Never Diet Again with Max Lowery

#93 Gemma: "I Did Everything Right… And Still Didn’t Lose Weight (Until I Lost 32lbs)"

• Max Lowery

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This episode is for the woman who has genuinely tried.

You’ve exercised.
You’ve eaten “well.”
You’ve worked with professionals.
You’ve put the effort in.

And yet… the weight still didn’t come off.

In this conversation, Gemma shares what it was like to be the only one in the room not getting results, despite doing everything she was told to do. She talks openly about the frustration, self-doubt, and confusion that builds when effort doesn’t equal outcome.

We explore:

  • Why “doing more” can actually make fat loss harder
  • How over-training and under-fueling keep women stuck
  • The moment Gemma realised the problem wasn’t her effort, but the approach
  • How understanding her body changed everything
  • Why food stopped being the main focus of her life for the first time in years

This is not a quick-fix story.
 It’s a relief story.

If you’ve ever thought,
“Maybe it’s just me,” this episode will challenge that belief.

Watch my The Cravings & Fat-Burning Masterclass:  https://www.neverdietagainmethod.uk/register-podcast

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/max.lowery/

Book a Food Freedom Breakthrough Call: https://www.neverdietagainmethod.uk/call-ig

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SPEAKER_01:

In today's episode, I'm talking to one of our amazing clients, Gemma. Gemma's story is a perfect example of what's possible when you stop chasing diet and start working with your body instead of against it. For five years, she tried everything: cutting calories, training three or four times a week, hired a PT, worked with a nutritionist. Everyone around her was losing weight except her. She felt stuck, frustrated, and confused, like her body just wouldn't respond no matter how hard she pushed. And then she joined the Live360 program and was taking through the never diet again method. In nine months, she lost 15 kilos, dropped eight inches from her waist, and went from a size 20 to a 14. She didn't do this with extreme workouts or restriction. She did it by learning how her body actually works. And once she did, everything changed. So today you're going to hear exactly how she did it. How she learned to walk more and train less, how she rebuilt her relationship with food, how she stopped obsessing over the scales, and how she's now training for a 25-mile walk, something she never believed her body could handle. If you're someone who feels like you're working hard but not seeing results, this conversation is going to speak directly to you. Let's get into it. How do you create a life that allows you to lose weight, eat the foods that you love, and sustain the results? Over the last 10 years, I've helped thousands of people do exactly that. I'm Max Lowry. I'm an author, personal trainer, and weight loss coach. In this podcast, I'm going to share my top tips and tricks from within my one-on-one coaching program. It's my goal to give you the tools and the understanding so that you never diet again.

SPEAKER_00:

Before I started, I couldn't lose weight. I struggled. I probably struggled for the last five years trying various different diets, cutting down, exercising, because I was doing regular three mornings a week's um strength training. And even with the PT at the little gym I went to, she was helping us all with our diet and weight loss. And out of the group of four of us, I was the one that lost the least. So I think I was I was at the point I've tried everything. So I was at the point of I don't know where it is, what's happening. I'd done a course with a nutritionist in the January, and still my weight loss wasn't coming off for what it should have been. And so I was getting frustrated really with myself that I didn't know how to lose weight.

SPEAKER_01:

So you did some of the kind of traditional fat loss stuff, you know, short-term restriction, but then also it sounds like you actually tried to do some more sensible stuff as well. You know, you got advice from a nutritionist and a personal trainer, and they didn't seem to work for you either.

SPEAKER_00:

No, and no one at that time, what we were struggling with was I was getting the personal trainer was saying you need to put this in your diet, um, try protein shapes, do this, do that. Um, and we were cutting down the calories, and I was I was frustrated because we'd done um like a six-week sort of hit, well, I suppose training session on the run up to Christmas, and where they'd all lost like three quarters of a stone, a stone. I think I'd lost about four or five pounds. And I couldn't work out why, if I was eating healthily, I wasn't losing the weight. And then I spoke to the nutritionist about it, and we'd looked at the things that my body wasn't accepting on food, the intolerances, but we still I still couldn't get that balance of losing weight. And like the nutritionist went to the same gym I did, and she says, Well, you come you come to the gym and you come to the classes, and I know you work hard. And she said, It's just getting the balance right. But at that time we just couldn't get it at all.

SPEAKER_01:

So, you know, it's not like you weren't putting the effort in and weren't motivated, your exercising, your training, you know, doing the research, but you just weren't getting the results.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. I mean, in the January, I'd done a five-week fat loss course with this nutritionist. So the effort was going in and I was paying out the money, but I wasn't seeing the results for it.

