Weight loss and wellness lies
“We change our nature to try to make ourselves shrink to fit society. We wonder why we get these constant low levels of anxiety, chronic stress and depression. The body feels rejected and neglected at a fundamental level constantly. How about we stop doing that?”
- Ericka Thomas
Transcript
The Lies of weight loss
They say women are excellent multitaskers. That’s a lie. What we’re really good at is overriding our body and nervous system to the point of exhaustion and suffering through undernourishment. There is no multitasking in diet and exercise. You can’t run yourself into the ground without rest and balanced nutrition and get stronger. Skinny and healthy aren’t the same thing. Today on The Work IN we’re talking about some of those weight loss lies and how to start working with the body so we can feel safe, strong and confident in our own skin.
How do we do that? First we need to expose the lies around weight loss. There are 3 big ones.
1st lie:
A calorie is a calorie.
Only in a lab. Your body is far more complex. What is true is you can’t outrun your fork but not because of the calories on it. It’s because most of us aren’t getting enough nutrients in the right balance. And who wants to count calories anyway? Not this girl.
So the good news is you don’t have to. But you do need to count something called macros.
I’ve said for years that the RDA and MyPlate (before that the food pyramid) got it wrong. The government recommendations for nutrients and calories are the minimum that a human being needs to not die. They aren’t optimal levels. In fact they are quite sub optimal.
The body needs certain things to build, maintain and repair. Certain essential things.
Essential amino acids (protein). Essential fatty acids(fat). And carbohydrates for fuel. But those aren’t essential.
Ladies need to eat.
When I was younger I remember being out to dinner with my husband and he looked at me and said you eat like a man. Now maybe that’s because I'm one of 4 kids and you had to move fast if you wanted to get something to eat. I’m sure that’s part of it. But I’ve never been one of those “eat like a bird” women. And now I’m glad.
We have been lied to as women. Told that we can and should get by on 12-1500 calories per day. I’ve tried that. I suppose if you want to be growly all day, never get out of bed and frail in your old age it’s fine.
I’m not down for that and you shouldn’t be either.
2nd lie:
If some is good, more is better.
This is a lie everywhere, but especially with exercise. The point of exercise is not to make yourself sore. I see this all the time. People attending all of the highest intensity classes and only high intensity classes and raving about how sore they got from last week. Take a page from the pro’s. They cycle their training. They build in recovery. They have times where they back off strength to work on skills. Why don’t we do that?
Possibly because we are trying to work toward an unattainable ideal rather than overall health. I say unattainable here because so often with women we move the bar. Or can’t accurately see our progress. Or our only measure of health is the number on the scale. Rather than body composition, strength, mobility, how well we’re sleeping, how it feels to be in our own skin.
Ideally we would be active throughout our day and then do something hard in or out of the gym for about an hour. Instead we sit around all day and then go kill ourselves in the gym for an hour ish maybe twice a week.
Maybe it’s unrealistic in this day and age to ask people to stand up from their desk on a regular basis or get 10,000 steps a day but if you don’t want to spend the last 20 years of your life bedridden or in poor health maybe you can start to prioritize exercise differently.
Lie #3
We can build muscle and lose fat.
There’s no multitasking in the gym. You can’t build muscle and lose fat at the same time. Whaaaat? What about sculpting? What about cardio? What about HIIT?
You have to eat and move a certain way to lose fat. You have to eat and move a certain way to put on muscle. They are not the same.
Here’s what you need to know.
In order to build or rebuild or repair muscle tissue you need 2 things. You need to lift or move in a way that requires the muscle to change. In other words, beyond what you can already do easily. This means discomfort. AND you need to feed yourself enough of the essential amino acids and fats, the building blocks, to use in that repair and building of those tissues.
When you restrict calories, the body cuts the most expensive tissue to maintain. That means up to 50% or more of your weight loss through restriction can be muscle.
Protein is required for organs, bone and muscle. The body prioritizes organs first. Any protein you consume goes there first. But when we aren’t getting enough protein we lose muscle. When you lose muscle bone density also suffers. SO how much protein do we need? At least 100 grams per day or 1 g per pound of body weight. For me that’s 150g a day. I’m lucky if I can get up to 100.
I check that for myself and I’m always surprised how low my protein intake is and I eat eggs everyday. Eggs are 5 g of protein each. Ground turkey is about 21 g per 4 oz , beef is 48g per 8oz, a can of tuna is 21g. When you restrict overall calories your protein levels suffer. 10% from protein is NOT enough. And as we get older it’s even more important because we are less efficient at absorbing protein in general so we need more of the higher quality and more bioavailability of animal proteins.
This isn’t about what you look like or what you weigh. It’s about your quality of life in your body long term. The holy grail is to be constantly burning fat for energy. But the body won’t do that if A. it has lots of ready carbs to burn instead. B. if you’re working out too hard. We burn fat in zone 2. So consistent activity throughout the day is where the body uses fat stores.
Calorie restriction for weight loss without proper macronutrient support leads to bone loss, muscle wasting, joint instability, gut dysbiosis, hormone imbalances, sleep disruption, insulin resistance, vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
There is no upside to under nourishing yourself in order to be a certain weight or size.
And here is a little known fact. Food is a safety signal to the nervous system. When I say food I”m not talking about a happy meal from mcdonalds. I’m talking about the body’s requirements for essential nutrients. Amino acids + fatty acids which we can’t make ourselves and enough fiber to feed our gut microbiome and support our immune system.
For so many of us we sacrifice high quality nourishment on the altar of someone else's ideal body size and shape. We change our nature to try to make ourselves shrink to fit society. We wonder why we get these constant low levels of anxiety, chronic stress and depression. The body feels rejected and neglected at a fundamental level constantly. How about we stop doing that?
That number on the scale can be one way to measure results but it is not the best way and it shouldn’t be the only way.
What if we moved in ways that sustained deeper levels of strength, balance and mobility?
What if we ate to support our body architecture first and foremost and looked at our plate as self care?
What if we prioritized rest and recovery in ways that matter to the nervous system and our mental health?
What would our fitness world look like then? What would health look like? This is what I mean when I talk about working IN this is what it means to find wellness beyond what the eyes can see.
So dig into that steak. Go for that high quality protein. Your body will thank you with better body composition, stronger bones, a calmer nervous system and better sleep.
Thanks for listening! If you like what you heard and you want to learn more about how you can start your Work IN right where you are, go to savagegracecoaching.com/theworkin where you’ll find all the show notes and links to book a call. I’m taking private clients now through the summer.
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See you next time.
Hey there!
I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a resilience coach and fit-preneur offering an authentic, actionable realistic approach to personal and professional balance for coaches in any format.
Savage Grace Coaching is all about bringing resilience and burnout recovery. Especially for overwhelmed entrepreneurs, creators and coaches in the fitness industry.
Schedule a free consultation call to see if my brand of actionable accountability is right for you and your business.