The BEST KEPT Weight Loss Secrets
I work with women, from all walks of life, mostly women in or nearing perimenopause/menopause or mid-life, in their late 30’s, 40’s and beyond. They want to take better care of themselves, manage their weight, have more energy and feel better in their body as they age.
When these women come to me, they feel confused and overwhelmed with all the conflicting nutrition and wellness information and advice out there, and they are struggling to make any of it work for them.
For years, they’ve used the same strategy to shed a few pounds—eat less and move more. While it’s worked in the past, albeit for a short period of time, it’s not working so much anymore—especially as hormonal changes in midlife begin to affect everything from their digestion to their ability to manage cravings and more.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
The BEST KEPT weight loss secret that the diet industry doesn’t want you to know.
Traditional dieting to achieve intentional weight loss almost always results in unwanted and unintentional weight regain, especially during the midlife transition from perimenopause to menopause, as your hormones, fat storage and distribution, body composition and body shape change.
Eat less, move more may “work” temporarily in your teens, 20’s and parts of your 30’s, but it’s certainly not going to work long term or as you near/enter your 40’s and you experience the biological changes that come with hormone fluctuations and decline.
Here's why:
Weight loss requires a calorie deficit, meaning you have to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight.
The formula for weight loss looks something like this:
IF calories in < calories out THEN calorie deficit
While this is seemingly simple, and scientifically correct, it’s not so straightforward in real life.
Most diets and programs will tell you to eat less and move more to achieve this caloric deficit and ultimately your weight loss goals and while it might work in your teens, 20's and the early part of your 30's and may even work for some of you in your late 30’s and early 40's it's almost always a short term fix.
It’s also not a guarantee and may not work for you at all.
Why Diets and Caloric Deficits Don’t always work
Apart from the fact that calorie deficit can be really difficult to achieve and sustain long enough to see actual result on the scale, there are so many reasons why a diet or caloric deficit approach to weight loss may not work for you.
Let’s break these down into two categories. Energy in vs Energy Out.
ENERGY IN
Not all the calories you eat are absorbed 100%, especially when hormones are fluctuating and affecting digestion and absorption.
The amount of calories you absorb is not equal to the amount of calories you consume. This depends on how the food is processed or cooked, your digestive capacity and the fiber content of the foods you eat.
For example, soluble fiber forms a gel in the intestinal tract, slows absorption of digested protein, carbohydrate, and fat into the bloodstream and prevents some calories from being absorbed altogether.
Nutrition labels can be off by up to 20%
This means that something may say it’s 100 calories per serving but it can be anywhere from 80 to 120 calories per serving. This variance can add up to a lot of calories when you consider everything you eat in a day. Nutrition label inaccuracies make it really hard to track your calories accurately, especially if you’re navigating perimenopause and dealing with absorption issues due to hormone shifts.
ENERGY OUT
The energy you burn depends on many variables that are not 100% controlled by you including:
Resting metabolic rate (RMR) is the amount of energy your body uses at rest and to support bodily functions. This represents 60 - 75% of the calories you burn and is influenced by your lean muscle mass, age, gender, climate and genetics.
The thermic effect of food (TEF) is the amount of energy it takes for your body to digest, absorb, and metabolise the food you eat.
Did you know that about 10% of the calories you eat are burned by TEF. Protein is the most thermic macronutrient, which means it burns more calories than carbohydrates and fat. Approximately 25-30% of the calories you consume from protein us used for digestion and metabolism compared to 5-15% from Carbohydrates and 0-5% for fats.
The thermic effect of physical activity (TEPA) is the amount of energy burned during all physical activity and accounts for 15 - 30% of energy expenditure. It can be further divided into exercise activity thermogenesis (EAT) and non exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). EAT is calories expended during planned and structured exercise while NEAT is energy burned maintaining and changing posture (laying, standing, walking, stair climbing, spontaneous muscle contraction, fidgeting, cleaning), singing, and other activities we do daily. How much we burn during EAT and NEAT varies widely from one person to the next and is almost impossible to measure accurately outside of a laboratory environment.
