So, you’ve counted calories to a tee, eat extremely well and exercise but SOMETHING isn't adding up...

There are so many different confounding factors that affect women’s metabolisms and their ability to burn fat.

Here are 5 situations that you may not have considered before that can dramatically affect your ability to lose weight and keep you stuck at a dreaded plateau!

Links mentioned:

Read the full blog post for this podcast here

See my list of highly recommended integrative doctors here

Learn more about the link between food sensitivities and weight here AND listen to episode 26 

Learn more about the thyroid in episode 38

Learn more about optimising your gut health and my best tips with this blog here

Download my FREE 50 weight loss tips PDF checklist with my bonus sleep tips here

Read all about my programs to help you slim down without the hunger here

Follow me on instagram here! 

Read This Episode:

 Today's episode is for those who feel like they’re doing everything right - you're eating well and exercising but you're either at a plateau that you can’t budge, you're gaining weight (even though you're in a calorie deficit or you think you are) and you're exercising heaps.  Today's episode is for those who can't figure out the answers.

This podcast episode is 5 extremely out-of-the-box reasons. Each of these 5 reasons I've already spoken about in depth (some of them I haven't yet), but it's always good to remind you of them as well, because after researching and teaching it for life, even I sometimes forget. 

The more that you listen and get reminded, the more likely you're going to remember these things, address them and apply them to your own life.

Before I get into this episode, I need to remind you about my freebie that I've created for you, which is “My Top 50 Weight Loss Tips”. It’s 50 short reminders about what you could be missing in your journey to reach your optimal weight. Like I said, this episode is 5 of the reasons but in the PDF download, you can have a quick look through and see if you're missing something there. This is a really helpful resource for those who are super keen to reach your goals, but you just feel like something's missing. 

I also want to remind you that the reason I'm so passionate about sharing these with you is because I've been through it. Honestly, it was the most frustrating period of time for me. I was such a healthy, young girl. I've always been healthy. I came from a healthy household. I've always been active but things weren't making sense. If you’re a new listener, I went into my entire journey about my gut issues and so much more in Episode #1 - Who I am? My Gut Healing and Diet Journey. I completely get it! 

My passion to start this business, start this podcast 5 years later, show up and work with women every day and record these episodes is because I understand and I know what it's like to try it all and know that what you're doing (in terms of what you're eating and how you're exercising) isn't adding up. 

We all know deep down how our own bodies work, how we should feel, what our ideal healthy weight should be and when you feel like you're trying it all and not seeing the results, it's a very frustrating feeling, especially when friends can do no exercise, eat crap and still have these fit-looking bodies. It's unfair because you feel defeated, you feel like you don't look that healthy, you may have acne or are carrying excess weight, but you're eating so much better than all of your friends. It's a shit feeling. I get it! 

These 5 out-of-the-box reasons I know about now (and I'm teaching you about) because I spent so much time researching them. After I found these 5 answers, I actually got diagnosed with some, which made me feel empowered and relieved because it wasn't all in my head. I did have a reason to be frustrated that things weren't working. Not only that, but after I figured these 5 things out (it's about 6 years down the track now), it's interesting to see that I've really solved them and I try to work on them every day. It's been so much easier to maintain my weight. 

I just want to say that too because I'm not just pulling these out of thin air. I've been through my own journey. It's taken me years to research these things …

Reason #1: You May Have A Thyroid Issue

You might not be seeing weight loss results because you may have an issue with your thyroid. Your thyroid is your master metabolism gland. It produces thyroid hormones and your thyroid hormones are what control your metabolism. If you don't produce enough of them or if you have an issue (maybe you produce enough but they're not getting converted to the active thyroid hormone in your body), then your metabolism will be slow. This is what I’ve got and have been diagnosed with. 

When your metabolism is slow, it's a lot harder to lose weight. Some symptoms that you might have if you have an underactive thyroid (or just a thyroid that's not producing enough active thyroid hormone is) - 

• A lot of fatigue

• Easy weight gain

• An inability to lose weight

• Cold hands and feet

• A slow heart rate

• Constipation (a really slow digestive system) 
  

If you've got a slow metabolism, it slows everything else down. This was interesting for me to discover because like I said earlier, I was a healthy, active young woman in my early twenties and something wasn't making sense. I did have all of those symptoms. I got really cold hands and feet. My biggest symptom at the time that I was trying to figure out was my chronic constipation. I had a really slow bowel and I couldn't remain a slim weight, even though I was eating minimally and exercising a lot.

I did visit GPs and they did test my thyroid and said that I was fine! This is why I'm so passionate about sharing this with you because often you will go to the GP and they test your TSH and your T4 only. If your TSH and T4 are normal, they'll send you off but I knew that something wasn't right. I didn't believe them.

I visited a Functional Medicine Doctor/ Integrative Doctor - these doctors look at things in far more depth than GPs do. For anyone that thinks they have an issue with their thyroid, you need to get a lot more tested. You need to get your T3 tested, reverse T3 and your thyroid antibodies. There's a lot of things that you need to get checked to see if your thyroid is working properly.

