Nine weight loss truths no one wants to hear! In this Dish On Ditching Diets podcast episode, nutritionist Megan discusses the unspoken truths that are often most overlooked in a weight loss journey.
She shares the behind the scenes reasons women over 35 struggle to change their behaviors with food and exercise long-term.
She also shares why you need to change on the inside first to change on the outside, and the importance of ensuring you have a good foundation to your house before building your house.
Furthermore, she breaks down common misconceptions about hormones and metabolism for mid-life women distracting them from reaching their goals permanently, and making them vulnerable to quick fix weight loss approaches that only yield short-term results.
Hint - focusing on these things are a distraction from becoming consistent with the big rock habits that will move the needle long-term. Focusing on things outside of your control is like watering your grass when your house it on fire!
In this jam-packed episode, you will learn why you are not an all or nothing person, why you need to stop fighting for your challenges and limitations, how to get past feeling like you know what to do but do not do it, and why you need to start showing yourself your successes more than your failures.
Listen to the episode for more or read the transcript below!
In this Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast Episode, You Will Hear:
- 9 Weight Loss Truths You Don't Want To Hear
- Why You Need To Change On The Inside To Change The Outside
- How Your Thinking Sabotages You
- Why Focusing Creates The Opposite Results
- Are You Giving An A Effort?
- Why You Are Not An All Or Nothing Person
- Is Your Metabolism Broken?
- Why You Need To Highlight Your Successes More Than Your Failures
- Are Your Hormones To Blame For Your Weight?
- Why You Know What To Do But Are Not Doing It
Never Miss An Episode! Subscribe to the Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast on Apple, Stitcher, Spotifyor Amazon Music
Related Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast Episodes
- Fix Your Hormones To Lose Weight
- 1200 Calories Is The Fastest Way To Kill Hormones
- Why You Keep Regaining Weight After Dieting
- All Or Nothing Mindset
- Can You Not Lose Weight In A Calorie Deficit
- Why Am I Not Doing What I Should Be
- 3 Things To Stop Doing To Lose Weight
- Doing Everything Right & Not Losing Weight
Weight Loss Truths You Don't Want To Hear Podcast Transcript
Hello Friends!
Today we’re talking about weight loss truths you don’t want to hear, and these are not the usual things you usually hear about weight loss. But before we get to that – we’ve got the May cookbook winner to announce. Amandajmarsh44 is the May cookbook winner.
She says… “listening to this podcast every day while taking my walks changed my life and outlook on food. I started because I heard about the Optavia podcast and I had just gotten done losing 100 lbs. with Optavia and gained 50 lbs back. I thought I was addicted to food. I didn’t realize it wasn’t me until Megan explained it! Since then, I have overhauled my habits, lost 10 lbs. and never felt better. Thank you, Megan!”
Awww… Amanda I’m so happy for you! Please email me megan@skinnyfitalicious.com to claim your cookbook prize. As a reminder, the April cookbook winner was appmeup. Please make sure you email me as well.
It is now June friends so if you want a chance to be entered into the monthly cookbook giveaway all you have to do is a leave a 5 star rating and review of this podcast on apple podcasts.
Click on the thumbnail for the Dish On Ditching Diets podcast then scroll to the ratings and review at the bottom and leave a 5 star rating and review. I’m doing this monthly through December 2024 and your chances of winning my cookbook are good.
There are usually 3-5 reviews per month so if you leave a review the chances are high you will win since there are not that many entries.
Ok now onto today’s topic. Weight loss truths most people don’t want to face, and I want to preface this by saying that these truths are not to shame you.
It’s to help you move forward in your journey and help you get unstuck, and these things you are very likely unaware of that are keeping you stuck.
Most people don’t want to face the harsh truths because if you don’t have to face it you don’t have to hold yourself responsible.
I want to help you. I want to help you achieve your goals. But the problem is if you don’t face these, you’re not going to achieve your goals permanently.
I’m not going to just tell you today eat your protein and be in a calorie deficit. Yes, those things are important but what I’m going to share with this list is that none of those things matters if you don’t have these things in check.
It's like the foundation of your house. It doesn’t matter what windows you have, what paint color you have, what doors you have. If you don’t have a good foundation, your house will crumble and fall.
So, some of you may not want to hear these things but you need to hear them in order to get to where you want to be.
