The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
Why you're not losing weight even though you think you are doing everthing right
This week we're going back a few years when I talked about one of the questions that comes up regularly in the day-to-day life of any personal trainer and dietitian.
"I am doing everything right, why am I not losing weight?".
Fundamentally the answer is always "It's because you're not doing everything right", and this is what most personal trainers and dietitians will tell you, but that answer isn't enough.
The following question should always be "Let's try to find out what the missing link is to your success"
I go over the many reasons, and there can be many, you're just not getting the results you're looking for.
I talk about;
The importance of BMR and calculating that correctly.
The problem with overreliance on exercise/training for weightloss.
The problem with "calorie in and calorie out, it's that simple".
"The time of the month" and the effects of menstruation on weight fluctuations.
How sleep, stress, anxiety and depression all impact your weight.
That breastfeeding does not equal weightloss.
The overall effects of hormones, including post-pregnancy hormones, on weightloss.
How "going out for a meal" can be a real bugger when you're trying to lose weight, and what the solution is...don't worry, it's not "just stay in".
Why I recommend going to "fancy restaurants" to almost all my weightloss clients.
And a bit more.
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Playing us out this week; "Hero" by Gee Smiff and INNXCENT
Hey, welcome to the HealthyPostNatalBody podcast with th . That, as always, would be me. Today I am answering one of the biggest questions. We come across a lot as a personal trainer, and dietitians come across this a lot as well. I am doing everything right. Why am I not losing weight? Right, I'll go over absolutely everything that you could be doing wrong. I'm talking about the importance of BMR and calculating that correctly daily calorific needs and all that sort of stuff.
Peter:The problem with over-reliance on exercise and training for weight loss. The problem with calorie in, calorie out the time of the month, effects of menstruation, how sleep, stress, anxiety and depression all impact your weight. The breastfeeding for postpartum babies does not equal weight loss. The overall effects of hormones, including post-pregnancy hormones, on weight loss. How going out for a meal can be a real bugger and why I recommend going to fancy restaurants to almost all my weight loss clients. Right, it'll be fun, I promise. Here we go. Welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with little old me. This is the podcast for the 19th of January 2025 and I hope you're all doing well. I hope you all had a great week. I hope you all had fun. It's just little old me again today with Peggy and Bobby and Kitty and Buddy, so if you hear snoring in the background, that is my captive audience falling sound asleep.
Peter:I am talking about the big question this week I'm doing everything right. Why am I still not losing weight? This is something personal trainers and dieticians hear an awful lot. I have heard several times this week. I've heard people say yes, because you're not doing everything right, um, and then leaving it there. Right, clearly you're not doing everything right, and then then kind of leaving it there. Now the following question should always be okay, let's try to find what the missing link is to always be okay. Let's try to find what the missing link is to to your success. Let's try to find out why you're not being successful.
Peter:And this is kind of the problem, because that's when it very quickly gets complicated. Right, weight loss, fundamentally, let's. Let's start off at the base before I start to lose people. Fundamentally, it's about calorific deficit, right. Fundamentally, if you're not losing weight, you're eating too much for you at the time. However, to just tell people to just eat less, kind of misses, one or two really big components. Um, there might be an easier way to get people to, to get the body to lose weight quicker, to get the body to accept that, say you say you need to eat 1,500 calories a day to maintain or even to lose weight. Say 1,500 to lose weight and the weight is, you've calculated that and it's not coming off. Then say, just drop to 1,200. That should do the job, but there might be a way to make sure that you don't go hungry all the time and that 1,500 will be sufficient to still get you to lose weight. It just kind of depends on what other things you can tweak and quite often we oversimplify this stuff, you know. So let's start at the beginning.
Peter:The importance of calculating your BMR, your base metabolic rate, and calculating that correctly and this is huge, I will link to this is massive, right. I will link to the calculatornet BMR calculator and, for instance, I'm looking at it now because for once I'm a little bit prepared for a 25 year old female. Two is 180 centimeters tall and weighs 60kg. I don't know can I show that easily? So that is 5 foot 10 and weighs 160 pounds. What my little calculator here says is she would need, according to this right. This is why I'll tell you what the problem with BMR is she would need 1439 calories a day. That's what the BMR is. Now. The daily calorie needs are based on the activity level Sedentary, little to no exercise 1700 calories a day. Exercise is one to three times a week 1900 calories a day. This is where BMR very rapidly starts to fall apart.
