Struggling to lose weight, even though you are working very hard at a diet or diligently exercising? In this episode Couture Coaches Jo and Jess discuss the most common reasons they see for the scale not budging. Listen up to learn: what it takes to lose body fat, why some diets don't produce results, how chaos and stress can keep the scale stuck, and why overly restrictive eating habits usually lead to sabotage!
If your scale isn't budging, now is the time to work with a Couture Coach. We're enrolling for our April Metabolic Makeover Program - it kicks off next week!
Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it. Follow us for more tips, tricks, and support in our private Facebook Group, Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30.
Take our FREE quiz: What's Sabotaging Your Metabolism?
Follow us on Instagram @couture_fitness_coaching
Check at our website and blog.
Grab our free mini course - The REAL Reason you can't lose weight
Want to start boosting your metabolism today? Buy our $79 DIY, self-paced "Master Your Metabolism" course.
Want customized plan for boosting your metabolism? Learn more about our 1:1 coaching
Reserve your spot with a Couture Coach: Buy a 1:1 coaching package
Struggling to lose weight, even though you are working very hard at a diet or diligently exercising? In this episode Couture Coaches Jo and Jess discuss the most common reasons they see for the scale not budging. Listen up to learn: what it takes to lose body fat, why some diets don't produce results, how chaos and stress can keep the scale stuck, and why overly restrictive eating habits usually lead to sabotage!
If your scale isn't budging, now is the time to work with a Couture Coach. We're enrolling for our April Metabolic Makeover Program - it kicks off next week!
Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it. Follow us for more tips, tricks, and support in our private Facebook Group, Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30.
Take our FREE quiz: What's Sabotaging Your Metabolism?
Follow us on Instagram @couture_fitness_coaching
Check at our website and blog.
Grab our free mini course - The REAL Reason you can't lose weight
Want to start boosting your metabolism today? Buy our $79 DIY, self-paced "Master Your Metabolism" course.
Want customized plan for boosting your metabolism? Learn more about our 1:1 coaching
Reserve your spot with a Couture Coach: Buy a 1:1 coaching package
Hi everyone, welcome to the Boost your Metabolism at your age 30 podcast. You've got Joe and Jess on the episode today and we are going to talk about the top three reasons that you can't lose weight. Before we get into that, let me just tell you a little bit about what's going on at Couture Coaching. We are at the tail end of our launch for our April Metabolic Makeover Program. That's our one-on-one coaching program where you get paired with a one-on-one coach who will design a nutrition and fitness plan totally customized to you. You'll get check-ins with your coach. You'll get coaching from all of our coaches along the way in group coaching calls that we have each week and actually a lot more. But if you're interested in working with us in a one-on-one capacity, now, now is the time to act. There are links in our show notes and you can go reserve your spot. 12 weeks, six months and one year packages available. You kind of pick what you're comfortable getting started with. Or you can get on a consult call with us and we'll have a quick consult with you and tell you kind of what we're thinking we might do with you or how we might be able to help you. So links to both of those are in our show notes. So, okay, today we're going to talk, do a deep dive on the top three reasons that we see why clients or most of our clients are women can't lose weight, and it's something we hear a lot from a lot of ladies that, no matter how hard they try everything every diet they've tried, every weight loss attempt they've had or they've tried just does not work and the weight will not budge. So we are going to go over the three things that we see most commonly that make weight loss very difficult for women, and this is from a very practical standpoint, not theoretical. This is what we see as coaches in the trenches with women every day. So we're looking at things very closely, we're designing plans for women and it's what we've observed as coaches.
Speaker 1:So a couple of disclaimers that I want to make before we get into this topic is when we're talking about losing weight, we are talking about losing body fat. We're not just talking about making the number on the scale go down. You can make this number on the scale go down in a variety of ways and lose a bunch of muscle and water. That is not what we would call like real weight loss. Yes, it will make the number on the scale go down, but what we're talking about is a meaningful loss of body fat. That's what will actually improve your body composition, make your clothes look looser. That's the kind of weight loss most people are striving for. So when we're talking about why you can't lose weight, what we're talking about is why you can't lose body fat.
