Weight Loss Simplified: Your 6 Steps To Success
Information overload is one of the factors that often keeps women stuck. Today I hope to rectify that. As a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, I help women uncover the root causes of their weight gain, and I find it’s typically a blend of several things from the following key areas:
Nutrition
Sleep
Stress
Toxin exposure
Movement
Mindset
We are all busy, and changing our lifestyle can feel overwhelming and confusing. So if you have ever wondered what is most effective when it comes to weight loss, you are in the right place. As much as I hate restricting myself, because I love data, I am going to share the one thing from each of these areas that has the biggest impact on weight loss in order of importance. This will give you a simple framework to kick-start your wellness and weight-loss journey.
MINDSET
I know! I know! You don’t want to think about this. Join the club! This is the area most women want to skip over, but it is the greatest predictor of long-term success.
When we have struggled with excess weight, typically we also have some internal dialogue that keeps us stuck. Things like: “I’ll never”, “I can’t”, “It’s just not possible”, or “I should just give up”. Behavior follows belief, so if you believe you're a failure, then you will likely fail.
The step with the biggest impact: Learning to take your thoughts captive.
Try doing a thought audit for a day or two. Notice the thoughts you have that don’t align with who God says you are. Write out 1 scriptural truth to combat each lie or limiting belief you identify. Read and speak those scriptures out loud daily. You are literally speaking truth to yourself. And if you really want to make it stick, visualize yourself walking in those biblical truths for 2-3 minutes daily. Speaking and visualizing causes your brain to look for evidence that what you spoke and visualized is true! Learning to take our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ is foundational for long-term success in our wellness walk and as disciples of Christ.
Want to learn more? Read these blog posts:
Mistaken Identity: The Hidden Stressor Robbing Women of Their Health
The ONE Step Most Women Skip in Weight Loss
SLEEP
Sleep gets harder in midlife due to shifting hormones and mounting stress. When sleep is hard, everything is hard! Can I get an amen? That is why improving sleep is at the top of the list. It’s hard to do anything when you are exhausted. Our bodies need 7-8 hours/night of high-quality sleep in order to repair and detoxify properly.
The step with the biggest impact: Creating a sleep ritual you enjoy.
30-60 minutes before bed, begin your process. It could include things like turning screens off, taking a warm bath, face care, journaling, putting comfy pajamas on, and curling up with a good book or prayer. When we do the same thing repeatedly at the same time night after night, it trains our bodies to get into a rhythm of preparing for sleep. This nightly downshift is a game changer for a busy mind.
Take a deeper dive with these blog posts:
Why Sleep Is Your Secret Weapon for Weight Loss After 40
NUTRITION
Modern nutrition is so far from where we started in biblical times. It has become overwhelming, confusing, and downright dangerous. Ultra-processed foods have led to bodies that are overfed and malnourished. Highly processed foods are high in calories and low in nutrients and are intentionally crafted with an addictive blend of sugar, salt, fat, and chemicals. These foods lead to chronically elevated blood sugar, excess weight, and chronic disease.
The step with the biggest impact: Eating whole foods.
Getting rid of ultra-processed foods and replacing them with organic whole foods.
A good rule of thumb when it comes to processed foods is this:
If you can’t make it in your home, it is an ultra-processed food. (Think Lucky Charms, Doritos, Mountain Dew, Chick-fil-A fried sandwiches.)
I recommend a gradual approach, picking one or two processed foods per week and replacing them with a whole food alternative.
Whole foods are foods without a label, grown by a farmer and found primarily on the perimeter of the grocery store. Fruits, veggies, eggs, dairy, and meat.
This is an example of a healthy plate that supports stable blood sugar.
Want to know more? Here are 2 posts that can help:
The Number One Question I Am Asked as a Health Coach, Part 1 and Part 2
Part 1: https://inspiredwell.org/post/The-number-one-question-i'm-asked-as-a-health-coach
Part 2: https://inspiredwell.org/post/the-number-one-question-i-am-asked-as-a-health-coach-part-2
MOVEMENT
As a society, we have gotten more sedentary, often sitting for 8 or more hours a day. This is important because muscle absorbs glucose, so when we don’t use them regularly, our blood sugar rises and leads to excess insulin and fat storage. At the age of 30, we start losing muscle mass, and by 50, we are losing 1% a year unless we actively try to maintain it.
The biggest impact: Use your muscles to lift heavy and move hourly.
Strength training all your major muscle groups 2-3x a week with weights that are heavy enough to cause fatigue within 6-8 reps. Also use your muscles hourly all day by doing air squats, walking, wall push-ups, etc
STRESS
Stress is a problem for most women I work with. In midlife, we get hit from multiple directions: kids, marriage, aging parents, work, low estrogen and progesterone, and elevated cortisol. Couple that with unresolved trauma or chronic stress that has you stuck in constant fight or flight, and your body hangs on to fat for dear life because it believes it’s in danger. This leads to poor immune, digestive, and hormone function and inflammation. Your body downregulates nonessential functions in an attempt to save your life.
The step with the biggest impact: Supporting your nervous system.
Calming your nervous system by reducing stressors and increasing life-giving and nervous-system-regulating activities pays big dividends. Things like these are all helpful:
Hobbies/creativity
time in nature
time in healthy community
breath work
singing
gargling
gentle movement
grounding
adequate sleep
In midlife, we simply don’t tolerate what we once did. Learn to say no to the things that don’t align with your values and purpose so you can be fully present for the things that do.
Want to learn more? Check out these quick reads.
How to Lose Weight After 40 with a Holistic Stress Management Plan
Why Can't I Lose Weight? A Nurse's Guide to Hidden Factors
TOXIN EXPOSURE
The world gets more toxic every day. Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, plastics, forever chemicals, fumes from transportation, power plants, and the list goes on. You may not realize it, but you are a living, breathing filter for all of these things. Our bodies are brilliant, and in an effort to keep us safe, they store toxins in fat and often keep our nervous system in fight or flight because of the perceived threat. In addition, many toxins act like estrogen, causing further hormone chaos for women in midlife. Rarely is toxin exposure connected with weight gain, but research shows it is true. After personally gaining 42lbs and becoming prediabetic after moving into a moldy home, I can too!
The step with the biggest impact: Filtering your air.
This is a hard one for me because I want to share more, but I promised one thing for each area, so I will honor that even though it makes me uncomfortable!
My top recommendation would be to filter your air. Up to 80% of the toxins we are exposed to come through the air we breathe. In fact, only 1% of the world's air quality is good. That means 99% of the population breathes air that exceeds safe pollution limits. Another shocking statistic is that our indoor air can be up to 100X more toxic than outdoor air. Mold, VOC’s, synthetic fragrance, toxic personal care and cleaning products come together to create a toxic soup.
So what can you do? Add HEPA filters to your bedroom and other places you spend considerable time.
Also consider upgrading your HVAC filter to a MERV 13 or higher. HEPA filters and MERV 13 HVAC filters have the ability to filter out fine particles that are small enough to enter the lungs and bloodstream. I use Air Doctor air filters, which capture contaminants 100x smaller than a HEPA filter can.
Read these additional blog posts on toxin exposure for deeper insight.
It’s Programming Your Body to Store Fat, and Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About It.
These are the things that I find move the needle for most women. More often than not, the root causes are pretty simple and easy to fix. It’s about getting back to basics, living at a rhythm that fits our season of life and honors the body God has given us so we can walk out our purpose with strength and vitality.
It’s time to RELEASE what no longer serves you, TRANSFORM your health, and RECLAIM your life!
You are more than a conqueror!