SPEAKER_01:

So, Gemma, you joined the Live360 program initially and then did graduate onto Live360 Sustain. Do you remember what results you got after nine months? So, Gemma, you joined the Live 360 program initially, did really well, and then graduated into Live360 Sustain. So, after nine months on the programme, do you remember what results you got in the end?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I lost 15 kilos, eight inches on my waist. I started off at a size 20, and I'm now a size 16 on my bottom half and a size 14 on my top half.

SPEAKER_01:

Brilliant. And you know, better than you anticipated.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, totally. And I think I remember saying to you when I started on the 360 live, I'd have good loss on the five days, but if I lost a stone, I'd be happy. So I've I I've done really well compared to that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. And what would you say is the main difference between what you did before the nutritionist and the personal trainer and live and what you've learned on Liver 360? You know, why has this got you results and they didn't, do you think?

SPEAKER_00:

I've I've actually done a lot less exercise. I was going to the gym four, five times a week before. I'm now training two, three times a week, doing all the walking. But I think I've understood where the food side fits in. And I think on the way through this, with yours and Tom's help, I've been able to play with my food, play with the protein, the carbs, the fats, to find out which suited my body the best and which ratio suited me, which I hadn't done before because the diet just says eat less.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, really powerful stuff. I mean, a lot of you know, people who join the program are just doing way too much exercise. And actually, once you kind of reduce the exercise, your hunger, you know, you're more in control of your hunger, you have more energy. Um, and that can actually mean sometimes you end up doing more things like steps, and steps are something you were consistent with the whole way through, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, I've I've walked for miles.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, to the extent that do you want to summarize what happened once you got into Live Through Sixty Sustain? You know, we went from the emphasis on fat loss into kind of more performance goal. What was uh well, what is the performance goal you're training towards?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, it's a 25-mile walk in a day, which I said is a challenge for myself to do because I started off I've got I've got bad knees. So we've worked on strengthening my knees, increasing my mileage so that I can I can actually do that. And I've got to say the the change is has been phenomenal, really, with the the knees, because I didn't think I'd be able to walk 20 miles and still be able to stand at the end of it, but I have, and I've gone out and walked three or four miles the following day. So yeah, it's just the energy levels because I think the first long walk I did, I think we did something like I think it was nine miles or something like that. And I remember I was going out that evening and I was absolutely shattered. And I was like, this was a bad move arranging to go out in the evening. Um and the following day I really felt it where now I walked 20 miles and I can still do things. And the following day, you're a little bit jaded, but I'm not completely shattered, and I'm not thinking, I don't know if I can do that again.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, you know, that's the power of incorporating specific strength training, you know, for for you. You know, when you have issues with knees and underlying problems, it's very important that you do things that are specific rather than, you know, going to the generic hit class that is almost certainly gonna, you know, make things worse, especially if you do have weight to lose as well. So the fact that someone has, you know, always had traditionally bad knees is walking 20 miles and going to be walking 25 miles in a day, that's really, really impressive. And yes, that's come from our assistance, but to be honest, you know, it's come from you being consistent the whole way through and actually uh incorporating what we suggested. So, you know, well done, Gemma. Um, how would you say you feel now compared to how you felt before the program in terms of you know confidence in yourself, understanding knowledge, um, you know, energy levels, all those kinds of things?

SPEAKER_00:

I was only talking about that on a walk today, and I was saying that as a result of doing the program, and it depends what you want out of the program, doesn't it? Because yes, I came on to lose weight and we're all focused on the scales and the number, but as we went through it, I've really realized that actually by doing less sort of gym exercise and that, I've got more time to walk. And it's it's changed my whole whole outlook, really. My confidence because I'm not carrying so much weight, the energy I've got, but the whole concept of how I look at food and exercise. I mean, I've got friends that are training, you know, four or five times. They're doing a class in the morning, they're then going running, and I'm thinking, hmm, you don't need to do that actually. So it it has been that whole concept that I've looked at. I started off wanting to lose the weight, and then halfway through the programme, I was like, well, no, I've I've now set myself a goal and I need to strengthen myself and just be healthy to get to that goal, to be able to do it. And I think, yeah, it's it's changed me completely. I haven't done anything like this before, where I've I can say at the end I've changed completely. I did that diet and I can't even lighter life where I did three months of dust and um I lost the weight, and then I did their introducing food back into your body, and it all went drastically wrong and the weight went on. Where now I actually feel I'm I'm focused that I can go out and eat, and I'm not thinking I shouldn't be having that, I'm actually adjusting, and I'm not going around every day thinking, well, I can do that, but then I need to eat because I go either from three meals to two meals a day. Um and I'm not thinking about the food as much as everything else. The food's like secondary, where food was always first so it has changed from a whole outlook, really.