So realistically, the formula for weight loss looks more like this:
IF {calories consumed +/-20% - calories not absorbed} < estimated calories burned through {RMR + TEF + TEPA (EAT + NEAT)} THEN calorie deficit THEN weight loss (or not)
While I can’t argue with the basic laws of thermodynamics, I think we can all agree that relying on this formula has many drawbacks, challenges and limitations:
Accuracy - Tracking all of these things with 100% accuracy is nearly impossible outside of a laboratory environment. While there are on-line calculators for most of these things, their accuracy is questionable and at best, serve as a guideline which may be sufficient for some people and not others.
Quality - It doesn't consider the quality of the calories you eat and their impact on health - the reality is that not all calories were created equal. While energetically speaking 100 calories of jelly beans is the same as 100 calories of strawberries, the nutritional quality of strawberries (dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals) far out weighs that of jelly beans (pure sugar). There will also be more volume in the 100 calories of strawberries which means they will be more satiating.
Control - Not all of these things are within your control. Your age, genetics, upbringing, climate and underlying health conditions all have an impact on how much energy you absorb and expend.
Sustainability - the amount of hypervigilance and the minutiae required to track all of this is unsustainable for most people and may perpetuate disorder behaviours around food and exercise, especially for those with a history of disordered eat habits or eating disorders.
Why Calorie Deficit Diets Only Work Short Term
As we’ve learned so far, according to the basic laws of thermodynamics, body weight is all about energy balance. So long as energy in / out are balanced, weight is maintained. When the scale tips in one direction vs the other, we have weight gained or lost.
However, as we’ve also learned, this energy balance isn’t 100% within your control.
And even if you are able to achieve weight loss successfully on a diet, it may be difficult to sustain due to metabolic adaptation.
What is metabolic adaptation?
Metabolic adaptation also called adaptive thermogenesis, is a physiological process that helps us survive in times of food scarcity. It’s role is to ensure that we have enough energy to survive and perform essential functions.
It goes hand in hand with weight set point theory which states that your body likes to stay within a specific weight range and that it will work hard to keep you in that range.
In simple terms, when your calorie deficit increases and your weight drops below your weight set point range, your body responds by:
decreasing your energy expenditure (RMR slows down, you subconsciously move less/have less energy for exercise)
increasing hunger hormone (grehlin), which may increase snacking between meals
decreasing satiety hormone (leptin) which may cause you to eat more at meal times
increasing stress hormone (cortisol) which throws off hunger and satiety hormones even more
increasing insulin resistance in response to increased cortisol and causing blood sugar instability and potentially cravings
All of these responses can be heightened by midlife hormonal changes during the perimenopause/menopause transition.
Essentially, you’ll stop losing weight and you’ll likely begin regaining some of the weight lost (sometimes with interest).
Can you change your weight set point range?
While metabolic adaption is a scientifically sound concept, the idea that we have a weight set point range is highly debated in the nutrition and wellness space.
Some believe that weight set point is genetically predetermined, we have no control and it can’t be changed.
Others believe it’s more of a settling point based on social, nutritional and environmental factors.
The reality is that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
While our genetics and age certainly do play a role, so do our epigenetics—our eating habits, behaviours and environment.
You may not be able to change your weight set point range with one extreme short term quick fix caloric deficit, and while you may never have full control over your weight set point range and where you body decides to settle, you have some agency over your choices and you may be able to lower your weight set point range over time by changing your habits, behaviours and manipulating your environment positively and in your favour.
So, How do you lose weight then? Can you lose weight without a calorie deficit?
And this is the million dollar question now isn’t it? How do you manage your weight, increase your energy and feel better in your body as you age, without dieting and being in a caloric deficit?
Is it even possible?
As I’ve said before, I don’t want to argue with the basics of thermodynamics.
In order to lose weight you MUST be in a caloric deficit.
Inherently, there’s nothing wrong with the concept of eating in a slight caloric deficit. After all, it’s just about energy balance.
