When it is hormones, not calories, that decide whether you will store or lose fat, a calorie deficit is not going to help. Most weight loss practices will tell you that creating a calorie deficit to lose weight is correct. Unfortunately, it isn’t, especially for women over 45.
It isn’t about the number of calories you eat, it’s about what the calories you eat do to your hormones. If they are creating inflammation and imbalance, it creates stress in the body and stores fat. The focus needs to be on healing your body instead of starving it.
What Calorie Deficit Causes
Your body is made to keep you alive. Our ancestors survived famine, war, and other strenuous situations because of this built-in failsafe. When you don’t get enough food or food with enough nutrition, and you are in constant high-stress physical situations, the failsafe triggers. You go into survival or famine mode. This causes your body to hold onto and store fat as emergency energy.
Your body can’t differentiate calorie deficit and strenuous exercise from starvation and running for your life. When you aren’t giving it the energy it needs to run properly, it will hold tighter to the stores it has. Energy is stored in fat. Your body won’t let go of the fat willingly and the second it gets a chance, it will build those stores right back up. You need to heal your gut and get your body out of famine mode so it can relax and let go of the fat stores.
The Problems with the Calorie-Deficit Diet Mindset
The calorie-deficit diet mindset is all about calories in, calories out. The problem is that not all calories are made equal. A slice of chocolate cake can have the same calorie count as salmon and sweet potatoes. They do not have the same nutritional content and will react differently inside your body. Your foods need to be nutrient-dense and anti-inflammatory, not low-calorie. As you start to change the content of what you eat, the portion size will take care of itself.
Not all bodies are made equal either. Telling everyone to eat less and exercise more is a cookie-cutter approach that doesn’t work. Men’s and women’s bodies lose weight differently and no two women are the same either. You need to eat for your body, not for an out of date system. That mindset clearly isn’t working when over 80% of America is still overweight, despite a booming weight loss industry.
Alternative to Calories Deficit
Stop worrying about the deficit and worry about fueling your body with the right foods and habits. Your focus should be on eating natural foods that reduce inflammation and hormone imbalance. This will heal your gut and help ease your body out of emergency mode. Only when you are out of famine mode will it let go of fat willingly. Otherwise, every time you ease up on your diet the weight will all come right back.
It is essential to take care of your body beyond just the food you eat. There are certain habits that keep you from reaching your full weight loss potential because they keep your body unhealthy. You need to make sure you are getting good sleep every night. Lack of sleep leads to and is a symptom of weight gain. It is also essential to reduce your stress. Stress causes hormonal imbalance in the body, triggering more fat storage. Build better habits beyond your food intake to help yourself be the healthiest you can be.
Lose Weight without Calorie Deficits With Metabolism Reboot
If you have tried diet after diet and still feel like you aren’t making progress, contact us today to learn how Metabolism Reboot can help you make a real change.
Learn about sustainable weight loss without extreme dieting or exercise with Metabolism Reboot. We teach you how to reboot your metabolism to promote permanent weight loss. Schedule a call to learn how to rebalance your hormones and reduce inflammation.