Speaker 1:The second disclaimer that I definitely want to make is that a lot of women think that the only way that they can improve their health is through nutrition and exercises if they are losing weight. So if they are investing in nutrition habits and exercise habits, if the scale isn't moving or they're not losing weight, then nothing is happening and they're not doing anything for their body. This is just not true. If you've listened to us for long enough, you know that you really need to be spending only a very short period of your time actively trying to diet or lose body fat, unless you really want to do a number on your metabolism.
Speaker 1:So you can make other health improvements that don't involve losing body fat, things like building muscle. Building muscle is a different process in your body than losing body fat. You can get stronger, you can improve your cardiovascular health, you can reduce cholesterol, you can improve your blood sugar, you can improve bone density. All of these things don't necessarily involve losing weight, but I think when we hear getting healthy, you know everything translates for most women into weight loss. So we just wanted to make very clear that there are many things that you can focus on beyond weight loss and that are. That's probably a good thing for you to do, and we talk a lot about those things in other episodes, but today what we're talking about in terms of why you can't lose weight relates directly to why you can't lose body fat. So so let's dive into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds great. So, Joe, what's the number one reason someone isn't losing weight?
Speaker 1:Okay, the number one reason is really the number two and the number three reason. It's that you are not in a calorie deficit 99.99999% of the time. This is the true reason you are not losing weight and, like I said, reasons two and three that we're going to talk about are the things that we see that most commonly keep women from being in a calorie deficit. But the only way that your body will tap into body fat reserves is if you are expending more energy than you are taking in. So what I mean by that is you're expending more calories than you are taking in calories and food, and so that will send your body the signal that it's time to tap into body fat reserves, and you have to be doing this. You have to be in this calorie deficit for an extended period of time to send that signal to your body. So this is a simple answer, but I will tell you that getting into and staying in a calorie deficit can be difficult in practice, and there are many nuanced reasons that you might not be able to get into a calorie deficit or you're not in a calorie deficit, and I know a lot of people want to say, oh, calories in, calories out, that doesn't matter. That doesn't work and, frankly, this might even sound a bit contradictory because we are usually saying that women need to eat more, but at the end of the day, losing weight is a very simply a math equation and you must be expending more energy than you are taking in to get your body to lose weight. Like I said, I know this is not a popular answer and you know we talk to a lot of women who just swear up and down that calorie deficits don't work for them. But then when we drill down and say, okay, well, well, how much are you eating? They don't know their caloric intake, they don't know their energy output, and actually even determining your energy output is a little difficult to determine. So it's truly hard to say if they are even in a calorie deficit or consistently in a calorie deficit, to know if it works for them. So, and like I said, constructing or constructing and designing a manageable calorie deficit is a bit of an art and there are many ways to do that. Some are more successful than others. So, like I said, for the most part this is a math equation.
Speaker 1:To lose weight at a rate of a pound of a week, and that For a lot of people, women in particular is they don't even count that as real weight loss. A lot of people want to lose like five pounds a week, but to lose weight at the rate of a pound of a week about a pound of fat, again, not just, you know, pounds, moving on the scale you have to create a 3500 calorie deficit. There's 3500 calories in a pound. So you would have to create a 3500 calorie deficit through nutrition and exercise over a week's time, depending on how much you're exercising. This usually equates to about a 500 calorie deficit a day. I am telling you, if you just slash 500 calories from your diet, unless you're eating a lot, this is a lot of calories and most people are quite hungry when they make this drastic of a change to their calorie intake. That kind of depends on what you're eating before. So this is no small thing. Slashing your calories by 500 calories a day is. You would notice it, you would know you would be very hungry and it's hard to do so that. But that's what is needed to truly be in a calorie deficit of enough to lose a pound a week. So the one thing I want to say about this and this is another disclaimer that we have is that being in a calorie deficit is very different from eating low calorie, and what we mean is that you can be eating very high calorie compared to most people this, of course, is relative and be in a calorie deficit. On the Opposite side of this, you can be eating very low calories I would define that as like 1500 calories or less a day and not be in a calorie deficit, and I'll give an example of what I mean by this.
Speaker 1:So let's take a person who routinely eats 3000 calories a day. If they cut down to 2500 hundred calories a day, that would put them into a calorie deficit and they would probably lose weight pretty easily. They would be Losing weight probably at that one pound a week kind of clip, and that, and that they may not be super hungry on that, because 2500 calories a day is that's relatively high calorie, you know, comparatively speaking. Okay, let's take another person. So they're eating high calorie, yet they're in a calorie deficit compared to what they were eating before.