Peter:Bmr calculations right daily exercise force 5 times a week, 2100 calories a day and all that sort of stuff. See how fast that went from your BMR being 1400,. Bmr, by the way, as it says in the description of the calculator, just in case, is the amount of energy that you expend whilst you're at rest. So your digestive system is inactive. So you basically you haven't just eaten, um, but do you see how, how the bmr went from 1400 to your daily caloric needs being 400 more per day if you exercise four or five times a week, right? So sedentary, little to no exercise 1700 calories,700 calories a day. Exercise four or five times a week 2,100 calories a day. Now, exercise here is determined as is classed as 15 to 30 minutes of elevated heart rate activity. So that could be anything right, and to assume that someone needs 400 calories more just because their heart rate was elevated for 15 to 30 minutes is insane. That is just not the way it is. This is where most BMR calculators fall to pot very, very quickly. Also, as I think it says here somewhere as well. Also, as I think it says here somewhere as well, what we know is that BMR there's a variance between people of between 20 to 30,. 20 to 26 is what calculatornet has it as BMR. There's a 26% unknown variance between people. 26% unknown variance between people. So that means that you've just calculated your BMR. And this is where most PTs start. They calculate your BMR and they say, oh, you'll need to consume 1,700 calories a day and then if you exercise, you need to consume 2,100 calories a day. But 26 26 variance means that you could be anywhere actually between actually requiring 1300 to 2000 calories a day. That's a huge difference because we know 500 calories a day roughly a pound equates to a pound a week in weight loss or weight gain or, you know, failing to lose weight and all that sort of stuff 26% variance is massive. If we then also take into account that exercise is classed as 15 to 30 minutes of elevated heart rate activity and you already know that this is going to go horribly, horribly wrong. And this is the problem. Calculating BMR correctly is remarkably difficult. So when I said the first part of what I'm discussing is that the importance of BMR and calculating it correctly, I almost mean that, yes, you should calculate BMR and then almost only use that as a guide and then adjust accordingly.
Peter:Right For you BMR, your BMR according to the calculatornet BMR and all the other BMR calculators that BMR might be wildly off, and that is because of various reasons. One of the problems is over-reliance on exercise and training for weight loss. That it says here. As it says here on the BMR calculator. As it says here on the BMR calculator, like I said it says here exercise four to five times a week and exercise class again, because I can't handle this home enough 15 to 30 minutes of elevated heart rate activity. It says you then need 2100 calories a day. That is wildly off.
Peter:I have never come across anybody who does any form of normal level exercise, so not too intense, because intense is a different class that needs to consume 400 calories just to make up for 800, just to make up for 30 minutes of exercise a day. I can put you on a rowing machine for half an hour. You wouldn't burn 400 calories, right. So then to eat more simply because you move a little bit. That is, you're out of your mind if you do that, and and you're let me rephrase that you're out of your. Your pt is out of their mind, your dietitian is out of your mind. If they genuinely believe that that is how that works. There is just no reason to compensate that much for moderate forms of exercise. I tell my clients that unless we're doing high-intensity interval training after which you can have a small meal, you don't compensate for exercise.