Number One – You’re looking for reasons to fail and struggle and that’s why you’re finding them. You must understand you will always find what you are looking for.
If you find you are struggling, I guarantee you are looking for reasons to fail. What you are focused on, your brain will show to you.
When you are looking for reasons to fail and struggle, your brain will hide for you everything that will make it easier and will only highlight to you the things that are a struggle and reasons why you will fail. It’s crazy, but this is what happens to so many individuals and they don’t realize it.
It's like when you buy a new car. You never noticed that car before but now that you’re focused on this new car you just bought, you see it everywhere.
Whereas, before you never saw it. It wasn’t on your radar. It wasn’t because none of those cars were on the road before. Your awareness changed. Your brain filtered things differently.
If you always say this is taking forever. I should have lost more weight. I should be at my goal by now. This isn’t good enough.
My co-worker is making more progress than me. I’m not motivated. I can never stick with anything. That is what you are telling your brain to look for so it’s going to hide wins, it’s going to hide opportunities and solutions. It’s only going to continue to validate for you and show you reasons why you will fail.
So, if you feel like the world is out to get you and you never can make it happen and you feel like you’re always struggling and failing, it’s because you are LOOKING for your failures and we always get what we look for.
You have to train yourself to look for the things you ARE doing well. You have to force yourself to see where the wins are in your journey.
The craziest thing I see with clients is they will come to a coaching call and say I’m frustrated because nothing is working.
Then I’ll look at their measurements and they’re consistently going down. They are literally talking themselves out of their own successes. It is WILD! Human psychology is crazy. I’ve seen this time and again.
You know what I say to these clients? The only thing not working right is your brain. Because you are not allowing yourself to see your progress.
You think it should be faster. You think it should be more. You are not celebrating the success you already are having.
You keep waiting to celebrate your success when you achieve your dream body and you keep looking for why you’re gonna fail. Terrible mindset!
Number Two – You saying that you’re an all or nothing person is just validating your bad behavior. Understand that when you say you’re an all or nothing person you are justifying why you are not where you want to be and justifying poor decisions.
If you binge on a pizza on Thursday and you say I’ll start over on Monday, you’re validating the decision you’re about to make that you know you shouldn’t make.
Because when you say I’m an all or nothing person, you’re saying I’m not in control, I have no control over my actions because this is the kind of person I am and I can’t change.
What if this was any other area of your life? What if you dropped your phone and cracked your phone screen? Do you still try to use your phone, or do you say I’m an all or nothing person and you bash your phone with a hammer until it won’t turn on.
If you bought a carton of eggs and two eggs were cracked in the box when you got it home would you say I’m an all or nothing person so I’m going to throw out ALL THE EGGS instead of just throwing out the two that were cracked?
If you got a flat tire, would you get so mad you got a flat tire that you would slash your other three tires, or would you just fix the broken one and move on?
Do you ask your husband to go to the store to buy yogurt and he mistakenly gets the wrong yogurt and you beat him up because you’re an all or nothing person?
Do you forget to shower or are too busy to shower one morning that you say screw this showering thing, I’m not showering until Monday! Everyone will have to deal with my stinky butt.
Imagine if you lived all aspects of your life like that, in the all or nothing. That would be ridiculous. If you took this all nothing mentality that you do in weight loss and applied them to all areas of life, you would not make it in real life very far.
Many of you pull the all or nothing card because you are validating bad behavior. Stop doing that. Stop pretending you are an all or nothing person.
You aren’t in other areas of your life. The only reason you struggle with it in weight loss is because you haven’t called yourself out on it before.
You keep enabling your bad behavior by saying I’m just an all or nothing person and I can’t change. But you can.
Number Three – You are spending way too much time fighting for your limitations. Everyone has mental, physical, emotional limitations of sorts.
The problem is too many people fight for their limitations. You don’t get it. My Mom did this to me. I grew up with this. I have this health issue. My thyroid is slow. You don’t understand my husband is a lazy slug.
The problem is when you fight for your limitations you are quite literally arguing for why you can’t get to where you want to be and why you can’t take any steps to get to where you want to be to validate them.
Just because something’s not your fault. It doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility. Right?
For example, when I bought my home, one day I came home, and the water heater flooded the garage. It wasn’t my fault that the water heater flooded the garage, but it was my responsibility to fix it. It sucked and I just fixed it.
