300. Why You Keep Regaining Weight After 50 (And How to STOP It for Good!)

Are you stuck in the cycle of losing the same 20+ pounds, only to see the weight creep back on? 

Especially after 50, weight loss can feel like an uphill battle, and traditional diets just don’t seem to cut it anymore.

In today’s episode, we dive into the science of weight regain, particularly after menopause, and uncover the key reason most weight loss programs fail. If you’ve struggled with yo-yo dieting and feel frustrated by the lack of lasting results, this episode is a must-listen.

We break down why dieting alone won’t work and how addressing the root cause—insulin resistance—can make all the difference in keeping the weight off for good.

Plus, get inspired by Beth’s story, a Zivli member who lost 20 pounds and has kept it off by finally finding the right approach. You won’t want to miss the overlooked strategy that could change your weight loss journey forever.

Don’t let your weight struggles define your health. Tune in to discover why this time, it can be different, and how you can break free from the cycle for good.

Click here to watch the full video now!

Check out our full interview with Beth here.

>> Register for 3 Big Mistakes That Sabotage Weight Loss After 50 at https://www.zivli.com/training

Resources From This Episode

>> Insulin Resistance Diet Blueprint - https://www.zivli.com/blueprint?el=podcast

>> Free Low Insulin Food Guide - https://www.zivli.com/ultimatefoodguide?el=podcast

>> Join the Zivli Program Waitlist - https://www.zivli.com/join?el=podcast

>> Test Your Insulin at Home - https://www.zivli.com/testing?el=podcast

Have a question? Email us at: support@zivli.com

Transcript

Hey there and welcome back to the Reshape Your Health Podcast. host Dr. Morgan Nolte. Today’s episode comes from a recent YouTube video, so if the audio sounds different, it’s because we pulled it from a video, not my normal podcast mic set-up. 

We’ll link to the video version in the show notes for each of these episodes because the videos will have some helpful graphics in case you’re more of a visual learner. 

I hope you enjoy today’s episode and gain massive insight into why weight regain is so common after weight loss, and some of the best things you can do to prevent regain. Let’s dive in!

Have you ever felt like you’ve lost the same 20+ pounds over and over again? You work hard, stick to the plan, see results…and then the weight creeps back on?

And after age 50, losing weight and keeping it off can feel even harder! In this video, I’m breaking down exactly why weight regain happens, especially after menopause, and most importantly, how to fix it for good.

Stay with me until the end because I’ll be sharing the most overlooked reason behind weight regain that traditional weight loss programs don’t address. If you skip out early, you’ll miss the crucial piece of the puzzle that makes all the difference.

To prove there is hope to lose weight and keep it off after 50, I want to share a quick story with you from one of our Zivli members, Beth. 

She'd tried everything including but not limited to: the Grapefruit diet; the Chicken, green beans; the Special K diet; the tuna fish diet; SlimFast; Very low carb; a 900 calorie/day diet; the Fruit only diet; and a Food combinations diet. 

I'm guessing you can relate when she said she'd lose weight with each of these...but it wrecked her metabolism, as you’ll learn more about in this video. 

When she got to a point in her life where she really wanted to lose it and keep it off, she said, “I was desperate because I had tried everything. I was eating what I thought was healthy…whole grain breads, whole wheat pasta, low-fat everything. Nothing was working. 

I just took my doctor’s word and every year she would say, “Excellent labs…you don’t have to do anything.” 

But when I looked at my labs I could see I was prediabetic, and had been since 2006. Protein was the biggest game changer for me. When I started upping my protein my sweet cravings left. I couldn’t believe it. 

I didn’t think that I would lose weight because I was eating so much. It was so different. When I finished a meal before….(my big salad)...I was hungry. I was never satisfied. 

And now with that big amount of protein and low carbs I was never hungry and the weight just kept coming off, and it did not come back on. 

This is the first time in my life my weight has stayed off. I lost 20 pounds and have been stable for a year! The last 10 are so hard to lose, so the fact that it stayed off all that time is remarkable. And I was full and enjoying food!

I wanted to enter my next decade (70s) at my best. I am so much stronger than I used to be because of the strength training. It’s life changing! 

When I had my hip replacement surgery, I knew I wanted to go into it strong. My recovery was so much quicker because I was stronger. 

2 ½ months after surgery, I was able to run up over 200 steps like Rocky on vacation and bike with my family up and down hills. 

I was so grateful I found Zivli because I never wanted my children to have to plan something that “mom can do.” I want to be able to do most of the things they do. 

That was my “why.” Making these lifestyle changes has re-energized me. I know now I can go into my 70s in my best spiritual, emotional, and physical health because they all go together. 

Give yourself this gift. There is an epidemic of “infobesity” so I had to let all that go and trust the Zivli program. It was a wise choice and paid off.”

