Why You're Not Losing Weight Or Getting Toned | E11

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Hello team and welcome back to Train Like a Girl. My name is Abby. I am an online coach and I'm bringing you all the non-BS stuff lately. And today's episode, no less, is all about why you're not losing weight or why you feel like you're in a calorie deficit but not seeing any changes or you're struggling to get lean or get toned. Because this is so much more common than you think. And there is such a there is such a common story out there, especially with women that have approached me where they're just frustrated. They've been dieting what feels like forever, cutting calories, cutting carbs, eating healthy, and yet seeing no change in their body. And along with seeing a plethora of stuff on honestly, BS online about like cortisol and hormones and all of these different things being broken, it then makes them question am I broken? Is it my metabolism? Oh, I'm just destined to never lose weight. It might be my menopause, it might be cortisol. Online sources love to sell this idea because it usually comes with a something that costs a lot of money to fix it. But the reality is, it is very, very, very unlikely that you are broken. And in fact, I've been in the industry for 10 years and I have never met anybody that is broken. And the problem, and this should feel enlightening, and I want this to feel I want today's episode to just make you feel better and make you feel like actually your goals are so achievable. Because the problem is often far simpler than that. So let's get into it. The core problem is that, well, let's start by saying the fundamental principle of weight loss is a calorie deficit. So if you're not losing weight, it simply means that you are not in a true calorie deficit. And I know that this might sound frustrating because you might be thinking, but I have been in a calorie deficit, but I'm just not losing weight. But there's no way, easy way of saying this, but the definition of a calorie deficit is that you are deficient in calories. And being deficient in something means that you are lacking it. And so if you are deficient in calories, the very meaning of a calorie deficit is that you will lose weight. It's impossible not to. That's what a calorie deficit is. And so it's not a question of, am I broken? It's a question, it's the answer actually is that you you're not in a, if you're not losing weight, you're not in a calorie deficit over a long enough period of time. Or you're not in a calorie deficit full stop. So common reasons that you might think you're in a calorie deficit, but why you might think you're in a calorie deficit, but you're actually not. I mean, obviously this differs per person and all the people I've worked with that have encountered this problem, there are always different reasons. But I mean, the the umbrella reason is you aren't in a calorie deficit. But the reason you might think you are, but you're actually not, it could be for a plethora of reasons. It could be because you're not tracking accurately. It could be because you're eyeballing portions. It could be because you've not been consistent for a long enough period of time. So, in other words, like inconsistent adherence. It might be that you're actually really good at creating a calorie deficit through the week, but then when it hits the weekend or social occasions, you blow it all out of proportion, therefore bringing your calories overall back up to maintenance levels or even quite often in a calorie surplus. It could be that you are going far too low with your calories and then binging or overeating and not kind of logging that, or just generally like missing out logging bits and bobs, as I said, like inaccurate tracking. It could be that you're pouring olive oil and not considering that as part of your intake, or like, you know, grabbing a Starbucks every morning and not considering that as part of your intake, because uh all of these things add up. And so largely it comes down to education and adherence and consistency and patience. You know, a lot of the time it's that either the approach is too extreme, so it goes the other way with the overeating, et cetera, or somebody doesn't know how to properly track, or you simply haven't given enough given it enough time. But the truth bomb here is that if you were truly in a deficit, weight loss is inevitable. It's impossible not to lose weight in a calorie deficit because that is the very meaning of a deficit. But that should make you feel better. Because it means there is possibility. In fact, it's I've never met anyone that can't lose weight unless they are already impossibly small. Um, and even then they could probably lose weight. I just wouldn't advise it, right? But it can feel miserable. You know, it could, you could feel like, oh, I'm trying so hard. You almost get like the worst of both worlds, right? Because if you are constantly feeling like you're dieting and you're like restricting yourself, you're under-eating, you're cutting out carbs, you're eating, quote unquote, eating healthy, you're, you know, making sacrifices, it can feel really miserable. But then you're getting the worst of both worlds if you're not in a deficit because you're experiencing that misery, but somewhere you're going wrong with the deficit, like blowing it out of proportion on weekends, for example, and therefore you're not losing weight, but you're still feeling like you're in a deficit misery for the rest of the week. So it really, this kind of yo-yoing, which is quite common, creates the worst of both worlds: restriction, pain without progress. But today's podcast, I want to talk about how you can fix it. Practical application, practical steps. So I'll give you a couple of the most common ones. Again, this will come down to the individual, but these are overarching problems that I see over and over and over again. And the, you know, these are some of the core things that I work on with my one-to-one ladies. So, how to fix it? I'd say number one, set a realistic calorie target. So a lot of women that start working with me, they undershoot, they think that less and less calories is better, right? Or more and more cardio or whatever. But the calories, setting realistic calorie targets. So many women have been sold this idea for so many years that it needs to be 1,200 calories. First of all, there's no one size fits all. But truthfully, excessively low calories might be your problem. Not because you're holding on to fat because you're eating too little or any of those metabolism myths that people like to tell you is the issue. It's not that. It's that you are undershooting so far for some days or some weeks. Let's say it's the classic starving yourself Monday to Thursday. But then what does that lead to? It leads to feeling so out of control the minute you go out on a Friday. Or even if you're at home, it leads to those weekend binges. So, and then it perpetuates that horrible cycle, then, right? You start Monday again and you're like, right, this time it's gonna have to be slash my calories even further. I understand this because I've been there. I'm not being patronizing when I say all of this stuff because I completely get it. I promise you, I understand. But quite often, the women that work with me, we start with a number of calories that surprises them. And what they are always surprised by is, oh goodness, I can actually lose weight on this and not go crazy. At social occasions, I can stay really kind of consistent and find balance that feels way more attainable week round and month