Imagine if I just said it was the builder’s fault. It’s not my fault. I’m just going to sit and sulk and complain to everyone that my water heater flooded my garage and it’s the builder’s fault and I did nothing to fix the problem. Imagine if I just left it.
A lot of women I see are just sitting there spending so much mental time and energy on why you’re broken, why you will never get to your goals, why you’ll probably never lose weight and if you do lose weight why you’ll probably gain the weight back, why you’re going to fail, why it’s not going to work this time. Ugh!
Imagine if you put all that mental time and energy where you think about your limitations into taking action and into finding solutions and into thinking what if this does work out, what if I could make this happen? Everything would change, I guarantee it!
Number Four - Your metabolism isn’t slow, you just eat more than you think. You eat more than you’re aware of, and you eat more than your body burns.
Most people proclaim their metabolism is slow. Their metabolism is broken. It’s their age. But they haven’t been consistent for more than 2 or 3 weeks.
You may think you are eating 1200 calories, but if you actually weighed and measured all your food on a food scale in grams for the last 3 months and averaged out the calories for the 3 months, I guarantee your calories are higher than 1200 if you were not seeing the results you thought you should be seeing.
Most likely you are eating 1200 calories a few days, but then you have days where you’re eating 1800 calories, 1600 calories, 2200 calories so on average your calories are much higher and that’s what your metabolism cares about.
So, before you blame your metabolism, blame your age or think you are broken tediously weigh everything you eat on a food scale in grams and plug it into a tracking app for 1 month. Then take the average calories you ate for the month.
When you put pen to paper, you will likely find you eat way more than you realize. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this with clients. They’re like I eat healthy, I don’t understand why I’m not losing weight.
99% of my clients are eating a lot of healthy foods. The problem for many of them is that their protein and fiber are so long making them very hungry, and their calories are much higher than they realize which is why they are struggling with their weight.
I honestly would be a millionaire if I had one dollar every time someone told me they thought their metabolism was slow or broken and then we audited their nutrition, and they were really eating way more than they realized.
I shared a client example awhile back. She was complaining to me that she was gaining weight.
Megan I’m doing everything right, why am I gaining weight? It must be my metabolism. I told her to get a food scale and validate what she was tracking, and she realized she was eating 300 calories more than she thought.
She thought she was eating 1500 calories. But she was actually eating 1800 calories. It’s so easy to do guys.
I guarantee you are not broken. I guaranteed your metabolism is not broken. In fact, if your metabolism were broken you would be dead.
And your metabolism is not slow. You’re lacking muscle, probably not moving enough during the day and you’re eating more than you realize.
Number Five – You starting over every Monday is an excuse. Very similar to all or nothing, when you say I’m going to start over Monday you’re making an excuse.
You are one meal, one snack, one walk away from being back to your baseline. I like to say baseline or routine because there is no off track. The goal isn’t perfectionism here. The goal is consistency.
You know what sabotages consistency? Sabotaging yourself with an excuse and saying screw it, I messed up this meal. I overate. I ate something I didn’t plan for so screw it. I can’t do anything. I ruined everything anyways.
That is what messes up your consistency. You just shake it off and get back on track with the next meal, the next walk, the next snack and your still consistent. You are not consistent when you say I need to start over Monday. Not only is it a lie. It’s an excuse.
Let’s say you go to happy hour and overeat with your friends. You can still go for a walk when you get home. You can still not binge the rest of the night or next day. You can still not wait to start over.
You can still track the other food you eat. You can still get some protein and drink your water. You have to start treating your weight loss just like you do every other area of your life.
Most people treat their weight loss like going to their job. They go to work every Monday and have the weekends off. You don’t not take care of your kids over the weekend. You don’t not brush your teeth over the weekend.
You don’t not pay your bills on the weekend. You still feed your dog on the weekends. You still feed your kids on the weekends. Some of you still work on the weekends.
So, stop treating your weight loss like it’s your job where you take the weekend off and go back to it every Monday. It’s an excuse a lot of people use. I can’t get my protein because it’s a Saturday. Um, what?
That’s like saying I can’t shower on the weekends. You are taking care of your health. You can do it. You are choosing not to do it. And if you struggle with food on the weekends, chances are you are too restrictive during the week.
