Exercise Doesn't Burn Fat: Why More Isn't Always Better

Louise Digby explains why exercise alone often doesn’t drive fat loss, especially for women in their late 30s, 40s and beyond, and why doing more workouts can backfire. She shares client examples where high-intensity training combined with under-fuelling led to stress, increased hunger, fatigue, inflammation, cravings, sleep disruption and sluggish thyroid function, and how reducing intensity, prioritising recovery, increasing calories and improving nourishment helped symptoms resolve and weight begin to shift. Louise outlines how the body compensates after workouts through reduced daily movement, increased appetite, improved efficiency and stress responses, and emphasises that fat loss happens when internal conditions are right: energy availability, hormone signalling (insulin, thyroid, cortisol), nutrient sufficiency, nervous system state, sleep and muscle mass. She invites listeners to a free masterclass on releasing stubborn weight over 40.

00:00 Exercise Truth Bomb
01:26 Why More Workouts Fail
03:02 CrossFit Overtraining Case
06:32 Hidden Compensation Effects
09:04 Midlife Stress and Recovery
11:21 Holiday Weight Loss Paradox
12:45 What Exercise Signals
15:22 Real Drivers of Fat Loss
18:18 Key Takeaways and Masterclass

Register for my free masterclass: https://www.louisedigbynutrition.com/meno-belly

Transcript

[00:00:00] All right. I wanna start this episode with something that might feel a little bit uncomfortable to hear, especially if you've been trying really hard to do all the right things. Because if you are someone who has been showing up consistently with your workouts, getting your steps in, maybe pushing yourself through sessions, even when you're tired and still not seeing results,

you need to hear this exercise doesn't actually drive fat loss. Now, before you think I'm about to tell you to stop exercising altogether, I'm not. Exercise does matter. It supports your health. It supports your metabolism. It supports your mood and your long-term wellbeing, but it's not the lever that most people think it is when it comes to getting the scales to move.

And what I want to do in this episode is unpack why that is. Because for a lot of women, this isn't just about. [00:01:00] Information, it's about unlearning something that has felt very logical for a long time, because on the surface it does make sense, doesn't it? If you move more, you burn more energy, you should lose weight, but the body doesn't work like a calculator.

And once you understand that, everything starts to feel a bit less frustrating and a lot more clear. So most of us have grown up with this idea that weight loss is just a simple equation, calories in versus calories out. And that if we want to lose weight, we either need to eat less or move more, or ideally both.

And exercise becomes this very tangible, very reassuring way. Doing something about it. You go to a class, you sweat, you see a number on your watch, and you feel like you've achieved something and there is a sense of control in that because if [00:02:00] things aren't working, you can just do a bit more. And I see this all the time with my clients, this subtle but very powerful belief that if they just push a bit harder or add another session or be a bit more consistent, then that will be the thing that finally tips things over into progress.

But what tends to happen instead is that they're already doing quite a lot and rather than getting results, they just feel more tired, more hungry, more inflamed, and more confused about why their body isn't responding. And you know, that's the point where we really need to zoom out and question whether the model we're working from is actually accurate because.

The body is not a static system that just burns what you give it. It's constantly adapting, constantly adjusting, and constantly [00:03:00] trying to maintain balance. So I wanna give you a real example because I think this will help to bring everything that I'm about to explain to life. So. There was this client of mine, she was 43, and honestly, if you looked at her lifestyle from the outside, you would've said that she was doing everything right.

She loved CrossFit. She was in the gym. For 7:00 AM sessions several times a week. She worked in the wellness space, so she really lived and breathed health and she was incredibly disciplined with her nutrition. She was meal prepping, eating what she would describe as clean it, her macro targets and staying within her calorie limits, and yet despite all of that.

She had this noticeable layer of body fat that just wouldn't shift, and this stubborn belly that kept getting bigger. And she [00:04:00] said she really felt like it appeared almost overnight. And what made it even more frustrating for her is that. Everything she believed about health. Told her to do more. Told her to tighten things up, push harder to be more precise.

But when we actually look at what was going on from her body's perspective, the picture's very different. She had. A very high energy demand from all of that training, but relatively low energy coming in, and her body was essentially perceiving that as a state of stress and scarcity. So instead of letting go of fat, it was holding on.