round. So they sustain it. And that is why the calorie deficit, then over time, is way more adherent, right? So the calories might be higher than what you're used to, but actually overall you're still eating less because you're no longer binging, et cetera. And once that is sustainable for weeks or months, adherence goes up and long-term fat loss happens without that horrible misery of crash dieting. So, yeah, number one fix is setting a realistic calorie target, which is usually higher in my experience with women. It's quite often higher than they think it's gonna be. Number two fix is that a lot of women that I work with, they don't know how to navigate real life situations. They haven't got the skills, they haven't got the tools to approach real life. A lot of women approach dieting hoping it's gonna be in a vacuum, right? They wait for the perfect time. I can't tell you the number of times people have said to me, Oh, I will sign up, but I don't want to do it yet because I've got this, this, and this. I don't want to sign up yet because we've got Christmas. Let's start next year. Why? The best time to start with a coach, and this isn't me just giving you a sales tactic, but truly the best part of coaching is that I can teach you the skills necessary to navigate real life. Because the reality is we don't live in a vacuum. And so even if, let's say you had the perfect setup for the next four or five weeks, even eight weeks, right? Of no socials, no weekend plans. First of all, that would be miserable. But even if you did have that, right? And you successfully lost weight during that time, which most of us probably would, let's be honest, because when we don't have socials in real life, then it is easier to achieve our goals. But let's say that happened. Okay, well, what happens after that? Can you maintain that result? Can you maintain that weight loss? Very unlikely because you haven't learned the key things that you need to learn around approaching real life and real life situations, birthdays, holidays, meals out. So the best time to try and lose weight or work with a coach is when life is happening. Because then you can apply strategy. You can learn the things that you need to learn that would be required for long-term weight loss and sustained weight loss and keeping those results results forever, right? And that's the sort of stuff that I do with my clients. We have a strategy, we map out social events, we set intentions. It's like any meal that comes up, any event that comes up, I'm there in your corner. And I'm teaching you, okay, how to approach these things so that you know how to do that by yourself for the rest of your life. And this isn't me saying you've got a diet for the rest of your life, but I'm talking about maintaining as well, right? So it's learning how to act and still lose weight, despite life happening. Because we don't live in a vacuum, and nor do we want, why would we want to? So that is number two is learning how to navigate real life situations with, you know, practical tools, things like looking ahead of a meal and planning out what would success look like for this meal. And then I guess number three of how to fix it, these are my top three. So we've we've done setting realistic calorie targets, learning how to navigate real life situations, and then the third is around fitness. Um, and the reason that fitness is the last of the three is because nutrition is king for weight loss. Nutrition is number one. You could not exercise, this isn't advice, this definitely isn't advice. I strongly urge all women to strength train, but you could go the rest of your life without training and still lose weight because it comes down to an energy deficit, as we discovered at the start. So nutrition is king. Without nutrient the right nutrition, without the right calories, you cannot, you can't kind of out train your calories. But that being said, I would throw in as a practical step creating a sustainable fitness plan as well. Because quite often, along with like the low calories, typically, women come to me saying, Okay, I want to do more and more and more. Especially my perfectionists out there, I know you're listening. They want to do more cardio. They want to do more sessions, they want to add in more stuff, they want to add in more steps, more, more, more, more, excessive cardio. It ain't gonna solve it. Focusing on building a routine that supports a deficit without burning out is actually the better option. Because why would we make our life more difficult? If we're adding in excessive amounts of cardio, this is a mistake I see happen so often. If we're adding in a ridiculous amount of cardio, we're actually shooting ourselves in our foot for out for a deficit. Because cardio, for a lot of people, it creates a bigger hunger drive. It makes you more knackered, which means the rest of your time is more sedentary, like unknowingly. So actually, over time, what I find with people that do more and more and more exercise is they're then really struggling with their deficit because they're so bloody hungry. Instead, we could, yes, I encourage cardio. You know, this isn't me kind of shitting on cardio. We all need a bit of cardio, but what I typically suggest depends on the client, of course. I do have clients that are working towards running goals and marathons and all of that kind of thing, but usually they're not dieting. If I've got a client that wants to get toned, wants to lose a bit of weight, the path is almost always strength training, maybe a little bit of cardio, and then a heavy focus on nutrition and a calorie deficit. So that's my kind of top three, really. Set a realistic calorie target, learn how to navigate real life and create a fitness plan that fits around your goal. We so often, as women, just want to do more and more and more, more extreme, and that isn't the answer. And in fact, if it was, you'd already be at your results because I know there are so many of us that we've gone to those extremes so many times, and then we wonder, we try and do that same thing and expect a different result. And we all know that doing some the same thing and expecting a different result is insanity. But we it really, if you take a good look at your history and your pattern of dieting and exercise, if you're honest with yourself, that's probably been happening. And the reason I know that is because this is so common among a lot of women. So to kind of wrap up, I guess, I really want to reassure you that you're not broken. You're not the problem. It's just that what you're doing now clearly isn't working. And repeating it will not change the result. Change is possible with the right strategy and often guidance. And that is why I coach women one-to-one, helping them lose weight, helping them tone up, helping them see results that last. And quite often that comes with doing a bit less, actually. And just having a plan that actually doesn't feel like hell, but it does the trick. If you're interested in that and that sounds like something that could be uh helpful for you, please have a little look in the show notes. There will be a link to my Instagram if you want to ask any more questions or learn more about uh coaching. My last um episode was also all about what online coaching entails. So do be sure to go listen to that if you want a bit more information. Or you could apply um directly. Um that doesn't lock you in. It just like tells me that you're interested, but you can do that as well via the link in the show notes. But that is it for today, guys. It was lovely to chat, and I'll speak to you again next week.