Why Gaining Weight Is Good: Andrea’s Transformation

Many women are scared of gaining weight. When Andrea came to work with me she had extreme hunger, low energy, inability to lose weight and a very restrictive mindset around food.

Andrea was chronic dieting for 20 years and battling her body and self image. In her case, this created a lot of stress and anxiety around food. Her relationship with food was not good and she feared she would have to eat even less food in order to lose weight.

Andrea gained 10 pounds during the program, but not 10 pounds of fat. This is one reason why we don’t rely only on the scale because it doesn’t tell us everything. In this podcast episode, I explain why gaining weight in Andrea’s case was a good thing!

Many of the women over 35 I coach on weight loss with are like Andrea. They are chronic dieters who have trained themselves to eat very little food. They fear food, yet they are battling hunger and low energy.

Usually these women eat very little food because they are scared if they eat more food, they will gain weight. However, eating very little food puts them in a cycle of under eating and over eating, which from their body’s perspective means they are either maintaining their weight or gaining weight.

What all women don’t realize is that the metabolism is a stress response system. Too much stress from chronic dieting, eating too few calories, under fueling, over exercising, obsessive thoughts around food and body image becomes added psychological stress on the body. This stress prevents women over 35 from losing weight.

In Andrea’s case, we worked to get her metabolism to a healthier place and stabilized her hunger and energy to reduce the stress on her body. While she gained 10 pounds, she did not gain fat. Her body composition changed and even her husband said she looked great!

I’m sharing Andrea’s transformation with you because women who have weight loss goals automatically think any weight gain means the diet protocol they’re following isn’t working. This isn’t necessarily true. It depends on each individual’s unique diet history, mindset and other factors.

If you’ve been struggling with weight loss, it’s always helpful to work with a coach so they can look at the bigger picture and provide perspective. If Andrea hadn’t worked with me, she would have only used the scale to measure progress and never would have achieved such massive mindset shifts around her body image and food.

Andrea talks in this episode about the mindset shifts she made and how different this program is from other programs out there. Enjoy Andrea’s story and remember gaining weight is good in certain cases!

In this Dish on Ditching Diets Podcast Episode, You Will Hear:

• How Andrea’s Restrictive Relationship With Food Started in College When Professor Telling Her Not To Eat Carbs
• Andrea’s Experience on Weight Watchers Feeling Like She Was Starving Despite Having A WW Coach
• Andrea’s Mental Struggle with Food, Her Body Image & Self Talk
• How Andrea Battled Hunger (Often Going to Bed Hungry) and Very Low Energy
• Why Gaining 10 Pounds in Andrea’s Case Was Good
• Andrea’s Advice for Other Women Over 35 Struggling to Lose Weight

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• How Dropping Self Criticism Helped Sarah Lose Weight – Sarah’s Weight Loss Journey