You can do this. No matter your age or what you’ve tried in the past, if you put your mind to it and have the right strategies that work for this phase of life, you will succeed. 

Let’s start by talking about the two types of diets. The first is a short-term thing you do—like a meal replacement program or a trendy restrictive diet. The second is the way in which you habitually eat—your lifestyle.

No matter what short-term diet you try, your body will always return to its set-point weight if your habitual way of eating and living doesn’t change. That’s because weight is controlled by hormones, not willpower. 

The only way to lose weight, keep it off, and improve your health is through a low insulin and inflammation lifestyle. It’s not just about cutting calories or exercising more, despite what your doctor may tell you. 

Your hormones change as you age, leading to a decline in muscle mass and a rise in insulin resistance. 

Insulin resistance is the root cause of obesity and other chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and dementia. 

If you're anything like our Zivli members, you may have known you had excess weight, but overall thought you were pretty healthy. 

Then all of a sudden it’s one thing after another, and now your doctor is talking about prescribing you all these meds you don’t want to take. 

These aren’t just conditions of aging—they’re conditions of insulin resistance. Often excess weight is one of the first signs. 

The bad news is that when it comes to insulin resistance, the old adage “If nothing changes, nothing changes,” is not true. 

With insulin resistance, if nothing changes, things get worse, and the longer you go without changing your lifestyle, the more potential disease, medications, and complications you will have. 

And my guess is you have way better things to do with your time and money then spend them on being sick don’t you?

The good news is that you can lose weight and keep it off by reversing insulin resistance for good with a low insulin and inflammation lifestyle, not a short-term diet. 

This lifestyle must include all four pillars: What you eat and when you eat (nutrition), Movement, Sleep, Stress management, and most importantly, these pillars must stand on a strong foundation of mindset. 

Without that, you’ll rely on willpower, which is a fleeting and limited resource. 

With this foundational understanding of insulin resistance and its role in stubborn weight loss and disease in mind, let’s explore the three primary reasons from a hormone standpoint that drive weight regain.

The first compensation your body makes from chronic calorie restriction is slowing your metabolism down immediately and indefinitely.

I call this the yo-yo diet metabolism. If you’ve dieted multiple times and feel like you gain weight easily even when eating very little, this is likely happening to you.

You may feel confused about how you can eat so little but still weigh what you do. 

When you lose weight the wrong way - through just restricting calories in and burning more, but you’re not focusing on maintaining muscle mass through adequate protein intake and strength training while losing weight, your metabolism will slow down by 10-15%. 

Let’s use the example of someone who once weighed 150 pounds. But then, as I hear ALL the time, “life happened.” Let’s pretend this woman struggled to lose weight after having kids. 

And the stressors of raising children, working, caring for aging parents - essentially putting the wants and needs of others above her health for decades led to a 50 pound weight gain, and she reached 200 pounds, 

which she sheepishly called her “ugly weight” - the weight she swore she would never go above. Motivated by this fear, she is determined to lose 50 pounds and get back to a healthy weight of 150. 

Now, I’m not saying any weight is ugly, but I’ve heard someone actually use that term before and I’m guessing if you struggle with weight loss, you also struggle with negative and self-critical thoughts like these. 

But here’s the problem. When she was originally 150, she could eat 2,000 calories a day and maintain her weight. 

After her strict diet plan, her metabolism slows, and now she can only eat 1,700 calories a day to maintain the same weight. 

When I say “strict diet plan” I want you to think of any of the following ways that people diet to lose weight - Optavia, Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, 1,200 calorie/day diet or less, meal replacement shakes, etc. 

Even weight loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy can cut appetite so much and have a very similar metabolism-slowing effect due to a loss of muscle mass. 

So let’s say she reached her goal weight of 150 pounds and was so grateful that she could stop her diet now. 

Not only will she now be saving money by not spending it on diet food or a weight loss medication, she can finally eat what she wants again, right? Wrong. 

This is what I call the slide. She slowly starts to slide back into her old ways of eating and eventually regains the 50 pounds. So she goes on yet another diet and her metabolism slows even more. 

Now, she can only maintain 150 pounds by eating 1,400 calories a day, and if the slide starts to happen again, she’ll regain weight even faster than the last time. 

If you can relate to this yo-yo weight struggle, type yes in the comments and let me know what diet you were trying. 

But here’s the real kicker, w 

This is one primary reason why weight regain is SO common, because people keep going back to short-term diets that compromise their muscle mass and slow their metabolism, making whatever weight they lose nearly impossible to keep off. 

Another misconception about weight loss is that calories in and calories out are independent variables. 

Meaning if you eat less, you will still burn the same amount of calories. This isn’t true. Calories in and calories out are actually dependent variables. 

