Sustainable, healthy weight loss *MUST* be gentle, not stressful
TL;DR - For women, going gently and pushing less is the key to LASTING weight loss (and a more joyful life).
Sadly, often in our quest to lose weight, we turn “healthy” stressors that can be effectively leveraged for fat loss into unhealthy stressors that sabotage our progress.
I’m talking about approaching tactics like caloric restriction, exercise, fasting, sauna, cold exposure in “the usual ways” we hear about in the media - which are usually don’t work for female physiology.
The outcome? The exact opposite of what we want: weight gain, miserable symptoms and stress that impacts us deeply.
Read on to learn more and about what to do instead.
Healthy stressors are challenges that push our boundaries a bit, without overwhelming us. They’re healthy, but only in moderation and when used appropriately. Examples are:
Fasting
Caloric restriction
Exercise
Heat exposure (like sauna)
Cold exposure (like cold plunges)
These are also known as ‘hormetic stressors’, from the Greek word, hormesis, which means “to excite” or “to set in motion.”
Healthy hormetic stress is characterized by its temporary nature and the positive adaptation it encourages in our bodies.
When done correctly, at an appropriate dose and cadence, these things can work wonders for the body - they can hugely improve cardiovascular health, brain health, the immune system, and they can reduce blood sugar and stabilize insulin.
They can also reduce physical feelings of stress by releasing endorphins and a variety of other molecules that trigger cascades of longevity-promoting repair processes in the body.
These kinds of practices have become very popular in recent years thanks to mega-famous health experts, who have done great things to promote awareness of their benefits…
BUT…
These things aren’t neccessarily healthy for everyone.
Here are some important considerations, especially for women:
Hormetic stressors are ONLY positive stressors for relatively healthy and well recovered bodies; people respond VERY differently according to their health status and stress levels (cellular stress and percieved stress).
Men and women do better with different approaches and intensities when it comes to these things.
There MUST be balance between stress and recovery. If we overdo it on frequency or intensity or both, we get in trouble, turning those positive stressors into negative stressors. I’m looking at you if you work out hard 6 days/week.
This last one is enormously relevant for nearly every single woman I work with, and probably 97% women in western society:
On our mission to lose weight (or just maintain) over the years, most of us have routinely stressed out our poor little bodies by overdoing it when it comes to fasting, dieting and exercising.
This is the elephant in the room when it comes to “healthy” hormetic stressors that most experts aren’t talking about when it comes to women’s health:
ANY of those things done to an appropriate level and frequency can be absolutely wonderful, healthy stresses on our bodies that help us toward our health goals. But...
We often overdo the "healthy stress" when trying to lose weight, and it all backfires…
For instance, a classic example from my large perimenopausal client pool:
We fuel ourselves with too few calories (stress)...
Our metabolisms recalibrate caloric burn to match reduced calorie input…
We stop losing weight…
So we eat fewer calories (more stress)...
And exercise more (more stress)…
And the cycle repeats.
We do this over and over again until we’re at 1200 cals, and the fat still is not budging.
On top of that, our bodies are holding on MORE tightly to our fat stores because they think not enough calories are coming in to sustain us (even more stress).
Add to that the stress of our careers / relationships / kids / life, and it’s all just WAY too much…we’re in NO state to lose weight, let alone feel energized and joyful.
Lasting weight loss MUST be easeful and gentle for women.
In order to lose weight (and not to feel like garbage), we need to dial back the intensity, the restriction, the deprivation - because ALL of that stuff is WAY too stressful, especially on top of all the other stresses in our lives.
It has to be easeful, and make our bodies feel safe.
We must go gently.
...And carry a big stick so we can fight back the urge to wait until we’re starving to eat, or workout when we really don’t have the jam, or try to just eat salad/super low carb all the time.
Then and only then will our bodies respond the way we want: the stress falls, cortisol normalizes, other hormones normalize, and the weight comes off.
This is the KEY to weight loss (and happiness!) that we blaze past in our rush to “lose the 20lbs fast.”
On that note, I want to clarify something that really irks me about the weight loss space in particular:
It is not “safe” or sustainable to lose weight quickly as woman!
It’s too stressful on our bodies, so they just hold on to the fat we’re so desperately trying to lose even more tightly. Like a safety blanket.*
It’s like a Chinese finger trap - the harder you try, the more painful it becomes.
You know what I’m talking about if you’ve been on the yo-yo diet cycle for damn ever. It sucks.
Sustainable weight loss - and I mean FAT loss, not just water loss - means losing about 1.5-2lbs per month. NO MORE. It’s too stressful on the body otherwise.
Anyone who tells you otherwise, is frankly full of sh*t.
This rhetoric of “lose 20lbs in 8 weeks” is an insane thing to be peddling. The full statement should be “you could lose 20lbs in 8 weeks but you’ll gain it all back again as soon as you stop torturing your body and it’ll be even harder to lose next time you try.” 😡😡😡
(*This can different for men: they can simply decide to take off weight quickly by dieting and exercising hard, but their their hormones and metabolism are totally different. Plus, they generally aren’t restricting calories all the time…long-term, chronic dieting/deprivation ruins our metabolism and makes it super slow, and that’s a thing men generally don’t do.)
How to lose weight safely and sustainably?
Your amazing body is an unspeakably complex network of interconnected systems, and 95% of the time, it’s the weight you see that you want to change, but extra weight is always a sign of something deeper going on that we need to address first.
It’s easy to overlook the other stuff because you’re myopically focused on losing that last 10lbs…But what if your thing is actually fixing your cortisol or correcting your circadian rhythm or hormone balance or gut health?
Nearly every client I’ve ever worked with in 10 years comes to me wanting to achieve certain goals;
100% of them end up starting with other goals first and having many other wins along the way to achieving their original goals…
Sometimes they get frustrated that the weight isn’t coming off IMMEDIATELY, but in truth, the other issues HAD to come first, or the weight was never gonna budge.
And most times, the “other issues” were things they never even realized were holding them back, or zapping their energy or predisposing them to problems down the road.
Having helped hundreds of people lose the weight they wanted to lose, I can tell you confidently that lasting weight loss can come as a result of becoming a healthier person overall…and that nutrition and exercise are only one piece of the puzzle for many people, not the keystone.
If you want to learn how to support your health and lose weight gently and permanently in your 40s and beyond, my program, The Better Beyond 40 Formula can help you. 💃🏼
If you’re facing challenges during perimenopause, there’s SO MUCH you can do without putting stress on your body or taking meds!
This blog and my social media are all about education and empowerment, and I offer tons of free help for you.
You’re not alone in this rollercoaster ride of hormonal changes. 🎢