Peter:There's no need Unless you're an athlete, you don't need to eat more on days you exercise. You just don't. If weight loss is your goal, if maintenance is your goal, then maybe you can have an extra little meal, but you definitely don't need to consume 400 calories more just because you went for a little jog. That was half an hour A little. 15 minutes to half hour jog, right. 15 minutes to half hour jog, right, let alone. If you even look at intense exercise, it then says you need to consume 700 calories a day more, almost 800 calories a day more for intense exercise, which a class has 45 minutes to 120 minutes of evaluated heart rate activity. So I don't know, spin class, 800 calories in a spin class you're out of your mind. Most people never see that. Also, there's a big difference between 45 minutes and 120 minutes. So to assume that you need the same calories if you're exercising 45 minutes as someone who exercises almost an hour and a half is just, it's just not right. The problem is what your lifestyle is, and that is the sedentary lifestyle that most people have has led us to believe that exercising for half an hour, 45 minutes a day, you know, getting your heart rate up a little bit, that old NHS, a brisk walk classes, exercise that you need to compensate for that? No, because you're still massively under how active you should be to actually take any sort of compensation for activity levels into account. If I go to the gym for 45 minutes and I train, and whether I lift heavy things or, you know, I don't know, do deadlifts, do squats or do high intensity interval class or do a spin class or just sit on the rowing machine for half an hour 40 minutes and do some stretching, I don't need to compensate for that. That is just the normal activity levels. If you're not getting a reward at the end of that, you should not take that into account. When you're eating, the mistake a lot of people and again the mistake a lot of people get told to make is to eat to compensate for exercise. And you just genuinely, you just don't. You don't need to do that Because it quickly leads to overestimating the amount of calories you burn, the amount of calories you need in a day, and we already know that BMR is wildly off. So you know, if training of that half hour exercise is all the exercise you're getting in a day and the rest of the day you're sedentary, you're not moving about a lot, you don't have a physical job and all that sort of stuff. You just yeah, you don't take that into account. Oh, I exercised a little bit today so I'd better have an extra chicken breast. No, you don't need to, because you'll go wildly over on calories and that will stop you losing that weight. Right, because you'll go wildly over on calories and that will stop you losing that weight.
Peter:But we also know that the problem of calorie in, calorie out it's that simple, um is that it completely ignores the type of food you're eating. You know, everybody that buys into the calorie in, calorie out only idea conveniently ignores several things, and that is, first of all, the calories mentioned on the pack are not actually necessarily an accurate measurement. So we've already established that the BMR calculations are not actually necessarily accurate, an accurate measurement. So we've already established that the bmr calculations are not accurate, uh, that there's a wild variance in that right. Calories as advertised on the packaging are also wildly inaccurate. If you buy food at the supermarket, whether that's crisps or a microwave meal or chicken, whether that's crisps or a microwave meal or chicken doesn't really matter that much how you the. The stuff on the packaging is just a really rough guide and we know that they can be off by as much as 15 to 20 percent. And take it into account that you just have a 26 swing on bmr on your bmr calculations and your daily calorie. If you need calculations, then to also have a 26% swing on BMR on your BMR calculations and your daily calorie feed need calculations, then to also have a 20% swing in your calories. That is mentioned on your food and you're going to be wildly off. We also know that.
Peter:Highly processed food you know everybody comes with this example when I say something like this the guy that lost weight just eating McDonald's yes, you can lose weight just eating McDonald's. It was this professor that proved that as long as he ate 2100 calories or I don't know three pack-macks a day, he would lose weight. Yes, the problem with that is if you take that as a simple measurement and just say that this is what you do and you stick to it, is that you completely ignore all other health implications of this, which is one of the reasons BMR is such a shitty computation. That 20% 26% swing in BMR is partly caused by hormonal levels and stress and all that sort of stuff, and we know the impact highly processed food has on this. So the type of food you eat really, really matters.
Peter:There's a big difference between 2,000 calories of burgers crappy burgers, and 2,000 calories of relatively healthy meals with high fiber, high vitamin. Healthy meals with high fiber, high vitamin, high micronutrient content and all that sort of stuff with the right protein, carb and fat ratios, healthy fats versus saturated fats and all that sort of stuff. We know that there's a wild difference between the two. One will have your body functioning well, the other one so not so much right. So, calorie in, calorie out, it's that simple doesn't really work. Food quantity, food quality sorry, food quality is significantly more important than that simple phrase will have you believe.
Peter:Can you lose weight just eating mcdonald's? Sure, sure you can. Is it easier to lose weight eating healthy? Oh, do you bet your ass? It's. That's not even. That's not even a consideration. That doesn't mean that you can never have mcdonald's if you're trying to lose weight, right? That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that calorie in versus calorie out, it's that simple.