That said, achieving said deficit may not be supportive to your health journey if calorie intake is too low and results in nutrient deficiencies, you’re hangry all the time, or if you’re over training to achieve it.
It may also have a negative impact on mental health if you’re not able to see it for what it is, data, and you become hypervigilant about every morsel of food you eat.
If weight loss or weight management are your goal then here’s an alternative to consider that doesn’t require dieting and/or being hypervigilant about the number of calories you eat.
Take Action—Choose to nourish and care for yourself for it’s inherent benefits by focusing on health promoting habits that you CAN control. This includes:
break unsupportive patterns—emotional eating, mindless snacking, skipping meals, under nourishing, over training, under sleeping, over stressing, not having any boundaries especially if you’re experiencing perimenopause symptoms like mood swings and fatigue.
balance your meals with the right mix of macronutrients to improve digestion and blood sugar stability—focus on lean protein (remember it’s the macronutrient that burns the most calories), fiber rich complex carbohydrates like vegetables and fruits, and moderate amounts of healthy fats—this is especially important in midlife and perimenopause when it becomes more important to focus on maximizing nutrient absorption, optimizing digestion, and maintaining lean muscle mass.
eat mindfully and intentionally—tune into your hunger and satiety cues, listen to your body and give it what it needs to thrive, focus on nutrient dense whole foods and limit highly refined foods. This allow you to achieve an energy balance that is effortless for you to maintain without having to count or track energy in/out.
move your body intentionally—find physical activity that you enjoy doing so you can move your body intentionally, joyfully and consistently. Focus on a combination of strength training three times per week, walking daily, 150 minutes per week of aerobic activity to get the heart pumping and generally practicing an active lifestyle (aka not being sedentary all day and maximizing your NEAT).
practice self-care—improve your sleep hygiene and support your mental and emotional health and well-being by actively managing stress and setting boundaries to protect your energy.
shift your mindset - set yourself up for success by curating your environment to reduce reliance on willpower and make it easy to make health supporting choices while being kind and compassionate with yourself.
get regular medical check ups—monitor your health and understand how your body is changing biologically.
Acceptance - Acknowledge and accept that:
the number on the scale will never be 100% within your control, even if you practice all of the best health promoting habits. The number on the scale is just a number after all and while it can be good guideline in some cases, it doesn’t account for fluctuations due to water retention, fat loss or muscle gain. If your retaining fluids, you may see the number rise overnight but that certainly doesn’t mean you’ve gained fat overnight. You may not see a change on the scale at all due to muscle gain, but you may look and be more lean.
you may never weigh what you want to weigh or what society wants you to weigh because of your genetic pre-dispositions. The reality is, it will be easier for some women to achieve a certain weight and body composition than it will be for others due to genetics, age and upbringing (eating and lifestyle habits since childhood).
it’s normal for your body size and shape to change through the ages and stages of life, and that’s ok.
the amount of sacrifice you have to make to achieve an ideal body standard may come at the risk of your mental health and may impact you quality of life. Ask yourself if it’s worth it and why you’re so fixated on it on it in the first place.
you're more than a number on a scale and you deserve to prioritize your nutrition and self-care and feel good in your body regardless of what that number says. Your health and wellbeing, physical, mental and emotional, matter way more than a number.
Remember that showing up for yourself from a place of self-love, respect and compassion and practicing health promoting behaviours for their inherent benefits will increase the likelihood of a change on the scale if that’s what your body needs and will help you feel your very best regardless of what happens when you step on the scale.
As an added bonus, the better you feel, the more confident you become, the happier you are, the more pleasant you are to be around and the better you look to yourself and ultimately to others.
The Bottom Line
While energy balance is important for weight management, how you achieve that balance is important, especially as your hormones shift and your body changes through your perimenopause and menopause transition.
Ultimately, holistic self-care isn’t a nice to have, it’s a must have. It’s essential to thriving in your 30’s, 40’s and beyond, regardless of your weight management goals.