For me, I had normal levels of T4 and TSH. T4 is released from your thyroid gland, so it's like your thyroid hormone but that T4 needs to be converted to T3 and T3 is your active thyroid hormone that works inside all of your cells to produce energy. If you have an issue with that conversion and you're not producing enough T3, then you're going to have a slow metabolism, because you don't have the active version of T3 in your blood. If they're only testing T4 and TSH, then you won't know if you've got an issue with your T3.

If you do feel like you're doing everything right, please go visit a Functional Medicine/ Integrative Doctor and say that you're doing everything right. If deep down that you could actually improve your eating and exercise, I think it's really important to make sure that you are doing all that you can first. 

If you feel that you're relating to these symptoms, I also went into more depth about the thyroid in Episode #38 - Could Never Knowing About THIS Test Be The Reason You’re Not Losing Weight? Have a listen to that to learn more about the thyroid and work out if that's something that you should investigate further. 

Reason #2: You May Have An Imbalance In Your Gut Bacteria

You might have too many of the bad guys and not enough of the good guys. Your gut bacteria can absolutely affect your weight in lots of different ways.They can really affect the way that food is digested and they can produce different chemicals that support feelings of fullness. They can also control where fat is stored in your body. 

There has been a lot of science to prove that having lots of good bacteria is definitely beneficial for your waistline. I've written a blog about this - Can Your Gut Bacteria Determine Your Weight?

A few quick tips that you can do right now to optimise the health of your gut - 

• Make sure you're eating a wide variety and range of vegetables. Variety and range mean the same thing, but I just want to hone in on that different types and different colours feed different types of bacteria in your gut

• Make sure you're limiting sugar and processed foods

• Limit alcohol consumption

• Take a good quality probiotic
  

If you're bloated every day or feel like something's extremely out of whack, this is another thing that you can investigate with an Integrative or Functional Medicine Doctor. I looked into this at the same time as my thyroid and I did have an imbalance in my gut bacteria. I worked with my Integrative Doctor on correcting this by eating more vegetables because I was eating a lot, but I wasn't as aware. 

I was mainly focused on calories in my early twenties. I was replacing a lot of lunches with a protein bar. I thought it was all about calories in vs calories out but by doing that, I was starving my gut bacteria. Now, in most meals, I do my best to focus on whole foods, eating lots of plants (because that's what's actually going to optimise my gut health) and make sure I've got lots of good gut bacteria in my large intestine. 

Reason #3: You May Have A Food Sensitivity Or Food Intolerance

You might have a food sensitivity or a food intolerance that you're continuing to eat. Maybe you're unaware of it or maybe you are aware, but you don't care about the pain in your gut because the food tastes so good? When you realise there is a connection between gut inflammation and your weight, it does help you to stop eating that food.

Some of the most common food sensitivities that exist with people are gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, whey, nuts and corn. You might have a sensitivity to one, you might have a sensitivity to two or more than that. 

When I had a food sensitivity test with my Functional Medicine Doctor to figure out what was going on with my gut and my weight concerns, I was sensitive to most grains, gluten, dairy, eggs and peas. 

That sounds like a lot, but it's quite amazing because when I gave those foods up, my symptoms got so much better. Within a week, my weight got better too because I wasn't hanging on to excess water weight. I didn't realise it was water weight at the time, but when I cut those foods out and my gut wasn't so inflamed, I dropped weight (even though my calories stayed the same). It showed that it was inflammatory weight.

If you're eating a food that you're sensitive to, not only does that make your gut inflamed, it can cause inflammation in your entire body. When your body's inflamed, it can cause you to hang on to water weight and it can definitely affect your ability to lose weight. 

Maybe you’ve got a food sensitivity, but don’t know where to start? I actually created the 3 Week Body Reset (my signature program) with this in mind. It's not just a weight loss program. It's simultaneously a gut-health program as well. I know how common food sensitivities are in women so I've taken out the 2 most common food sensitivities that I've seen in the hundreds of clients that I've worked with, which is gluten and dairy.

A lot of women experience relief and they realise that a gluten and dairy-free life works for them. Other women might still get bloated but I encourage them to fill out a bloating journal and write down their symptoms to pinpoint what else it could be. If you’re aligning with this podcast, go ahead and try it yourself - cut out gluten and dairy and see if that helps first. 

If not, you could try all other foods. A lot of women that I've worked with have visited Naturopaths before or Integrative Doctors and been recommended to go on the food elimination diet, where you actually eliminate all of those sensitivities - eggs, soy, corn, gluten, dairy etc. You eliminate all of them for a period of time, then re-introduce one a week. 

So you eliminate gluten for the first week to see if you get symptoms, then dairy etc. It's a long process. It's also a very restrictive process. It's not very enjoyable. A lot of people can't even keep it up. So that's why I decided to create my own approach with the 3 Week Body Reset, where I took the most common ones out (that I've really seen in my practice), then women can figure it out from there. 