Peter:Is is this doesn't make sense. Um, I remember seeing this thing from precision nutrition, I think, a while ago. That shows that the fiber content for that for food has a massive impact on how many calories you actually absorb. Right? So say you have a thousand calories on your plate but there's a ton of fiber with it, you might only actually absorb 700 calories instead of the full 1000. Whereas with highly processed food you would actually take in the whole 1000 and your body would. You wouldn't pop it out, to be a bit more blunt about it.
Peter:So calorie in, calorie out simply doesn't work in that way. These are all just guidelines, right? If you are in a restaurant and there's a 500 calorie option, a thousand calorie option, you know the 500 calorie option is likely to get you closer to your goals, but it's not. If your goal is weight loss, but that is, it is not a given that 80 calories on that, the 500 calorie thing, count is accurate and that it will actually be an indicator as to how much weight you will lose that week. Right? If you look at what's it my fitness MyFitnessPal is a track of that you enter that stuff into MyFitnessPal and you say I need 2,500 calories a day. I just had a 500 calorie meal and I'm in a 500 calorie deficit every day. So I should lose a pound a week. And then it doesn't happen and you're like, but I? The amount of calories you actually absorbed from from that food.
Peter:Another thing that massively impacts and every woman will know this, but a lot of PTs don't seem to know this the time of the month, the effects of menstruation on weight fluctuations. Almost every woman I train gains weight right before their period starts One to two pounds. In one case it was almost two kilos, almost four pounds. That is what's going to happen. It was almost two kilos, almost four pounds. That is what's going to happen. So you have to take that into account when you're looking at your weight loss journey. That you're always going to be heavier certain times of the month, that is okay. Menstruation will will lead to to a fluctuation in your way, in your way and because it does, it means that you have to not write off that week. But you at least have to say this gaining a bit of weight this week is completely normal, right? Not? And not say I need to eat a bit less this week to compensate for it.
Peter:Again, hormonal changes are huge. I mean, they have such a big effect on weight loss. We know this for sleep, stress, anxiety and depression and all that sort of stuff that impacts your weight as well. Lack of sleep I mean lack of sleep, sleep deprivation is horrible for weight loss. The stress that puts on the body physical stress, the cortisol levels, insulin response, all that sort of stuff changes when you're sleep deprived, when you suffer from stress and anxiety and depression. I kind of put it all together because they're all basic hormonal changes. I've done various interviews with registered dietitians by now and they will all agree that the cortisol response, the body being stressed, is a real bugger when it comes to weight loss, because the body doesn't know that you are stressed because of work, because of kids or whatever, or because of work because of kids or whatever, or because of in case of anxiety and event you have coming up or or what, whatever it is right. It doesn't know why you're stressed on a primal level and therefore it goes into fight-or-flight, and fight-or-flight leads to only being able to do one thing and weight loss is way at the back of the line. So we know that having extremely high cortisol levels will also impact the way you lose weight and how you lose weight.
Peter:So I always ask my clients, especially men. If I train men for weight loss, I always ask them. What are the stress levels like this week? Most postpartum women I kind of already know, and because you know your lives are so ridiculously complex, quite often you run around like I don't want to say headless chickens, but you know you, you sleep deprived, you barely know you're functioning certain days. Uh, I train very few postpartum women for weight loss, anyways right, but that is. It's something that always comes up at some stage. I'd like to lose the extra amount of baby weight and all that sort of stuff and just I always say, listen, we have to get your life under control a little bit first before that is really doable. But you see a lot of guys, with a lot of guys and women in high-stress jobs, that they really struggle to lose weight simply because the body just doesn't really know how to deal with it because of that cortisol response.
Peter:For postpartum women, breastfeeding does not equal weight loss. Again, this is something you get told in your antenatal classes, but it's a poppycock. Breastfeeding burns some calories, but nowhere near as much as they used to think it does. It used to always be claimed at between 400 to 500 calories a day and now the estimates are near 360. And even that, I think, is way too high. You need energy for breastfeeding, so you need to consume healthy foods and all that sort of stuff to make sure you give your baby the best chance and all that sort of stuff. But that doesn't mean that you will automatically lose weight, because as long as you're breastfeeding and this is based on hormones, the post-pregnancy hormones like prolactin and all that sort of stuff still going for your body means and I've said this before means you'll always retain five to ten pounds For as long as you're breastfeeding. Most women not all of them, of course this is all ballpark. This applies to 90% of the population and stuff right, you will hold on to five to ten pounds whilst you're breastfeeding.
