Blog

Tuesday Tip: Common barriers to sustainable fat loss ⛔️

This may be hard to hear but here are a few of the common barriers to fat loss.

#1 Expectations

Most of us assume that not only will we lose weight quickly and easily, but that it will then stay off without a thought. This is a dangerous mindset to cultivate. Be realistic with your rate of loss – a realistic weight loss per week would be 0.5% of your bodyweight (rising to 1% for a really aggressive calorie restriction) and that’s an average – so you won’t see that every week. To put that in perspective – if you weigh 65kg that’s 650g a week. Trying to go faster than this will get you nowhere – all that will happen is you’ll lose muscle as well as fat, and encourage disordered eating and binge:restriction behaviours. You should be developing new habits and a new lifestyle – you can’t do that when you’re just trying to shift weight asap.

# Short term

This isn’t short term – the things you do in order to create the change are things you will have to keep doing – forever. Can you go for the rest of your life without ‘carbs’? If not then cutting carbs/ keto is not for you. If you tend to overeat in the evenings after starving all day then fasting isn’t for you etc. Be realistic – make small changes to create a calorie deficit, that you can sustain – forever.

# Refusing to adapt

You have to be prepared to adapt and you have to accept that life won’t always be the same and it won’t always be easy. There will be periods of time when you’re busy with work, having a personal crisis, or some family disaster etc. That doesn’t mean your diet/ fitness/health should automatically get thrown off track! In fact during these times sticking to some healthy habits may help keep you going but that doesn’t mean the methods you use need to stay the same. You may not manage to track calories when you’re busy, or you may not make it to the gym 5 days a week so make adjustments – use some go to meals you know are lower calorie, decide to aim for 1-3 workouts instead etc.

# Starting Monday

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “It’s Monday, I’m back on it.” A lot of people go full out during the week – smashing those calories, working out etc but then come the weekend social events/ family life etc takes over and it all goes out the window. Instead look at your entire week – all 7 days and adopt a balanced approach. Set realistic goals for all days, and DON’T just give yourself a pass because it’s the weekend.

# Be honest

If you can’t be honest with yourself, without berating yourself, then you’re probably not

looking at long term sustainability. You have to be able to see where you are falling short and make honest adjustments. You have to know yourself, know your weaknesses, and be willing to make changes.

Happy Tuesday 🤗xx

Tuesday Tip : Calorie Counting Doesn’t Work… 🤔

I hear this a lot – people tell me that calorie counting didn’t work for them and that despite only eating 1000 cals (or whatever value it is) they just didn’t lose weight.

If the goal is to lose weight/fat then the only way to do this is to be in a energy (calorie) deficit. This is a fact and hundreds of studies support this. The means by which you achieve that deficit can obviously vary. It doesn’t mean you HAVE to count calories. But if calorie counting didn’t work for you that means you weren’t in a calorie deficit.

If you thought you were only eating 1000 calories then something is definitely going awry as anyone on that level of calories WILL lose weight.

So if calorie counting doesn’t work for you then these are probably the reasons why.

# 1 Measuring inaccurately

This is the most common issue – not weighing food accurately. If you’re just using MyFitnessPal and finding a rough estimate that you ‘think’ is right then it’s not going to cut it. If you’re guessing weights then you’ll almost certainly be under estimating – again hundreds of studies show this to be the case – even in experienced ‘trackers’. Eyeballing amounts accurately is incredibly hard and unreliable. So get the kitchen scales out – measure in grams and millilitres (not cups and tbsp) and then you’ll have a better level of accuracy.

# 2 Lack of consistency

You feel like you’ve been on track consistently for weeks but in reality those weekends, nights out, or those days when you’ve emotionally eaten have taken you over etc. We’re very good at ‘forgetting’ (unintentionally) all the times we actually don’t stick to the plan. So if you haven’t lost then perhaps it’s because you haven’t been consistent enough?

# 3 Not enough time

Maybe you’ve been trying for a couple of weeks but aren’t seeing the results you want yet. Well that’s probably because you need to do it for longer! It takes weeks and months – not days to see sustainable losses. Remember you didn’t put the weight on in a few days, it’s not going to come off in a few days either. You need consistency over 7 days a week, for weeks and months.

Happy Tuesday 🤗xx

Tuesday tip: Balancing hormones 🚩 🤔

You will often see fitness or wellness coaches talking about you needing to ‘balance your hormones’ or promising that certain products can do this. This is a huge red flag. Fitness coaches, personal trainers, wellness coaches, life coaches etc should not be talking about hormones in this respect – it falls outside their scope of practice and I’m afraid in most cases they don’t know what they’re talking about. The wellness world is full of this sort or marketing quackery that preys on people – right now the main target is peri menopausal and menopausal women, though often it targets other groups too.

The only person qualified to tell you that you need to ‘balance’ your hormones is an endocrinologist. For example – balancing the levels of thyroid hormones, or the levels of oestrogen and progesterone has real and significant medical implications. Another example is cortisol production – if ‘imbalanced’ through chronic stress it causes oestrogen and androgens to be suppressed. These are facts, based on medical science, not conjecture based on the current social media hype that preys on vulnerable people.

Inevitably you’ll also see that these people talking about a need to balance hormones are also selling programs or supplements which will ‘balance your hormones’ …. Ta da! What a surprise…

There is so much fear and distrust for doctors and the medical community, and none whatsoever for non-regulated, unproven and untested products purchased over the counter or internet. If someone has a real hormone imbalance they need medical care – likely in the form of an endocrinologist but certainly not a collection of random supplements or diets.

Happy Tuesday 🤗

Xx