The more you eat, the more you will want to burn. The more you burn, the more you will want to eat. There is a reason you’re hungry after a long bout of exercise or heavy yard work. 

You just burned energy and your body wants to replace it, right? So what actually happens when you have less calories coming in? Your body will naturally reduce physical activity levels. 

Just ask anyone who’s white-knuckled their way through a very low calorie diet, or whose appetite was so drastically reduced from a weight loss medication that their energy was zapped and they didn’t even have the energy to exercise. 

A calorie deficit is needed for weight loss, but not so extreme that you don’t still have the energy to exercise - which is crucial for maintaining muscle mass as you lose weight, which again, prevents that metabolic slowdown. 

When you’re in a chronic calorie deficit, your body adapts by making you move less. You might find yourself sitting more, fidgeting less, or feeling sluggish. This happens because your body is trying to conserve energy.

This is why so many people feel exhausted on restrictive diets. And if you’re taking medications like Ozempic or Wegovy, you may notice this even more—because while they help suppress appetite, they don’t solve the issue of low energy.

The third mechanism behind weight regain is an increase in the hunger hormone, ghrelin. When you lose weight,  your body increases ghrelin, making you feel hungrier. 

And this next stat is going to blow your mind. This increase in ghrelin, or hunger, isn’t just temporary—elevated ghrelin levels can persist for up to a year after weight loss! 

Have you ever finished a diet and found yourself ravenous afterward? That’s ghrelin at work. This is one of the major reasons why traditional dieting doesn’t work long-term. Your body is literally working against you.

So how do we fix this? The key is not just reducing calories but managing your hormones. This means: Eating in a way that keeps insulin and inflammation low, engaging in movement that preserves muscle mass, and prioritizing sleep and stress management. 

And by the way, this lifestyle doesn’t require perfection. If you can do the right things 80-90% of the time, that is good enough. I call it structured flexibility. 

Without the flexibility to have your favorite foods every now and then, you will always feel like you’re on a diet, and your mind will want to sabotage you and throw you into these all or nothing extremes, which ultimate backfire don’t they?

This is exactly what we teach in our Zivli program. And the best part? It’s sustainable. It’s not about extreme restriction or deprivation—it’s about creating a lifestyle you can actually enjoy.

Now, here’s the part most people overlook. Weight loss is a two-sided coin: strategy and mindset. I know mindset is such a broad word but I’m going to break down exactly what it means as it relates to long-term weight loss. 

Most people focus only on the strategy—a classic example of this is someone who just says, “Just tell me what to eat and how to exercise and I’ll do it.” 

But if you don’t address the mental weight—the limiting thoughts and beliefs that cause self-sabotage—you’ll continue to struggle.

Mental weight includes: The all-or-nothing mindset, Negative self-talk (like that lady who had an ugly weight for herself), Perfectionism, Procrastination, and excuses. I heard a great quote recently that said, “You don’t need more time, you need less excuses.”

If you constantly criticize yourself, your brain believes it. You must learn to shift your mindset, catch your thoughts, and change your thoughts. 

Only when you learn how to do this, can you learn how to change your emotions, and ultimately your actions. 

Otherwise your thoughts will continue to sabotage your best efforts. You’ll continue to be frustrated because you know what to do, but you continue to not do it. 

You see, there is a big difference between knowing how, and being able to do something.

Knowing how indicates you have the knowledge, but not the understanding or insight to consistently apply that knowledge in a way that produces meaningful and lasting results. 

Consider riding a bike. You can read a book about riding a bike, or watch a YouTube video with someone riding a bike, or have someone with you in person to show you how to ride a bike. 

You know all the steps required to ride the bike, but that doesn't mean you're able to ride the bike. You don't become able to ride the bike, until you actually get on the bike and ride. 

Just because you have a head full of knowledge about how to lose weight and be healthy, doesn't mean you're able. 

That is a skill that must be learned. And that's what we help you do inside our Zivli program. 

Our Zivli Program gives you the bridge from knowing how to lose weight to actually losing weight and keeping it off. 

We do this by teaching you a low insulin and inflammation lifestyle, and the mindset strategies needed.

Another way to look at this is driving with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake. The foot on the gas may be a strategy that has worked short-term in the past. 

The foot on the brake is your mindset. You're going nowhere.

Our Zivli program will teach you the long-term low insulin and inflammation strategies and the mindset skills necessary to let you take your foot off the brake. 

Enrollment for our Zivli program opens on August 25th. If you want to learn how to lose weight and keep it off by addressing insulin resistance and mindset, make sure to get on the waitlist at zivli.com/join. We only open enrollment twice a year, so don’t miss out!

Now, let me ask you—what’s one mindset shift you want to make to finally achieve lasting weight loss? 

Drop it in the comments. If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear Beth’s full story, check out her interview next.