Peter:That weight simply won't come off. It's not going to won't come off. It's not going to For a very wide why is that the right phrase? No, it's not. For a very big number of you guys, that weight simply won't fall off whilst you're breastfeeding. So you have to kind of take that into account and accept it. There's nothing that you can really do about it without going really drastic.
Peter:Breastfeeding burns some calories, sure, because you're doing something, but it doesn't burn calories in the way that again as with exercise, that you need to eat more to compensate or that in any significant measure. I mean, I estimate it to be significantly lower than 300 calories, 300 to 400 calories. Like I said, all the calorie counters and BMR counters and all that sort of stuff are wildly, wildly speculative and have huge margins. And breastfeeding is one of those things that simply hasn't been tested well enough to show just how many calories it burns for everybody. Because, remember, we have that 26% swing in the basic metabolic rate for people anyways based metabolic rate for people anyways. So just because your friend burns few hundred calories that and needs, uh, feels that she needs to eat to compensate, to maintain her weight and her physique and all that sort of stuff, that doesn't mean that you should. All this stuff is completely personalized guys.
Peter:You have to take the personal approach to this because if you don't, you're going to fall wildly, wildly out of whack and you might even find that all the effort you're putting in and this is all effort and this is all mental load and this is all exhausting you might find that you're still gaining weight Going out for a meal. This is funny. I've got one older gentleman who's trying to lose weight. I train his kids and all that sort of stuff, and I train him as well and he's trying to shed a meal four times a week, so three days of the week he's perfect, and even all his breakfast and all his lunches are fine, but then he goes out for a meal four days a week and the weight isn't coming off. Because food that you have outside of the house is almost, almost inevitably significantly higher in calories than food you have in the house. And not just because you eat more, not because you have a starter, a main and a dessert, but, uh, when you might just have a main in the house and maybe, maybe, maybe a deserter, you never have dessert, but you always have it out of the house. It's just house and maybe, maybe, maybe a deserter. You never have dessert, but you always have it out of the house. It's just.
Peter:That's how they add flavor, that's how they cook, right, you add butter and all that sort of stuff to everything. Uh, then those are like hidden calories. We get very other than flavor because fat carries flavor. Let me put it down right. That's what? Uh, what's his face, chef nigel? Uh, he always used to say that fat carries flavor. The higher the fat content, the mountain, the more flavor there basically is going to be in a meal and that's why, when you go out for a meal, all of a sudden you can have a basic meal that at home would be four or five hundred calories. The same food is seven, eight hundred calories out in the restaurant just because fat carries sleep and they add a lot of fat. And we know one gram of fat is about nine calories. Actually we know that this is exactly nine calories because that we have measured. Um.
Peter:So, going out for a meal, making the better choices, uh, when you're out for a meal, being a little bit more aware, I always say the easiest choice to make is to look at the theory of satiety that I've discussed before. When you're satiated, it's protein content and fiber content. Right, those two things. So you go, you pick. You don't just pick a leaner meat, you pick for something with fiber. So you add your veggies. The more veggies you have that are not drenched in butter or whatever they drench these things in, but the more veggies you have with a meal when you're eating out, the healthier that meal is going to be and the more that meal is going to sustain to help you, help, keep you on the path to weight loss. So you can have a steak with some veggies and some chips, if you're that way inclined, for instance, then you don't just have to ignore the chips. But I'm saying, the more vegetables you have with it, the fewer calories you actually absorb. The more you poop out, you have to go back to the very crass and very crude basics. Right. The more veggies, the better it is overall.
Peter:Fiber is so important. It also makes you feel fuller quicker, right. The more fiber you have, the have, the easier your body goes. It's fine, I've had enough. And this is something we do often at home. We don't do when we're out and about. Stop eating when you're full.
