are already eating low calorie and not losing weight, this is an A or B conversation. I try not to be a black or white person. This is a black or white conversation. You are either going to go on a drug, like a GLP one. I have past episodes about this. I zero out of everything recommend. You are not just losing fat, you're losing bone density and lean muscle mass, which we already lose naturally in menopause. I do not recommend a drug, it's an option. The only other option, if you're not going to go on a drug, is to do what we call healing your metabolism. We have to get your metabolism better at burning calories, so that these are the most important two sentence, two words in the sentence, so that the old rules of eat less, move more, go back to working once you have a healed metabolism. Eat less, move more does work, but whenever every 2030 year old trainer on Instagram is screaming at you, if you're not losing weight, you're not eating less, moving more, that is true with a healthy metabolism, and the vast majority of women in menopause are already eating less, moving more, not losing weight. Cutting calories is digging the hole deeper. We capital M must get your metabolism better at burning calories, meaning raise it to a new, higher maintenance, so that the old rules would be less, move more, go back to working. That's number one. I said there are two parts. That's number one. We capital M must heal your metabolism. Thing number two, that every single peri or postmenopausal woman must do if you want to be healthy and lose weight. Again, whether it's with us or anyone else, this is the answer. Here's your silver platter. Part one is heal your metabolism. Part two is tackle what we call the big three. Here's what that means. Over 41, of the things that naturally happens biologically is that our estrogen starts to naturally drop. Estrogen has a tremendous number of roles in the body. Number one, it helps with cortisol control. So, what happens over 40 is, as our estrogen naturally drops, our cortisol naturally rises. Number two, one of estrogen's other roles is to fight against inflammation, so as our estrogen drops, our inflammation naturally rises. And number three, in menopause, there's a natural shift in our gut microbiome. This can have a host of issues, brain fog, anxiety, digestion issues, bloat, vitamin absorptions, nutrient absorption. All of this happens from a very natural shift in our gut health. If we don't actively work to fix it, in our world we call cortisol, inflammation, and gut health the big three. You will not, you cannot get healthy or lose weight in a menopausal body without tackling those big three, because weight loss with spiked cortisol is impossible, weight loss with high inflammation is impossible, weight loss with an unhealthy gut is impossible. You absolutely, capital M, must tackle the big three to be healthy and lose weight in menopause. If you're paying attention right now, I hope your brain is exploding. You're throwing your hands in the air, you're saying hallelujah.