Number Six – Weight loss truths you don’t want to hear. Your hormones are not why you haven’t lost weight, you just aren’t consistent.
Most of you are going to get really upset by this, but the truth is your hormones are not why you haven’t lost weight. Now your hormones may be impacting your sleep, your mood and your energy which makes your consistency harder.
When you’re tired or moody or your energy sucks, you likely eat more. If you have those issues that are impacting your consistency, then you need to get to a doctor to have your hormones checked.
Menopause.org is a great resource for women. I’ve spoken about this multiple times on here. It sucks for women getting the right help.
Our healthcare system is not setup appropriately to help women transition to menopause and most women do not know where to turn.
Menopause.org will help you find a doctor that can help with your reproductive hormones. If you have a thyroid issue, then see an endocrinologist.
But most of you listening, your lack of weight loss is not because of your hormones. You have consistency issues.
If you haven’t been consistent with your nutrition (not your exercise because exercise does not drive fat loss) for the last 3 months, 6 months or 12 months, you cannot blame your hormones for the reason you are not losing weight.
My clients are women of 35. The majority of them are going through perimenopause or already are in menopause. Many of them have a thyroid condition, some have an autoimmune disease, some have PCOS or insulin resistance.
But guess what? When those clients are consistent, they lose weight. It’s slow and slower than many of them like but they do lose body fat even with their hormone issues and health conditions.
They lose weight! Yes, it is slow. Fat loss is supposed to be slow, but the point is you can lose weight. You are not broken.
Before you say it’s your hormones, check your consistency first. Most women I have seen over the last 10 years in my practice who have tried to tell me it was their hormones when they first came to work with me, weren’t consistent and that’s why they weren’t seeing results.
I have women tell me this in my free consultation all the time. It’s my hormones. I know it’s my hormones. I ask them what’s your average calories over the last 3 months? 6 months?
What’s your average protein and fiber the last 3 months? How many steps on average the last 3 months? None of them have that data. Why? Because they are not consistent, and they are focusing on the wrong thing.
Focusing on your hormones is like watering your grass when your house is on fire. Your house is on fire and you are standing out in the front yard watching your house burn to the ground and your just watering the grass.
You’re not focusing on the big rocks like getting consistent with steps, protein, fiber and calories.
And listen, I’m not saying hormones don’t make it harder. It absolutely does. Your sleep is off, you’re retaining more water, your raging, your mood is all over the place, you’re bloated, your energy sucks. I get it.
In my 30’s I went through the worst hormonal issues ever. I became estrogen dominant, my testosterone tanked and I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s – a thyroid autoimmune disease.
You know what I was doing? I was getting up at 4am to workout. Sometimes 3am and I would do 2 hours of cardio. I was trying to eat 1200 calories only binge on peanut butter every night. Every afternoon I thought I was going to die, I was so sleep deprived.
And I was cutting out carbs and trying to eat Paleo and I kept looking for other diets to try. You know what I was doing? I was throwing fuel on the fire. I was making my hormonal situation worst by doing all these crazy, extreme things.
Instead of getting up at 4am, I should have been sleeping in. Instead of trying to eat 1200 calories, I should have been eating at maintenance.
Instead of cutting carbs, I should have been increasing fiber. Instead of focusing on 2 hours of cardio, I should have been doing 30 minutes of strength training and restorative walks. I wasn’t focusing on the big rocks and just like many other women, I was blaming my hormones.
It wasn’t my hormone’s fault. I was throwing fueling on the fire doing all these crazy things! I wasn’t consistent and my focus was on the wrong things.
So, I’m not saying hormone issues don’t exist or that they don’t make your life miserable or that they don’t make it harder for you to get to where you want to be.
What I am saying is some women jump to blaming their hormones but are not consistent for more than 2 or 3 weeks and don’t get their hormones tested by the right experts.
They are not consistent for months on end or they are consistent with focusing on the wrong things like I was in my 30’s when I went through my hormones blowing up.
Number Seven – You are not trying your best. Now I’m not suggesting you be a robot and strive for perfection every single day, but you need to understand that your lack of results are from you not trying your best.
What do we tell kids when they’re worried about a test at school? Do your best!
If you are struggling, you are not doing your best. How is saying I’m an all or nothing person doing your best? It’s not it’s validating your bad behavior. How is saying I’m going to start over every Monday, doing your best?
