Wanting to lose weight/body fat but stuck??
It’s simple to say that to lose weight you need to be in a calorie deficit. Eat less than you burn each day and you will be successful. Yet, if it was this simple -- would we still live in a world that has steadily rising obesity rates?!
When it comes to losing weight most of us would love to have results yesterday. Instead we choose to invest in fast fixes that have led us to regain the weight or worse yet gain more than we lost originally. The more fast fixes, fad diets, crash diets, detox teas, etc that we put our bodies through the more work it will take to transform your body and lifestyle into long term sustainable success.
As a health and nutrition coach I would rather help you achieve your much wanted weight loss goals in a way that if I saw you again after 3 years of not working with you, you’d still be utilizing the education and tools from our time spent together.
To make sustainable weight loss changes we need to take a deep dive into multiple pillars of our daily lives. One not being any more important than the other.
Let’s talk first about your stress levels and how you manage it. Why?
Our world is becoming more and more chronically stressed. Coming to terms with our stress levels and letting them be knows is important because:
1: High stress lifestyle= high cortisol levels (stress hormone)= Body wants to keep all the extra fuel it can to survive and manage
2: Higher nutritional needs are required for higher stress lifestyles
High stress lifestyles might mean we need to take an extra rest days from the gym, make walking movement your daily goal with only 3-4 days in the gym, increase our caloric needs to fuel our bodies for the stress we endure, work towards ways to decrease the high amount of stress-- Every individual person's situation will need different actions taken.
Another area that gets overlooked when choosing a fast fix weight loss solution is sleep. Giving our bodies the ability to rest & recover is HUGE. As stated above, to lose weight we need to be in a caloric deficit. Being in a caloric deficit creates stress on the body. This also correlates with rise in our cortisol levels aka our bodies stress hormones. The more we neglect adequate sleep, the more dysregulated our cortisol levels become resulting in the feelings of being “tired & wired”.
Hydration: Water, water, water!! Drink it, eat foods rich in it, get water in!! Our bodies are ~60% water & we lose water through breathing, sweating, and digesting. Water is needed for many functions within our bodies- breakdown & digestion of food, nutrient transportation, waste removal, tissue and joint protection, body temperature regulation, and chemical & metabolic reactions.
Our bodies don’t produce water on it’s own, you need to drink/eat it!
The last 2 areas mentioned above, increase protein intake and resistance training, are important areas but are individualized to each person. The amount of protein you should eat is dependent on your age, activity level, underlying conditions, how overweight you are, etc. And when it comes to resistance training effects on weight loss, that's a topic for a whole other post. The short version is that incorporating resistance training into your lifestyle will help increase your metabolic capacity and is a great tool for weight loss but once again is individualize to the person.
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