SPEAKER_01:

Brilliant. Yeah, so you've gone from kind of you know potentially obsessing over food a bit, counting down the hours until you can eat, to listening to your body and you know, just eating, you know, learning to eat when you feel hungry.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that that's been the big difference, and and not snacking, because I came from a world where I didn't know when I would get my next meal because of what work was busy. Some days it might go eight hours and you couldn't get to food. So you would eat when you could, and it was like eat for survival. Um, and and you'd eat fast and it'd be whatever you could grab at the time, which usually was totally unhealthy. And I never had a consistent three meals or two meals a day, and I never knew when I was hungry. It was like I haven't eaten for the last six hours, I need to get some food, and if I don't get it now, I don't know when I will. So I really didn't listen to my body at all. Where now I'll get up in the morning and I might think by about nine o'clock, I might think, actually, I'm really hungry. I'm going to have something to eat now, and I'll have three, three meals. Or I might think, well, I'm actually not hungry today, so I won't eat until I am hungry. And that could be one o'clock, or it might be half eleven in the morning. So I haven't got set meal times. It's just listening to my body, really.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that is kind of a holy grail of long-term results is having that understanding about yourself and knowing that you know, sometimes you might feel hungry earlier, so you should eat, and sometimes you won't feel hungry till later, uh, so you eat later. And having that kind of balance and um control is really, really powerful. And what would you say was the most enjoyable part of the whole programme?

SPEAKER_00:

I think getting into a size 14.

unknown:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I I've I've enjoyed it all the way through. I enjoyed the exercise. That didn't bother me. Uh I I quite enjoyed that. Um, the food, I just got I got used to that, not snacking. I just think, yeah, just getting into those clothes. I think I went away, I started off. It was great to see the pounds come off at the start because we are all focused on the number on the scales. But then I was like, well, it's coming off, the centimetres are coming off. I learned how my body worked because as I got closer to or or lost a large amount and got closer to where I wanted to be, it wasn't every week that the scales moved, but then I would see a big shift in the scales and the centimeters. So I wasn't panicking when I got on the scales anymore.

SPEAKER_01:

Really quick one for me, guys. I don't run ads on this podcast, and I do aim to give you as many high-value tips and tricks as I can for free. All I ask in return is that you help me spread the word. That way I can help as many people as I can to never die again. The way to do that is to rate, review, and share this podcast. A review will only take 30 seconds, but it would mean the world to me. But more importantly, it could help change the life of someone else. Yeah, that's a can be a very difficult thing to overcome by yourself, you know, particularly when you're doing everything right, you know, in vertic commas to, you know, not get the result that you want on the scale. And would you say that you're in a you have more confidence about yourself now, more understanding about yourself so that you know, going forward you you know how your body works?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, totally. I've learned so much about myself on when I'm hungry, what foods affect me more, what causes my cravings. Am I eating because I'm hungry, or is it it's emotional eating? Um, and that I can actually go out and I can enjoy myself. Christmas Day, didn't worry about what I ate, then got back onto it, which before I would have been thinking, I've overdone it a bit now, panicking about it, trying to get back onto it, getting to the end of January and thinking I must start afresh on in February. Yeah. So I I know that I can have a week off it or two weeks. It was at Christmas, I had off it, and I can get back on it really.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's more of a way of life, you know, habits and behaviours that I've incorporated that can you know be sustained into the long term.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's much more that that I'm not I'm not going not that I've been going out with friends because you can't in lockdown. Um, but I'm not obsessive about oh, I've overeaten today. Because I suppose other diets, you have a calorie target for the day where as you taught, it's not for the day, you've got a whole week. So it didn't matter if you went 200 over on that day, you can make it up on the rest of the day. And it's not a case of before I would have gone, oh my god, I'm 200 calories over. That means I've got to cut 200 calories out tomorrow and I'd be starving.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And what would you say to someone who was thinking of joining the program? You know, if you had someone at the beginning tell you, oh, I got this result and you know you should do it for these reasons, what would be what would be those reasons? And um, what would you say to that person who's thinking of joining the program?

SPEAKER_00:

I think I would say if you're really serious about losing the weight and being healthy, then try this program because I haven't looked back from it. If if you value yourself and you want to change, then you get all the support that you need, all the advice from from you and and Tom and and from the group that you've just got to give it a go because it's worth it to feel so much better at the end of it and to know that you're in control.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. I think you're right. You hit the nail on the head if you are serious, because that is probably the hardest thing, I think, is actually making that decision right at the beginning or at some point that right, that enough is enough. I'm ready to do something different. I am I am serious and I I trust myself. And I think that, yeah, you're you're 100% right. Um, so yeah, thank you very much, Gemma. Uh, you know, I think probably the one word that I would describe you as throughout the whole way through the program is consistent. You know, you've been consistent the whole way through. You've trusted us, you trusted the process and the results for each for themselves. Uh so well done. Thanks very much. And uh yeah, look forward to seeing you uh progress with the 25 mile day walk, 25 mile day, 25 25 mile uh walk in a day. There we go.