Speaker 1  4:06  
Because so many women feel gaslit, they feel like, as I said, they're screaming into their bed. I am doing everything right. Why is nothing working? Here's your silver platter. Here is the answer. Because if you do not heal your metabolism, if you do not tackle the big three, you will not be healthy and lose weight in menopause. That's it. That's the answer. Those two things, I don't. However, you do it, you have to do it if you want to be healthy and lose weight. Real quickly, before we keep going, in this episode we are talking a lot about metabolisms in menopause. In today's episode, so I want to offer you a chance to deepen your knowledge, if you haven't yet checked out my free workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond, it is one of my go-to favorite pieces of content that I have out here in the interwebs. You can use the link in the show notes below, or go to Mindstrong fitness.com and you'll get a cute little pop-up that'll get you straight into. The workshop. Now, let's get back to the show. Now, here's the good news: you do not need drugs to do that at all. We can do it using nutrition alone. So, let me separate the two things again. Let's go back to healing your metabolism. If we are already eating low calorie, and by the way, a lot of women are shocked at what the definition of low calorie is because we live in a 1200 calorie society. The textbook definition of low calorie is under 1200 calories a day. Oh, sorry, under 1600 calories a day. In our world, what we have seen is if you're eating under 1800 calories a day and not losing weight, you also need a mini, tiny mini healing stage. But textbook will just say, call it 1700 okay? Just as a middle ground for ease of conversation in our world, we really say under 18. If you are eating low calorie and not losing weight, you have to heal your metabolism. Now, what we're not going to do is what I call the seafood diet. We're not going to say, 'Oh, I see food, Rachel said I need to eat more, I shove it into my mouth, now I'm bloated, now I gain weight, blah blah blah. What we capital M must do is meet your body where it is, and slowly, slowly, slowly train your body to be better at burning calories. Train it for a new, higher maintenance. Let me explain exactly what that means. There are so many women who come to us eating 500 calories a day and gaining weight, and that sounds bananas, right? The question is, how in the world is that possible to be eating that low calorie and gaining weight? And the answer is, their body thinks 500 calories is maintenance. They, our bodies are always looking for homeostasis, we call that maintenance. It means the balance of calories in versus calories out. So all all those years ago, as we were cutting, cutting, cutting calories, because of diet culture, whatever that looked like for us, every time we went low calorie and stayed there, our body said, "Huh, this must be my new homeostasis, this must be my new maintenance. Now, here's the good news: we can accomplish both of these things. We can tackle the big three, and we can heal your metabolism using nutrition alone. So, I want to separate these conversations and explain how it works for each of them. Let's start with healing your metabolism. Okay, here's my favorite analogy. Our bodies are always looking for what we call homeostasis, our natural resting comfort zone, my favorite analogy of this is sweating. If I were to go for a run, and if you know me, I hate cardio, so if I'm running, someone is chasing me, but nonetheless, if I go for a run, my body produces sweat. Why? Because I have a natural homeostasis, a natural rest and comfort zone when it comes to my body temperature. If I go above that, my body's job is to get me back to homeostasis to its natural resting temperature, which it does via sweat to cool me down. The same is true of calories in versus calories out.

Speaker 1  7:50  
What nobody told us in our 30s is that every time you cut calories and stayed there, our body said, huh, this must be her new homeostasis. This must be her new natural rest and comfort zone. In our world, we call that maintenance. So, we went to 1500 we went to 1200 we went to 1000 and every time our body said, oh, this is her new maintenance at an adjusted, it adjusted. It is a true story that we have seen so many women come to us eating 500 calories a day and gaining weight, and the question we get is, How is it possible to be eating that low calorie and gaining? And the answer is, because your body thinks 500 calories is maintenance, and if you go above maintenance, you gain weight. Now, here's what I do not suggest you do, and there are coaches out here who will have you do this? I don't recommend it. We have had women come to us who say, I went to a coach, I was eating 1000 calories a day, they understood I needed to eat more. That's great. Not a lot of coaches know that. I've seen tons of coaches who are like, you're eating 1000 go eat 500 run, don't walk, and you know how I feel about cardio. Do not do that. It's digging the hole deeper, and I've also seen people are like, they told me, all right, I'm eating 1000 I need to eat more, so they told me to eat 1500 the next week we went to 1800 the next week we went to 2000 and my question is, conversation typically goes like this, let me guess, you gained like 15 pounds, and they laugh in my face and say, I wish I gained like 25 pounds, and the answer is, of course, you did, because your body doesn't know how to keep up with that many calories when done what I call capital C correctly. We need to meet your body where it is. One of our favorite expressions in the world of Mindstrong is that our body's always talking to us, and what we're trained to do is to listen and respond, so your body is going to give us really clear signs that your metabolism is coming back online through hunger, hunger is a huge one, energy, sleep, inflammation. There's a million signs, there's a million words, so to speak, your body's using to speak to us, and as it tells us, "Hey, green light, I'm feeling good, I'm coming back online, we start. You slowly take your body through a healing stage in the name of a new, higher maintenance, so that there's the most important two words, the old rules of eat less, move more, go back to working. You don't need drugs for that, you don't need pills for that, you don't need injections using nutrition alone when it comes to the big three: cortisol, inflammation, gut health, because you cannot lose weight or be healthy in a menopausal body without both, without healing your metabolism, without tackling the big three, we can tackle all of those: cortisol, gut health, inflammation, using nutrition alone, without pills, without shakes, without supplements. The way we tackle them is very specific to the individual, just like a healing stage. There is no one size fits all. The first thing we do with our members is we go through what we call a symptom checklist. A lot of times people think menopause, they think hot flashes and night sweats. There are hundreds. The last study I saw said there are 160 menopausal symptoms. If we were to tackle them one by one by one, we would get into a paralysis by analysis. We would never start. Instead, what we do is something called symptom grouping, meaning for your personal menopausal body, because yours is very different than your best friend's, is very different than our coworker. What is the lowest hanging fruit? If we see in your symptom grouping that cortisol is your heaviest hitter, of course, we're still going to tackle inflammation and gut health, but you and I both know weight loss can take some time in menopause, especially if we're doing a healing stage. So, let's get results straight out of the gate by tackling the heaviest hitter, the big three, for you.