If not, I encourage them to get a test because even though tests aren't 100% accurate, they can give you an idea of what you're sensitive to and that can really help with your weight concerns as well. 

Reason #4: You May Have High Cortisol Levels

Cortisol is your stress hormone and when you're stressed all the time, your cortisol is high all the time and your cortisol isn't supposed to be high all the time. It's supposed to be high in the morning (when you wake up), and then it's supposed to gradually get lower throughout the day.

Now, when you're running around like a headless chook (most people are these days in the Western world), whether it's after your kids, at work or both and you've got that constant high heart rate and feel like you're always on edge, it's very likely that you've got high cortisol levels. When they're high all the time, unfortunately, that can cause you to hold on to weight. 

There's lots of different reasons why this happens but the main reason is that when your cortisol is high, it makes your insulin levels high. When your insulin levels are high, you can't burn fat. Insulin is a hormone that encourages the storage of energy, as opposed to encouraging the breakdown of energy. We want our insulin levels to be low to encourage the breakdown of fat. 

If our cortisol levels are high all the time and our insulin levels are high all the time, then we never get into that state where our insulin is low enough to promote the burning of fat. That’s one of the reasons why high cortisol levels can cause you to hold onto fat and not lose it, particularly in women that seem to hold lots of fat around their stomach - that's a big sign that you have high cortisol levels. 

The longer that goes on, the more likely you are to have hormonal imbalances and also reach burnout. If you feel like you're relating to this, building techniques into your life to help reduce your stress levels can help you lose weight - 

• Regular exercise - that's a really good way to reduce stress and cortisol

• Deep breathing - this is really effective. So many of us shallow breathe and forget that pausing and breathing deeply can actually really reduce cortisol levels

• Scheduling time off - can you build breaks into your work day, get a bit more help with the kids or find some time in your day to be with yourself and collect your thoughts?

• Creating more white space in your calendar by saying no more - do you have to say yes to all the time? Create more white space in your life where you can just do what you'd like and not be running around like a headless chook all the time

• Consider a job change

• Surround yourself with positive people and the right people that make your nervous system feel good - that may mean distancing yourself from certain friends or family

• Practicing meditation can help and don't get scared of it - you can download an app that guides you through some practices in 5 minutes, anyone can work that into their day. Some good apps are Calm, Insight Timer and Headspace

• Work with a therapist

• Take supplements - magnesium can help, as well as adaptogenic herbs. Visiting a Naturopath can work wonders here (a Functional Medicine or Integrative Doctor should be knowledgeable in this area as well). I take Ashwagandha, which is an adaptogen proven to lower cortisol levels
  

Reason #5: You May Not Be Getting Enough Quality Sleep

If you're someone that gets under 6 hours per night, that could be a reason that you're hanging onto  weight. Now, I really relate to this one because I'm someone that's always suffered from insomnia. It has got better in the last couple of years because I’ve learnt so much more about what I can personally do to improve my sleep, but if this is you, it could be a reason that you're hanging onto weight.

Now I go into this in a lot more depth in Episode #35: Can Sleep Loss Make You Gain Weight and I also have a free checklist with My Top 12 Sleep Tips - you actually get those sleep tips as a bonus with the freebie that I spoke about at the beginning of this episode. To learn more about how to get better sleep, listen to that episode and download the sleep tips freebie. 

Honestly, you can be doing everything right - eating well, exercising and managing stress but if you're not getting enough sleep, it can be really hard to lose weight. Some things that really helped me - 

• Try not to have any more than one standard drink of alcohol at night

• Never have caffeine after 12 o'clock

• Take magnesium at night - I take Bioceuticals Ultra Muscleze

• Wear an eye mask (or make sure you're sleeping in a dark room and also in a cool environment)

• Make sure that you have your phone and computer on night mode - when you're looking at blue light on your screen, that disrupts your melatonin production, which is your sleep hormone. If you have an iPhone, you can go to Display & Brightness, turn the night shift setting ‘ON’

• If you're someone that works late at night, stop working at least 2 hours before bed - this has massively helped me in the last 2 years. I didn't learn how to switch off in the 4 years of business. It was really hard to do but having chronic insomnia was one of the biggest motivators for me to seriously switch off by 6 o'clock. Now I'm really strict with it and it’s improved my sleep as well.
  

I hope that you took something from this episode. I hope you're inspired to investigate these things more, work on your sleep more, work on reducing your stress levels more and constantly focus on optimising the health of your gut.  

All of these 5 reasons I have been through myself and it took me so long to figure out that they were huge pieces of the puzzle to my own weight loss and weight maintenance journey and that's why I'm really passionate about sharing them with you. I've finally been able to lose weight and it's the best feeling ever. 

If you do want to follow a plan that helps you work out your food sensitivities and optimise your gut health, whilst helping you lose weight that's what my 3 Week Body Reset has been designed to do. It really does help to reduce inflammation in your body and optimise your gut health so that you can slim down.