Peter:Just because you paid 25 or 50 or 100 bucks for a meal doesn't mean you need to finish it all there and then you can take it home with you and all that sort of stuff or just leave it. When you've had enough, you've had enough, you stop eating. The body telling you that it's had enough is a pretty big clue and it's a pretty big thing. We need to make sure that we start listening to our bodies a little bit. I know Yogi Aran is flipping out here somewhere, but it's listening to your body when it's full and just stopping eating there.
Peter:It just kind of makes sense, right? You don't have to keep going because you ordered the dessert. Sometimes two spoonfuls of dessert is fine. Sometimes I don't know the restaurants you go to, but some of the restaurants I've been to recently you have a dessert. It's so rich I can only have two bites and then I'm done. I could eat the rest of it. Physically I can make room, so to speak, but I just kind of don't really want to. And that's a, b and why I recommend going to fancy restaurants to finish off on, because how far in I we and I know I've been waffling a fair bit. We're half an hour in.
Peter:A lot of people these days get deliverables and takeaways and all that sort of stuff, and I trade takeaways for fancy places. So I don't know a takeaway meal for two people. We're going to ignore the kids for now. We're not going to feed them For two people. Easily. You can easily spend 30, 40 pounds. Is that 50, 60 bucks? You can very easily do that, at least in Edinburgh. There's no problem, even dominoes, you know, if you get it delivered to your house, you can easily spend 30 quid. If you give up the weekly takeaway and you go to a Michelin star place once a month, you spend the same amount of money. Especially, I mean, in Edinburgh, we're drowning in good restaurants. We have quite a few really, really good ones.
Peter:I am of all boring French, most of them boring French ones, but you know fancy places. If you like that sort of thing then you can go to. They almost all do a market menu which is basically their standard three course, but still Michelin star food right For 35, 40 pounds, something like that per person, and star food right For 35, 40 pounds something like that per person. So if I go somewhere and have a really nice meal for 40, 50 quid or which equates to two takeaways for myself, then I'd rather have the one really nice meal right. That trade is almost inevitably going to lower your calories.
Peter:Shitty food from takeaways, crap quality food, usually fairly highly processed, drowning in fat and salt and all that sort of stuff or ghee or whatever they use oil, is so ridiculously calorific that one meal is likely to undo your entire week's worth of progress. You can actually genuinely be 500 calories under, you know, assuming your BMR is calculated accurately, and all that sort of stuff which you know for most people won't be. But you could actually be in a 500 calorie deficit and just have a chicken korma for a meal and go way over and undo your work for that week. Chicken korma of some rice and a naan bread from the takeaway easy, 3000 calories there. Easy, it's not even different, it's not even difficult.
Peter:You throw a couple of chicken pakoras or veggie pakoras or onion bajis or something like that in and you're over and you've undone all the work you've done that week. So you've given up an entire week's worth of food that you might want to eat and you stayed on the ball and you put effort in and fought and effort into that week. And then you undo that by having one takeaway. Scrap the weekly takeaway, have a monthly Michelin star meal. You'll not only have better food, you'll be much, much lower in calories as well. Overall, the solution to losing weight is not necessarily as simple as calories in calories have you may well have calculated your.
Peter:BMR incorrectly, or you likely have calculated your BMR incorrectly. As we found out right, you're not burning as many calories for training as you think you are. You're just not. There's a big difference between processed food and unprocessed food with regards to the amount of calories that it says on the package and the amount of calories you actually absorb, actually use from the food that you digest, from that food. It could be the time of the month. Sleep, anxiety, depression all that sort of stuff affects your weight loss. It kind of just does. You know it could be breastfeeding, which means you retain 5 to 10 pounds. Prolactin, like I said, always means you retain 5 to 10 pounds.
Peter:Going out for a meal. Boom. If you don't get your veggies with that meal, you won't even be full and you'll consume more calories. So all those things are little tweaks that you can make If you find you're putting a lot of effort in but you're not losing weight. Go for the easy solutions and have a look to see which of these uh, what are they? Four, eight, nine points that I just raised. Which ones of those are you doing? Are you having a Michelin star meal? Right? Stop eating more on days that you're training and you will start losing weight rapidly because, like I said, there is no need for you to consume an extra 700 calories on the day that you did a HIIT session. There really just isn't Right.