Speaker 1:So then let's take a person who routinely eats 1300 calories a day and I would say like over for six months or more, that's their caloric intake. This person would not lose weight eating those calories, even though this is a very low calorie diet. It's because you know that's what their body is used to is eating 1300 calories a day. So for this person to lose any meaningful weight, this person would have to cut down to 800 to 900 calories a day to make that 500 calorie a day deficit.
Speaker 1:One proviso here this person's metabolism is probably in a very terrible spot from eating so low calorie for so long and it's going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to get this person into a calorie deficit to lose weight, partly because Cutting down to 800 to 900 calories a day is so unsustainable.
Speaker 1:It's also dangerous and likely would be so stressful on this person's body that it's going to backfire and cause major problems. But what I would say for this person is the main reason they probably can't lose weight is, again, they're not able to get into a calorie deficit because that 800 to 900 calories a day is so low and Probably they are not able to sustain that for a long enough period of time to produce any meaningful weight loss. So those are just some different examples of what a calorie deficit actually looks like, depending on what a person was doing before they decided to try to lose weight. So, jess, now that we've explained the concept of a calorie deficit, what's the number two reason that people can't lose weight? And what we really mean is why they can't Get and stay in a calorie deficit?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the number two reason that we see for people who can't get and stay in a calorie deficit Is that they don't have a plan. So this can really take a variety of shapes and forms. So first they literally have no plan for calibrating their nutrition or exercise together to get them in that consistent calorie deficit. So they may start an exercise routine or cut cars or do something like Whole30. That might initially Get them in a calorie deficit, may or may not, depending on. You know what they were eating before, how much they were eating in that you know kind of plan. So sometimes you do the trick, sometimes they don't. You know they might also have something like an exercise plan but no nutrition and they essentially just eat right through any calories that were burned from exercise. That maybe would have put them in a Deficit. So I fell in that camp before katoor. So I Can definitely talk through that piece.
Speaker 2:You know that could be someone who's doing a fad diet. I think with these we just don't know if it's actually Getting someone into a calorie deficit. Again, it depends on what the diet is. Is it, you know, something that's extreme, that's not sustainable? Is it something that isn't even putting you in a deficit based on where you were before. So you know, that's something I think we see really commonly is that it's just, you know, maybe a sort of plan, but not a very long-term or consistent approach. Another is eating relatively low calories but you're just not making that movement with what would put you actually into a deficit to tap into the fat reserves, so something like that. You can think of somebody that Decided like, hey, I'm just gonna lower my calories. You know, I don't have an exercise routine. You know, generally it's hard to do that by nutrition alone, unless you were maybe in that camp Camp before where you were eating high enough of calories to be able to put yourself in a deficit. But again, that's really hard to determine without having a plan. So we just talked about not having a plan.
Speaker 2:Now let's talk about someone who does have a plan but doesn't have a plan to follow the plan. So think of this kind of has just like a Chaotic Day that chaos rules, rules the day. So this can kind of present itself also in a variety of different ways, excuse me. So one is that you've been given a plan and the plan will work, but you haven't made Any plans to implement this. So I think sometimes what we have seen, and what's actually very common, is you know you have this plan, but you don't realize that you actually have to do the work. So it's a plan that has been based on you know. Here's, you know what would put you in a calorie deficit. Here's a great workout routine that will help support that deficit. But ultimately that kind of like third leg of the stool is now you actually have to do the plan. It can't be the person who wrote it, it can't be a coach, it can't be. You know, it's an app, whatever the circumstances are. So if you have a plan, you need to follow the plan.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Another reason kind of oh, go ahead, I was just going to say it's the cruel irony that just buying the plan doesn't produce the results, sadly.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yes, exactly. So surprise, if you buy the plan, you actually have to stick to it. And when we say stick to it, we're talking like actually stick to the plan of protocols. So if you're kind of following your plan or parts of your plan, you know, I think that's a great place to start. But truly you have to be consistent enough to actually cause some movement. So, for example, like I know, when I'm doing a deficit, I generally like don't see a lot of movement on the scale until at least week five, and that's week five of being very consistent to the plan. Like, is that what I want to see? No, it's kind of a bummer. I'm spending five weeks like being in a deficit, hitting all my you know macros, making sure I'm getting all my workouts in, and I don't see a lot of movement. But that's really what happens. Our bodies just don't change that quickly and you really have to be able to consistently follow your plan as close to it as you can, especially in a deficit, because, like you said earlier, joe, it's not intended to be a long-term part of your life, these deficits. So really want to kind of get in and out of it as quickly as we can. So if you have that plan, it's make sure you're really like adhering to the actual plan, not just kind of half in, half out.