Now much as it went against the grain for her, we made some changes. We reduced the number of high intensity sessions. We swapped some of those CrossFit workouts for lower intensity movement like swimming and walking. We [00:05:00] built in more recovery time and we actually increased her calories,

and this is the bit that often surprises people because from the outside it can look like the opposite of what you should do, but from her body's perspective, it was actually what it needed. And alongside that, we also ran some testing and what we saw was her thyroid function was sluggish, which is very common in this kind of picture.

And very often a response to under fueling and over training. And what's really important is that when we made those changes, when we reduced the stress, increased the energy availability supported her recovery. Her thyroid normalized. Within a couple of months, her energy soared and those symptoms that she'd been dealing with, things like hair loss, dry skin fatigue, brain [00:06:00] fog, they all started to improve and then naturally the weight started to shift as well.

Not because we found a better workout, but because we removed what was blocking her body from letting go of fat. Now you might not see yourself exactly in this example, but I share it because it's such a clear illustration of how doing more and doing it well can still work against you if it is not aligned with what your body actually needs.

So let's talk about what actually happens when you exercise beyond what your watch or your app tells you. So yes, during a workout you do burn energy. That part is true, but what's often missed is what happens in the hours that follow and even across the rest of the day because the body doesn't just.

Except that energy has been used and carry on as normal. It [00:07:00] compensates and it does this in ways that are so subtle that you don't consciously register them. You might. Move a little bit less for the rest of the day without even realizing it. You might feel slightly more tired, so you sit down more often, you fidget less, you take the easier option without even thinking about it.

Your hunger might increase slightly, not in a dramatic and out of control way, but just enough that you eat a bit more than you otherwise would've done. And over time, these small adjustments start to add up and they quietly offset what you burned in the workout. And then there are deeper adaptations happening underneath that, the body becomes more efficient.

At the activity that you are doing. So the same workout that used to feel hard and [00:08:00] burn more energy, becomes easier and burns less. And if you keep increasing the demand without supporting the body properly, you can start to see a stress response build. I had a client in her mid forties who was doing spin classes four or five times a week, really pushing herself, really committed, and she came to me exhausted, struggling with cravings, waking up in the night and feeling incredibly frustrated because the weight just wasn't shifting.

And on paper it looked like she was doing really positive things. But when we looked at what her body actually needed, we realized that. What she needed wasn't more effort, it was less stress. So we reduced the intensity. We swapped a couple of those sessions for walking. We made sure that she was fueling properly, and within a few weeks her energy improved, her cravings settled, [00:09:00] her sleep got better, and then the weight started to move.

This didn't happen because she suddenly found a better way of working out a better routine, but because her body stopped needing to compensate, and you know, this is where age becomes really relevant because one of the most common things that I hear is. But this used to work for me, and it probably did in your twenties and even your early thirties.

You've generally got more resilience. Your recovery is quicker, your hormones are more forgiving, and your body can tolerate a higher level of stress without pushing back too much. So you can do more, eat less, push harder, and the body will often just go along with it. As you move into your late thirties and forties and beyond, that margin for error narrows and your body becomes more sensitive to the [00:10:00] overall load that it's under.

Recovery matters more, sleep matters, more nourishment matters more. And the same workout that used to feel productive can now feel draining. So. It's not that your body is broken or that you've suddenly lost your ability to lose weight, it's that the strategy that used to work is no longer aligned with what your body needs right now.

And if you keep trying to apply the same approach, you often end up pushing yourself further away from the outcome that you want. So something that I see a lot is women doing objectively good things. Things that we would normally say are healthy, like hit running, strength training, daily workouts, and yet their body just isn't responding in the way that they would expect.

And the missing piece here is context, because those things can be helpful. Only if the [00:11:00] body has the capacity to respond to them. If you are already stressed, if you are under fueled, if your sleep is disrupted, those same workouts can become another layer of stress rather than a helpful signal, and this is why simply doing more is not always the answer.

And there's another example that I see all the time, and that's clients who go on holiday, they eat more, they have dessert, they drink a bit more, but they come back lighter. They're confused by it because they feel like they've been less strict, less disciplined, and less on it.

But when we look at what's actually changed, it does make perfect sense. They're eating more consistently, they're moving, but it's often at a lower intensity. Walking and swimming and being active without pushing. They're sleeping better. They're not rushing from one thing to the next. [00:12:00] Stress is lower, and all of a sudden the body is in a completely different environment.

An environment where it feels safe and environment where energy is available, and in that state, it's much more willing to let go of fat. Now, I'm not saying that we can or should recreate the holiday conditions all of the time, but what it does show us is something really important. Sometimes less really is the thing that makes the difference.