Peter:All those things still show that it is still fundamentally about a calorific deficit. Right, the science is very clear If you are in a calorific deficit, you will lose weight. But how to get into a calorific deficit and how to get your body to accept that being in a calorific deficit is OK, which is what hormonal response is all about that is key. If you're constantly stressed and anxious, then we know meditation will help with weight loss Because your body's cortisol levels will drop, you get some endorphins and all that sort of stuff. This is partly why running helps for stress and anxiety and depression, not just because you get exercise in, because the hormonal changes are different and we know, for instance, from people who suffer from depression and anxiety that if they're also trying to lose weight, then they get more benefit from a 5k run than someone who doesn't suffer from stress, anxiety and depression does. With regards from a weight loss perspective, because of the hormonal changes that come with it. Studies are very, very new into that field, to be fair. So when they say I, we know, yeah, we kind of very, very strongly suspect based on on what little evidence is, because it's also remarkably difficult to measure right. A lot of this stuff is is just basic science. It is just basic science. But the problem is that a lot of this basic science is just not that accurate. Yet the human body is remarkably complex. This is why BMR calculators are so wildly off. We don't even know what that's. I don't know a little bit of a brand. We don't even know for sure's. I don't know a little bit of a brand. We don't even know for sure where that 26% swing comes from, just because the human body is so complex, so people can't come to you and say I know that this is what your problem is. I know this is what your solution is.
Peter:You have to kind of in an ideal world. You have to have a little bit of self-awareness. In an ideal world, you keep a little journal. I'm not sleeping well, I'm not feeling well, I'm stressed at work. Stress at work always leads to blah, blah, blah Weight retention for me.
Peter:Or went out for a meal. This is what I had. I had no veggies with the meal. That leads to weight retention for me. I, after training, I had extra amount of extra calories to compensate for. And again, that's just a ballpark figure that you're getting and this is where I'm going wrong. So those things will help with that. I have a weekly takeaway. I had a takeaway that week, one takeaway that week, which means and I didn't lose weight, I don't know. I was good for the entire week except for the one takeaway. There you go, that was your problem. At least that way you know and you can make those adjustments. So find which one of those points and it's usually a combination of those points is actually holding you back and then deal with that or just accept it Right, especially postpartum.
Peter:I think postpartum weight loss is a colossal waste of time. I really do. I think it's completely the wrong focus for most people. But if you want to lose weight postpartum, just do it in a safe way. Have some more veggies, meditate a little bit, bring your stress and anxiety levels down and be a little bit more active and I don't mean by half an hour a day, I just mean in your day-to-day routine. Be as active as possible.
Peter:Right, small changes will get you big results, because almost inevitably, all this stuff is a combination of things and there isn't a simple one one-stop solution that will actually get you results. There just kind of isn't. And that's the problem with weight loss that even though you might be doing in your mind everything right, why are you losing weight? It's because you're you're kind of working on one magic bullet, and that bullet tends to be diet, and the diet tends to be based on a faulty calculation of your BMR and there is no good calculation of your personal BMR out there. Right, you have to make the adjustment yourself. Even if old websites tell you something should be 1700 calories or 2000 calories or whatever, that doesn't mean that for you as an individual. That is correct.
Peter:Anyways, that's my waffling done for the week. Thank you very much for listening. Uh, I've got kelly smith coming back soon, by the way. How amazing is that? Kelly's got a book coming out about postpartum rage and all that sort of stuff and meditation for postpartum rage, and you're gonna love it. It's gonna be great. Um, don't be out soon. A couple of weeks I'm interviewing dr crystal lao, uh, about, uh, basically, how you do postpartum recovery and all that sort of stuff and all the chinese sound is sitting the month and how you can incorporate that into your, into your western life, and all that sort of thing that's coming out the next couple of weeks there's a ton of people coming on.
Peter:Uh, let me know p peterhealthypersonateofbodycom if you'd like me to speak to anybody else. That's it for me for the week. Here's a new bit of music. You take care? Bye now.
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