Speaker 2:Another kind of reason that we don't see people following the plan, or they don't have a plan to follow the plan, is that life is just really stressful and it's really hard to implement a plan. So being in a calorie deficit is a stressor on your body. You know. Working out as a stressor, that's those are things that we just have to be really mindful of.
Speaker 2:So when we do have, you know, clients to be in a deficit or lose fat, it's a really good practice and even for people that maybe aren't clients that are listening to this, like, really take a close, look at what's going on in your life, like are you working 80 hours a week? Are you in the midst of a move or a job change or a divorce, or is there something really stressful that's going on in your life? Like, what's your shift at work? Look like, are you able to get adequate sleep? I mean, there's so much that can cause additional stress in our lives already that you know filing on a calorie deficit on top of it sometimes is not the best approach and often just ends up being kind of a waste of time of saying, hey, if you're so stressed out where you can't actually stick to your plan and really implement it due to other stressors, it just might not be the right time. To actually be in a deficit Doesn't mean that you can't be in a different type of plan, but for fat loss specifically, that might not be the right time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So here's what we're not saying abandon all health and nutrition aspirations or abandon all healthy eating and exercise habits. We're just saying switch your goal to something a little bit different than weight loss. You can still be building great nutrition or have really good nutrition and building muscle or really improving cardiovascular or health or something, but just not something as stressful as being in a calorie deficit.
Speaker 1:And I think there's also the phenomenon that if you're, something is going on that's very stressful in your life, there is some hormonal impact to that that could make it hard for your body to kind of recognize those fat loss signals and recognize that calorie deficit. And mostly it's going to be very hard to stay in a calorie deficit when life is. If you're working 80 hours a week, you're in probably need to eat quite a bit of food just to keep up that pace, and so when chaos rules the day, it's very, very hard to maintain that calorie deficit. There's enough other stuff going on that it's very difficult. Okay, does any of this sound familiar to you, jess? Like not having a plan, not implementing the plan that you do have. Does this, any of any of this, sound familiar to you personally, or something that you see in your clients?
Speaker 2:Yeah, both. So, like I mentioned earlier, the exercise plan but no nutrition. That's like right at my alley. Speaking my language, I will always say, like I'm living proof, that you cannot exercise a bad diet.
Speaker 2:I do think, though, especially specifically talking on the nutrition side, that really resonates with me, because I was the person that would like get a plan but then really struggle to implement it Like it would. You know, I get uncomfortable, kind of in the deficit. I would maybe have stress that caused me to maybe emotionally eat things like that. So I think I was either the like I was given a plan and kind of followed it to a little bit of an extent, or I kind of didn't have a plan to actually stick to the plan. So, yeah, I think there are so many aspects of this that I'm like, oh yeah, I definitely did that before I joined Couture.
Speaker 2:I can absolutely relate, I do think, especially with clients, I think we see a lot of this as well. I think the consistency part, specifically, is probably the most common, and how you really just kind of have to adjust your expectations around that. So you know, kind of following your plan, I'm sorry it just doesn't work or it's going to work a lot slower than you expect and I think that's always a surprise for people, or you know, we realize hey, you have been eating really low calorie. Let's make sure we're getting to a spot where we have some runway to actually go into a healthy deficit. So I think these are all really relatable, both personally and what I've seen in our clients.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think what we hear sometimes is you know, we have these weekly calls and we'll get on a call with someone like I just don't know what's, I'm not losing weight, I can't figure out why. So then we'll drill down a little bit and be like well, last weekend got a little crazy. I never even made it to the grocery store. Like, oh okay, well, how are you following your nutrition plan? Well, I'm pretty much like eating out every meal because there's no food in the house and I never made it to the grocery store and I don't know how to count these macros, or I'm not hitting my protein goal. Like that's what we're talking about. Like you know, you, you have to make some time to implement the plan, and that's a real bummer because you could pay a gazillion dollars for the most perfectly strategic plan. If you don't implement it, then it's not going to work. So that is a very hard truth about all of this. If only money could do it alone.