Not less effort in the sense of not caring, but less pressure, less force, and less trying to override the body. And that's a very different way of thinking about it. Let's talk about what exercise is actually doing. So exercise is not directly burning fat in a meaningful lasting way. It's actually sending signals to the body about what's required.[00:13:00]

Strength training tells the body that muscle is needed so it holds on or builds muscle. Walking tells the body that things are safe and steady, and that energy is available. Higher intensity work tells the body that there's a demand and stress

but whether fat loss happens, depends on the environment those signals are landing in. If the body feels supported, nourished, and safe, it can respond in a way that allows fat loss. If it doesn't, it will adapt in a way that prioritizes protection, and that is the difference. Now, there's a lot of noise now.

To answer.

Now I'm often asked about heart rate zones and there is a lot of noise around this and whether you should be training in a specific fat burning zone. And you know, while there is some physiology behind that. For most people it becomes unnecessarily complicated. Low intensity movement like walking is [00:14:00] incredibly supportive.

It's low stress. It supports blood sugar, it helps with recovery and for many women, it's actually one of the most effective things they can be doing. Higher intensity work has its place, but it needs to match your rec, your capacity to recover. And then with strength training, there's often this idea that you need to be lifting heavy and lifting as heavy as possible, but what really matters is that your muscles are being challenged and that there is some form of progression over time.

It doesn't need to be extreme. It needs to be consistent and appropriate for where you are at. If you are dealing with something like chronic fatigue, pain conditions, thyroid issues, or hormonal imbalances. This becomes even more important because your margin for stress is already reduced. I had a client with very low energy and suspected [00:15:00] thyroid dysfunction who felt like she needed to be pushing harder to see results, but even light workouts were wiping her out.

So instead of pushing, we scaled things back. Shorter walks. Gentle strength work, focusing on recovery and nourishment. And over time her capacity started to build and she could do more. So if exercise isn't the main driver of fat loss. What is, well, this is where it's good to zoom out and look at the bigger picture because fat loss is not something that you force through behavior.

It's something that the body allows when the conditions are right, and those conditions are largely internal. The first is energy availability, and this is not just about how many calories you are eating versus how many you are burning. It's about whether your body feels like there is enough coming in consistently if [00:16:00] energy feels scarce, whether that is from undereating

or from pushing too hard, the body will conserve it, it will hold on, and fat loss becomes less of a priority. Then we have hormone signaling and things like insulin, thyroid, hormones, cortisol. They all play a role in whether the body stores or releases energy. And if insulin is constantly elevated, the body is more likely to store fat.

If thyroid function is low, metabolic rate is reduced. If cortisol is chronically high, the body shifts. Into a more protective state. And then there's nutrient sufficiency because the body cannot run a high functioning metabolism without the building blocks. It needs things like iron, B vitamins, magnesium.

These are not optional extras. [00:17:00] They are essential for energy production, for thyroid function, and for overall metabolic health. And then we have the nervous system, which is often overlooked, but incredibly important. If your body feels under threat, whether that is from stress, lack of sleep, constant pressure, it will prioritize survival over fat loss.

I had a client who was doing everything right on paper, eating well, exercising consistently, but constantly stressed. Poor sleep, always rushing. Always on edge and her weight just wouldn't move. So we didn't overhaul our workouts drastically or change her diet. We focused on reducing that sense of pressure, improving sleep, creating more space in her day, and that is when things started to shift.

And finally, there's muscle mass and metabolic capacity, which is where exercise [00:18:00] does play a role, because having more muscle improves how the body handles energy. But again, it's supportive. It is not the primary driver. And when you pull all of this together, you start to see why simply doing more exercise is often not the answer.

So if you take one thing from today's episode, let it be this. You do not need to do more. You need to do what works with your body. Exercise is valuable. It supports your health. It supports your metabolism, but it's not the thing that is going to fix everything. And when you stop trying to force fat loss through exercise, you create space to focus on what actually matters.

And that's where things start to change. Not through more effort, but through better alignment. And if this has resonated with you, if you are starting to see why what you've been doing hasn't worked, then this is exactly what we [00:19:00] do, helping you understand your body so that you can finally work with it rather than against it.

So I would love to see you at my next free masterclass, where I'll walk you through my three step strategy to help women. Over 40 release stubborn weight without giving up their favorite foods or spending hours in the gym. Find the link to register in the show notes or visit louise digby nutrition.com where you'll see the info at the bottom of the page.

Thank you so much for joining me again this week, and I will see you in the next one.