Weight loss for women and men are two completely different stories. That was something that always frustrated me in the past when my partner and I would go on a ‘diet’. He’d lose so much quicker and easier than me and rub it in sometimes too…GRRRRR!!
The truth is us women do have a few more things to deal with when it comes to losing weight, so I thought I’d share what I believe is the honest truth about weight loss for women because it might help change your approach and your results too.
HORMONES
Women have a complex monthly hormone cycle that is intimately connected to all parts of our lives be it physical, emotional, or mental. Hormones affect how we think, how we feel, what we eat, how motivated we are, how happy we are, how much energy we have, and many other things. Basically our hormones rule the roost…or at least they can if we let them, and often we do.
Balancing our hormones is a very important component of successfully losing weight and keeping it off long term. For example, I know many of the women I work with often comment on the belly fat around the mid section. This belly fat comes from adrenal stress and hormones that promote the lodgement of fat in this area. If you want to get rid of belly fat, you’ve got to work on balancing hormones, particularly adrenal health.
Hormones also control appetite, promote digestive function, regulate metabolism and many other things so interuptions in a womans hormonal balance will affect everything.
Balancing the hormones also promotes better wellbeing and happiness and the ability to cope with things in life and enjoy it. The weight loss is good but the goal of inner peace and harmony is also a great motivator, don’t you think?
DIETING
Most women have been subject to YEARS OF DIETING, I mean years and years! The women I talk to often say it started when they were 12-14 years of age, crazy really! There’s two unfortunate truths about the dieting cycle.
1. It rarely yields long term results – I’m sure you’ve tried every diet under the sun and you may have achieved success with some of them in the short term. But inevitably for most women, the weight goes back on, plus some more, and the cycle continues.
2. Dieting stuffs your hormones – if rule number one is to get our hormones balanced, then dieting is the sure way to stuff it up. All those years of dieting have usually totally stuffed our hormones up and they end up all over the place not knowing which way to turn. That means difficult weight loss or even other health issues arising as a result.
The truth is that if you really want to lose weight, you have to change your approach, you have to stop thinking about the short term quick fix and think about how you can improve your health for the long term.
OLD HABITS DIE HARD
The question often isn’t what you have to give up or what you don’t know. The question is, ‘What won’t you give up?’
Old habits die hard and we are stubborn. But truthfully if I asked you to give up your coffee, your diet coke, or the sugar, would you do it? And I don’t mean half heartedly, I mean would you give it up completely for at least three months in order to get your health and hormones on track?
The truth is that many women won’t give it up, and therein lies the problem because if you want results and you want to feel better, then you have to be prepared to change. And sometimes that requires changing EVERYTHING.
IT’S NOT YOUR LACK OF WILL POWER
Many women beat themselves up every time they fail to stick to a diet. Trust me I know this all too well because I spent years beating myself up over my lack of willpower and commitment. At the time I had no idea that this wasn’t the problem, as you may not either. The truth is that when we have hormonal imbalances they drive us to crave sugar, carbs, and salt. When we have hormonal imbalances they drive us to need caffeine and stimulants. When we lack real nutriton in the way of micronutrients, which we often do when we have hormonal imbalance, our body is starved and that only leads to more cravings. For example, we may be lacking the amino acid tryptophan which helps to build serotonin in the brain, when we lack it, we often crave sugar and carbs. We also need adequate amounts of other valuable vitamins and nutrients to help our bodies aand brains function properly.
So the problem is not a lack of your willpower, it’s your body screaming out that something is wrong. Often when we are going on another ‘diet’ we are depriving our body of more nutrients so it shouts out in dispute and the cravings get unbearable. That’s why we fail, not because of lack of resolve. Once we get the nutrition we need it’s a lot easier to go the distance.
STOP BEING A MARTR
Women take on far too much and often don’t know when to say no. But who said you have to do everything? Who said you have to take on the responsibility of everything? Who said you have to be superwoman? AND who said you have to put yourself last on the list?
I had this realisation one day when my partner was asking about something that had to be done at home. My reply was: I haven’t got around to doing that yet. The revelation here was the word ‘I’. I thought, why should ‘I’ have to do that anyway, it’s not just my responsibility, he could do that job too, and in fact why hasn’t he?!
What I realised is that I had put myself in this position of being superwoman to everyone and as a result I was always doing stuff and outting myself last. I think many women do this.
What I realised is that I’d say ‘I’ all too often. So I started changing my language and catching myself, I changed it to, ‘Yes, that’s a job that has to be done by someone’. It doesn’t mean I won’t do things but it makes a statement that things aren’t always my responisbility and starts to change the air around the house. Don’t get me wrong, my partner is wonderful and does loads of things, so do my kids. The point is, it’s actually my fault for being too controlling and too much of a martr.
Learn to say no, learn to put yourself first.
TAKE CARE OF YOU
The truth about women and weight loss is that we have to stop being obsessed about it, stop trying so hard, and simply start taking care of you. I mean really taking care. Nurture yourself, give yourself the love and respect that you deserve instead of trashing yourself, dumping on yourself, and damaging your health and happiness. Eat the food your body needs for optimal wellness, take time out to do things you enjoy, laugh, play, be happy.
Now that’s when a new you emerges and life really begins.
Balance your hormones, balance you, that’s the key to long term results.
Jedha 
Need help to get started or amp things up a bit?
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How do you balance your hormones!!! I’m sure that’s my problem but doctor says all is well. Where do I go from here?
It’s true Joyce, often doctors won’t pick up on these things even though we know there’s something wrong and don’t feel right. We can balance our hormones naturally through diet, supplements and lifestyle. Keep your eyes out here on the blog in the coming days/weeks as I’ll be sharing more about it. You may want to subscribe to my email newsleter so you don’t miss anything and can learn more about it. I also do one on one coaching if that’s something you may be interested in.