Speaker 1:I mean it can't help but you got to follow the plan so yes, yes, I absolutely agree.
Speaker 2:So, joe, what's then the third reason? People can't lose weight and or get into a calorie deficit?
Speaker 1:So this is probably going to sound a little bit contradictory, but we see it all the time and it's chronic restricting. So, like I said, it probably sounds counterintuitive because we're saying you have to eat less or consume less calories to get your body into a calorie deficit, but ironically, being overly restrictive with your food intake, conversely, or you know, being super overly aggressive with exercise kind of backfire and interfere with all the ways Well, it can interfere just with getting into a calorie deficit. So this presents itself in a variety of different ways, so I'm going to go through those now. Okay, so what we see very often is restricting during the week, so like hyper-restricting during the week, let's say Monday through Thursday and then just YOLO on the weekends. So this puts people into the dreaded calorie roller coaster situation. So typically this person will complain like I just can't lose a pound or I'm losing and gaining the same weight over and over. Worse. Yet some of these people will gain weight because the going crazy on the weekends causes weight gain. Going crazy may not even be eating that much. It's just such. They've been restricting so much during the week that they are definitely in a calorie surplus on the weekends and overall in a calorie surplus. So if you are restricting your food Monday through Thursday, think you're being quote unquote good and sticking to your points or whatever, and then ditching your plan Friday through Sunday, really you're only in a calorie deficit for about half of a week. That's not going to work. You are not sending that consistent signal to your body that it's time to tap into fat reserves. The other thing that the sort of over restricting does is it sets off the restriction binge cycle.
Speaker 1:So what happens to most people is when they are overly restrictive, this will then lead to periods of overeating. This is documented. This is scientific. This happens to a lot of people with eating disorders. It's what a lot of people with eating disorders fear. They won't be able to control themselves around food. The restriction creates a state of what's called hyperphasia, like extreme hunger. So long periods of being super restrictive and not managing stress can lead to bingeing. So sort of moderating that calorie deficit and creating a calorie deficit that you can stick to the entire week is probably a better idea than being overly restrictive half the week so that you can go crazy on the weekends.
Speaker 1:I don't think that people aren't thinking like I'll just be really good Monday through Thursday, I think by the time Friday rolls around, you're so exhausted, you're so depleted, you're so hungry. You've put such a stressor on your body from the restricting that put you in front of some food and you're going to eat it, or the things that happen on weekends, like birthday parties, going out to dinner, like your willpower, your reservable power, is just gone from all the restricting you've done during the week. So we see that very commonly, very, very commonly with women. Another variation of this is periods of extreme restriction, and I'm not talking like eating disorder restriction, but just like an extreme calorie deficit or doing something even extremely restrictive, like keto, where you're cutting out entire food groups. Then, once you've lost the weight, you go off the diet and that's when, kind of the, you just kind of go crazy with whatever you're eating because you've been restrictive for so long and so yeah, kind of along those lines.
Speaker 2:Can I just add something in there? I think that one is something that is so key for anyone listening is that when you're striving to be in that calorie deficit, it shouldn't look significantly different than what you're eating at maintenance. It's reducing maybe some of the portions, maybe making small tweaks along the way, but you should still be having the same types of foods so that when you do come off and out of the deficit, you don't feel like, oh my gosh, now I can do whatever I want. It should be just an easy transition between the various diet phases when it comes to food choices, because this is super, super common.