How is skipping your protein at breakfast doing your best? How is saying screw it and continuing to make bad decisions doing your best? How is saying if I can’t do the whole workout I can’t workout at all doing your best? How is saying I can’t walk today but you could walk around the block to get your habit in doing your best? It’s not.
So, you need to understand if you are struggling and not getting results you are probably not doing your best. If we had to audit where your best is at, you’re probably not doing it.
If you had to audit yourself when it comes to your habits, are you getting an A, B, C, D or F. Get brutally honest with yourself. If you say you want to be healthier and lose some body fat but are not putting your best foot forward it’s kind of a terrible way to treat yourself.
Number Eight – If you know what to do, but don’t do it. You either don’t know what to do or you don’t care. I do see a lot of women who just don’t know how much protein to eat, or they know how much protein they need but aren’t sure what foods to eat to get there.
Or they don’t know how to eat balanced meals to stay full. They don’t know how to get into a calorie deficit or how to eat more fiber. A lot of people just don’t know what to do.
On the flip side, some people don’t care, or their current reality doesn’t hurt enough. Why do you do things like brushing your teeth, paying your bills or going to work? You know you should do them.
You’re not motivated to them. You’re not excited to go to work every day. You’re not motivated to pay your bills. You don’t love brushing your teeth so why do you do it anyway? It’s because the negative outcome hurts worse.
Getting evicted from your home, losing your car, getting your utilities shut off, hurts a lot worse than going to work. Having cavities, have bad breath hurts a lot worse than the 2 minutes it takes to brush your teeth.
So, if you say you know what to do but aren’t doing it then your current reality doesn’t hurt bad enough or the perceived hurt is something you’re not aware of like what happens in 10 years, 20 years if you stay exactly where you are.
What happens to your romantic life? What if you have no intimacy with your partner for the next 10 years because you’re not confident enough? What if your kids see you struggle with food and yo-yo dieting for the next 10 years?
What happens if grandkids come in the next 10 years will you be able to run around with them, get down on the floor with them to play?
You see we start stacking what the hurt is going to be in the future because if you say you know what to do, but you aren’t doing it, you either don’t know what to do, you don’t care or you aren’t aware of the future hurt from not taking action.
It’s like a kid who knows they should clean their room, but they don’t clean their room because they just don’t care.
This is why a person may know they’re at risk for a heart attack but not doing anything to prevent it. Then they have the heart attack and survive.
Then they hit rock bottom and finally they make changes. If you are in these shoes, is it because you don’t know or because you don’t care? Which one is it? Because if the stakes were higher, you would change it.
Number Nine – Weight loss truths you don’t want to hear. It’s going to take longer than you want. You do not get your dream body in 3 weeks, 3 months, 6 months or for some not even in a year. It’s going to be slow and it’s going to take time. You have to accept that fat loss and getting healthier takes time.
Unfortunately, the diets you have done in the past have taught you it should be fast but that is not normal weight loss. It was short-term and unsustainable and didn’t teach you how to live real life in maintenance.
A lot of women I work with struggle with this. Logically, they know slow is best but mentally their brain keeps telling them it’s wrong, it’s not working, yada-yada.
You have to accept that it’s going to take longer than you want and you need to stop comparing to other people. You have no idea what someone’s else’s story is.
What their diet history looks like, what their childhood or lifestyle looks like, how their metabolism functions. You don’t know where they are starting or what conditions past or present they are dealing with so stop comparing.
Comparison is the thief of joy and it does NOTHING to help you move forward. Stop comparing and accept it’s going to take time and as long as you keep going you are guaranteed to get there.
Okay when we got through them all! Nine weight loss truths you didn’t want to hear or didn’t know you didn’t want to hear!
Listen, I’m here to help and I know some of these things are hard to hear. But what I know coaching women over 35 for 10 years is that the basics work, and they are simple. But they are not easy because these other areas get in the way mentally of doing things consistently.
You have to upgrade your mental operating system in this journey. You have to lose weight from the inside out. You can’t just do a calorie deficit and carry along your old cruddy way of thinking.
That will only get you temporary results, at best. And you’ve done that I’m guessing many times already. So, it’s time to fix the real things getting in the way! Mmk?
I’ll talk to you soon!
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