Wondering why you can't lose weight as a 45 year old female? Turns out most of what we've learned was wrong.
If you are like my client, Susan*, a 45 year old female, you may find you just can't lose weight.
Part of the reason is that the way we were trained is just… wrong, especially once we get into our 40s and 50s, when as women our hormones start to get wacky.
Were you taught to:
– Eat low fat.
– Eat every two hours so you don't get hungry and overeat.
It turns out most of what we were taught about how to eat to lose weight is exactly the opposite of what science and experience are showing us actually works, and one specific hormone is a lot of the reason why.
Now by way of disclaimer, I'm not a doctor or a nutritionist, and in fact I haven't even stayed in a Holiday Inn Express. So please do your own research in addition to reading what I'm sharing, but this insight was a big part of my weight loss success and is helping my clients, so I share it with the hope that it will help you, too.
One of the main hormones you need to understand if you want to lose weight is insulin.
Insulin is basically our body's response to sugar in the blood.
When we get a normal, natural amount of sugar, such as what's in fruit, our body goes to work moving that energy out of our blood and into our muscles (to use as quick energy) and then into fat cells, to be stored for future use.
After storing all that sugar, insulin levels drop back down. Once they do, your body can use that energy in your muscles to do things like take you on a walk or power your brain while you think about this blog post.
When sugar gets used up and insulin is low, your body can then access stored fat for additional energy. It's like a second fuel tank for emergencies!
The problem is, if we overeat at every meal (without realizing it), eat lots of refined sugar and flour (which breaks down into sugar), and are almost constantly snacking, our insulin never drops down and our body never switches from fat storage mode to fat burning mode.
Now this is very much a layman's explanation, but thinking about what I was eating and when I was eating it with an understanding that I had to get out of fat storage mode and into fat burning mode helped me eat more veggies, lean protein, and plant-based fat, smaller portions, and helped me snack less.
So at the end of the day even if I don't quite have the science right, if this thought supported me in doing what I needed to do to lose weight, that's good enough for me.
Do you see how for a 45 year old female, getting your blood sugar down so your insulin can go down and you can access your stored fat for fuel will help you lose weight?
*client name changed for privacy.
Looking for other thoughts that will help you do what you need to do to get to your ideal healthy weight? Let's work together. Schedule a free initial consultation at https://lisaduke.net/schedule
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