Speaker 1:Yes, very common. And so what happens is you go off the fad diet or whatever restriction plan you're following and then eat whatever you want because you're so glad to be eating again, or eating carbs again or whatever, and then the weight just comes back on. So usually people that have done this complaint of sort of this boomerang weight gain. They might say, well, I can lose the weight, but I can never keep it off. And usually this is what's going on the diet has put them into a calorie deficit. They maybe have had a little bit of metabolic adaptation from that period of dieting. Then they go back to eating whatever and they put themselves into a calorie surplus and gain weight very easily. So obviously that's very frustrating, but that's something we very typically see. So that's another example where hyperrestricting actually leads to putting you, you know, worse eating that eventually causes weight gain. Okay, another way that chronically or over restricting calories can make getting into a calorie deficit very difficult is this concept of metabolic adaptation. We talk about this all the time. So what's happening here is you've eaten so calorie or been so restrictive for so long, and this can happen intentionally. This can happen just because you don't eat much or you know you don't have time to eat, but you're eating low calorie for a very long time and your metabolism actually adapts to those lower calories. That has to do that to keep you alive. So let's say you are a 15 calorie a day gal I used to be this person and basically what happens? If you do that for an extended period of time? Your metabolism will just adapt its energy output to those low calories. So you'll be burning. You know your body will be burning calories at a lower rate than if you were eating 2000 calories a day. Well, if that person then wants to try and lose some weight, like I talked about earlier, it's going to be very challenging to get into calorie deficit because you're going to have to eat so low calorie that it's going to be very difficult. So you get this person. The 1500 calorie a day person is going to have to drop down to 1000 calories a day or so to lose any weight. Like we talked about before, it's that's not really sustainable and it can be dangerous. Also, it can be so stressful on your body it may slow down your metabolism further and then make it even harder to get into a meaningful calorie deficit. And I will say the minute you come out of that calorie deficit. So let's say you can sustain, or you can get down to 1000 calories a day and sustain that and you lose some weight. The minute you go back to eating more than the 1000 calories you have put your body in such a stressful situation, it is going to, you know, gain weight like crazy, very rapidly when you come back to eating not even a normal amount of calories but like that, 1500 calories. So that is a very terrible, frustrating spot to be. We help a lot of women with this, but that's another reason where chronic calorie restriction can make it very difficult to get into a calorie deficit. But again, I will tell you, the issue of not losing weight is still because you are in a. Your body is not able to get into a calorie deficit.
Speaker 1:Okay, the other thing I will talk about in terms of chronic restricting is kind of this concept that the more you diet, the harder it is to get your body to respond to weight loss attempts. There isn't a lot of science around this. I will just tell you. It's a thing. What happens is your body just adapts very quickly to a calorie deficit. It's like, oh, I know what we're doing here? Because your body honestly doesn't. Depending on how much weight you have to lose, it doesn't want to go into fat stores. That's a protective mechanism for your body, and so it knows exactly what you're doing, I think, and it will just adapt to those low calories very quickly. Then you're not in a calorie deficit any longer. Again, I think this is a protective mechanism. It seems to intensify in women, I think, and men, as we get older. You know it's just not as easy to get your body to lose weight when you get to 50 or 60, but I do think we see that mostly in people who have dieted a lot. Ironically, the answer is not to diet more. The answer is to spend most of your time not in a diet, not trying to lose weight, but following healthy exercise and nutrition habits and really focusing on your overall health Right?
Speaker 1:Last thing, last way that chronic calorie restriction can actually keep you from being in a calorie deficit is something you touched on a little bit when you were talking, jess is that you're eating local but you're not exercising. So eating very low calorie can really zap your energy and make working out and exercising very unappealing, and this is something that you may not realize is happening. You just don't have the energy to get out of bed and go to the gym. And maybe you call yourself lazy, or I think, for when this happens to a lot of people they might think that they're exercising more than they are. But then when you break it down and maybe you start eating more or you get into like a good nutrition space, you're like, oh my gosh, I had no energy. So even though you aren't eating very much, you're not moving very much. So it's kind of like a homeostasis situation. Your body is not, you're not really in a calorie deficit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I said, you're not eating much, but you're also not outputting much energy because maybe you're getting like 1000 steps a day. So that person is going to also, I think, have a very difficult time to get into a calorie deficit. So we'll talk about how to use exercise to kind of amplify a calorie deficit. You can't usually create a calorie deficit by exercise alone, or enough of a calorie deficit, because you would have to work out so much. But you kind of want to pair the two things together and but also, I think, just eating low calorie, just even if you're not exercising, you may just not be moving much, getting much neat and much activity at all, just because you feel lousy. So that's another way that it can really sabotage being in a calorie deficit. Yeah, those are all the ways that, ironically, calorie restriction can keep you from being in a calorie deficit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are all really great. Does any of that sound familiar to you, Joe Pretty?