Speaker 1  11:31  
So, we're going to learn how to use nutrition to get our cortisol under control. Then, of course, we'll go on to inflammation and gut health, but here's the best part: the big three go hand in hand, they bleed into each other. So, as we tackle cortisol, our inflammation starts to get better. As we tackle inflammation, our gut health starts to get better. As we tackle gut health, our inflammation gets better. They all bleed into each other. So, the name of the game is, what's the lowest hanging fruit for you to get results the fastest? Because humans are pleasure-seeking creatures, right? We want to feel better straight out of the gate, so we keep going, and then as we tackle all the big three, they're going to bleed into each other. The most important thing I can say to you is this: I just see, you know, the word I always come back to is hope, and it sounds so cheesy, but it is so true. When people ask me, why do you only work in the field of peri and post menopause. This is the word I come back to, because I have heard more times than I can count, Rachel, I'm doing everything right. Not only is it not working, the problems give up getting worse. I give up trying, I give up hope, and the thing I want to shout from the rooftops and tell every menopausal woman is, you are not broken. It is true that the tool bag for health, the tool bag for weight loss from our 20s, 30s, early 40s, it does not work anymore. We are not living in the same body. We are living in a body where our estrogen has dropped, our cortisol spike, our inflammation spiked, our gut health shifts. It is not the same body, and that doesn't mean all hope is lost. It means we need the new tool bag for this menopausal body. With that new tool bag, the good news, the best news is you do not need supplements, you do not need injections, you do not need pills. We need proper nutrition for this menopausal body. And here's the answer. Here's why we feel gas lit. Here's why we feel stuck. We need to use nutrition to do these two things: heal your metabolism, meaning get it better at burning calories, so that the old rules of eat less, move more, go back to working, and tackle the big three: cortisol, inflammation, gut health. I have seen more women than I can tell you about 10 years of doing this go from 500 calories a day, 1000 calories, 1200 calories a day, wherever they're starting to a healed metabolism on absolute fire, more energy, better sleep in the best shape of their life in a menopausal body. It is 100% possible. It takes proper nutrition, and it must, capital M, must be personalized. Cookie cutter doesn't work anywhere, especially in a menopausal body. There is hope, I promise you. I've seen it more times than I count. I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring it back to my opening statement. One of the reasons I always say math is going to math and science is going to science is when you check the boxes, when you heal your metabolism, when you get the big three under control, it would be physically impossible for your body not to respond. How quickly it responds is going to be a very different journey for every person. Anyone who tells you you will accomplish x and y amount of time, run, don't walk, they're pulling it out of their rear end, they're bssing you. It is impossible to say how long it's going to take for your personal body. We need a lot more information of what's going on under the surface, and if you came to me and said, Rachel, how do I know that two plus two is always going to equal four? My answer is, because math is always going to math, it's a non-negotiable in our world, we say science is going to science or. Biology is going to biology, because with a metabolism that's good at burning calories, and with a body where cortisol, inflammation, and gut health are in check, it would be scientifically biologically impossible for your body not to respond,

Unknown Speaker  15:14  
so

Transcribed by https://otter.ai