Speaker 1:much all of it. I was definitely a yo-yo dieter. All of the patterns were true for me the Monday through Thursday restriction or being good, getting back on the diet on Monday, to go crazy on the weekends. And it wouldn't, you wouldn't. I didn't think I was going crazy, but I was just so tired and depleted I just and I wanted to have fun, or I wanted to eat a normal meal with my family or go out to eat, but it was just throwing me into a calorie surplus. So very, very frustrating spot to be in. I honestly had no idea what true consistency looked like or how to get myself through a weekend sticking to a plan, until some coach gave me a reasonable nutrition plan that I could eat and I had good energy and was actually in the realm of reasonableness in terms of calories and nutrition, that I even knew what like consistently following a diet looked like. So all the diets I was trying to do were very restrictive, so definitely also triggering that restrict and binge and restrict cycle.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that we've gone over the three reasons. Just like I said this, it's maybe if, after you've, after you've, listened to this, you realize it isn't so simple like in terms of there can be a lot of ways that you can sabotage a calorie deficit. It is a simple concept, I mean, like you have to be expending more energy than you're eating, so and then I think actually designing a calorie deficit can be somewhat artful, at least one that works and you can stick to for a long period of time. This can be difficult and tricky. Jess, what's your best advice for kind of designing a calorie deficit or getting yourself into a calorie deficit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's. That's a good question. Like you said, I think the concept is simple, but there are definitely some different strategies and I think the most complex part is really putting it together into an effective strategy that works. So a couple of pieces of advice that I would provide at first is know where you're starting. So track your calories for a while to know what your baseline is. And when we say track your calories, that's being like really precise. You know, invest in a food scale. They're not super expensive, you can get them on Amazon. Measure in grams versus tablespoons and cops. Really put that under a microscope so you can really see how much you're consuming throughout the course of the day. And really at this point it's. It's not even making any changes, it's just give yourself a baseline so you at least know where you are and how much you are consuming every day.
Speaker 2:Second is to try to diet on as high of calories as possible. You know you're going to eventually, you know, potentially plateau and have to continue to cut calories. So in your early example, joe, when you have been chronically eating low calorie, that really doesn't give you much runway. So once you have an idea of where you are and how much you've been eating. That will give you an idea of hey, do I have runway to start to kind of slowly put myself into a deficit and continue to be able to reduce calories, or do you need to spend some time bringing those calories up to a more sustainable maintenance level for a period of time until you can cut? You know there are some. You know online calculators that can at least give you a rough idea of potentially where to start. I think those are always a good idea for someone who really has no idea. You know how many calories they should be consuming. You know hey, I've tracked it what is my baseline is a source should be. So that's a good place to start to at least kind of get some semblance of an idea. It's not a like perfect science. It can at least give you, like I said, that starting point.
Speaker 2:Also, make sure that a good portion of your deficit calories is made up of protein. This alone is going to make it a lot easier to actually stick to deficit. So protein is satiating. It stabilizes blood sugar. It also takes more calories to digest protein. So that's where we get that bit of an extra burn through the thermic effect of food is by having a lot of our deficit calories come from protein. As we know, protein also helps support and build lean muscle mass, which that's also something we want to ensure that we're trying to protect throughout the course of the deficit. And then, along those same lines, using exercise to help create the deficit or amplify the deficit. So this can be in the form of your strength training, which would be, you know, helping to build muscle, even though when we are strengthening, we're not necessarily trying to shrink our body but we are burning calories.
Speaker 2:This is also where you can use cardio as a strategy to bring yourself into a further deficit. When I say cardio for your deficit, that's not like doing cardio every single day. That's being strategic around. You know how much to add in and when, so that you can sustainably stick to your deficit numbers, have enough energy to get through the course of the day, having enough energy to get through your training. So being really strategic around how much additional exercise to add in also in that bucket is any neat. So steps, 8000 steps, 10,000 steps, you know whatever that step goal is, any additional movement throughout the day will amplify that deficit that you're in.
Speaker 2:Also, I'd highly recommend considering hiring a coach.
Speaker 2:So, as we're talking about, like, these are all simple concepts but each of these is going to be very specific to the individual, like having an idea of you know how aggressive of a deficit to start in, what even your baseline is, to have an idea of what number is even maintenance, so we can start cutting calories and not go too low. You know what's a smart training program how much cardio, when to implement, how many steps, things like that. So I think someone who knows what they're doing can make this whole process much easier and also help troubleshoot either why you might not be a calorie deficit or troubleshoot why we might see a plateau, or really just have that extra objective eye to say, okay, let's really look at everything that's going on, let's see how your body's responding and the coach can make that decision on making any changes to the plan. It kind of takes that burden off of you. So those are kind of my pieces of best advice for getting and sticking to a calorie deficit and having a successful fat loss phase.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really, really good advice. I echo all of that. So, on the last point, we do have spots open in our one-on-one coaching program. It kicks off next week for our next quarter and really this is exactly what we do for our clients. We strategically create the calorie deficit for you If, looking at everything, we think that your body would respond to a calorie deficit and it's a good time for you to focus on fat loss. If that's not the case, we'll get you to a point where we think your body would be responsive if that's your goal. So we will do all of the footwork for you in terms of figuring out what the best plan is for you.
Speaker 1:I honestly think executing the plan can take so much energy. I can't. If you have never done this before. I can't imagine trying to research all of this, create the plan for yourself and then execute it as well. It can get very overwhelming. You'll be second-guessing yourself the whole time around. I believe me, I've done this, tried to do this before, I had coaching and was a coach and your brain can just start spinning. So you basically give us some information, we tell you exactly what to do. Then, once you have your plan, we will be checking in with you, give you some external accountability, help you troubleshoot any obstacles that come up so you can actually implement your plan.
Speaker 1:I think this is where we shine, is you know? I know I've helped clients who are like I just can't do this, joe, or I just can't figure out, blah, blah, blah. I'll be like I want you to make this a little tweak or I want you to try this. I was just working with a client a week ago. She's like I just can't get the cardio in. I said, okay, this is what we're going to do. So I switched up her weightlifting so that she was spending the exact same amount of time in the gym. But you know, we just kind of changed some things. So we're really really good at that helping you fit this into your lifestyle so you can implement it and have success.
Speaker 1:And the truth is, this really is a long-term investment. You know, neither of us knew what we were doing before we hired a coach, and dieting and being in a calorie deficit is really a skill. It's something you can learn and get better and better at. So I think, if you just consider coaching as an amazing investment in your health and that you're going to gain knowledge and skills through the process that you know. Number one you can get your body to a healthy spot, you can get off the diets for good and you'll learn a lot along the way and eventually be able to fire your coach. That that's a great spot to be in. So we definitely have spots open. If you have any questions, for sure, book a consult, call and we will, you know, talk through kind of what our strategy might be with you. But our main message is that all hope is not lost, even if you think that calorie deficits and the you know, calories in, calories out does not work for your body. Most of the time calorie deficits do work if done right and if, for some reason, there's something else going on. Honestly, to get to that point you have to actually we have to employ the calorie deficit to figure out if there is something else weird going on with your body. So it's kind of like you can't skip it and so, like I said, you, they can work if they are done right.
Speaker 1:I have a client who had been trying for several years to lose weight doing jazz or size and eating less kind of the whole, eat less, move more and could not lose a single pound. She was beyond frustrated and just was sure there was something wrong. She hired us. I re-engineered her nutrition. She, honestly, was eating a lot more in terms of quantity of food. The quality of nutrition was a little bit different. So I got her into a good, sustainable calorie deficit. But she didn't perceive that she was eating less, because she was eating more throughout the day and it was much more satiating food. But I got her in a calorie deficit that was doable, that she could adhere to. That made her body feel good. She had a lot of energy. I tweaked her exercise a bit and she lost 25 pounds of body fat in a year.
Speaker 1:She came to us looking to lose five pounds and had been trying to lose a pound for over seven years. So you know, the calorie deficit we created for her was not overly restrictive. She felt really good throughout the entire process and, like I said, you know, had amazing results. So this is not easy to do on your own, but if you work with someone who is skilled at this, it can make all the difference. So please book a call If you're interested. We kick off next week and I think that's all we have for you this week. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time. Bye.