170: How Eating Less Makes You Weigh More (Reverse Dieting is The Answer)

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps after Babies radio episode number 170.

Hello and welcome to Biceps after Babies radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PRs. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife, and mom of four.  Each week, my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise mindset, personal development, and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel, and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you, my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in, now let’s jump into today’s episode.

 

Weight regain problem  0:49  

Hey, Hey, Hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps after Babies Radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, and I am so glad that you're here. I am so excited about this conversation that we are going to have today. Because this topic, this phase of your journey is the missing piece for so many women. I can't tell you the number of women. And you've probably heard of these statistics too, as well, right? We don't have a weight loss problem in America, we have a weight regain problem. You hear the statistics that 95% of women who lose weight regain it back. And oftentimes, people will use these statistics to say, “Hey, you see? this is why you shouldn't try to lose weight, because most people regain it back.” And those statistics can be very disheartening for someone who is starting a journey. And I also think we need to dive a little bit deeper into questioning and wondering why those regain statistics are so high, and figure out what the missing piece is, because it does not have to be that high.

 

How Macros 101 can help  1:55  

And that's a lot of the things that I'm helping clients to understand and learn inside of Macros 101, which is my coaching program, is to help clients to do two things.

 

Reverse dieting  2:06  

One, give them the missing piece that is so often missing, which is for a lot of women is reverse dieting, they've never done a reverse diet. So no wonder they haven't been able to maintain the results. And we're going to spend a lot of time in this episode talking about reverse dieting, and why it's so important and why it's the missing piece that so many women, when they add it in, it makes all of the difference in the world in being able to have maintainable results long term.

 

Shifts from beliefs and identity  2:32  

And then the second piece that I would say is when you make shifts in your journey from shifting the beliefs and the underlying identity that you have as a person, then those shifts don't just happen for a period of time. I'm not gonna dive too deep into this, because I've talked about on the podcast when we dive deep into this stuff inside of Macros 101. But I want you to understand that anything that you do in your life, any action that you are taking in your life is coming from some sort of underlying belief. And those beliefs come from some underlying identity of who you think you are. And that runs your life, right? And we all know, actions produce results. But what produces your actions are the underlying beliefs and the underlying identity that you hold. And the problem is that so many people tried to make changes from the action level only. So they've started to say, “This week, I'm going to stick to my Macros.” That's an action. “This week, I'm not going to eat the chocolate cake, this week, I'm not going to binge, this week, I'm going to go to the gym.” Right? Those are all actions that we know if we take those actions, that's going to move us towards the result that we want. But if you stop there, and you're only focusing on the action section, you can do that for a while. But if the things that are underlying the actions, the beliefs and the identity don't actually shift, then you're only going to be able to do it for so long. And this is a cycle that so many women find themselves in where they're like “I can do it for a while, I can be so good for a while, I can stick to my Macros for a while, I can eat five days a week, really healthy.” And then they lose it. And they lose all that momentum, and they fall back into their old habits. And then it's like that recommitment process: “I'm gonna try it again, this time, I'm going to do it, this time, I'm going to white knuckle, it this time, I'm going to try harder, I'm going to have more motivation, I'm going to have more determination, more willpower to be able to do it.” And then inevitably fall off. And here's the thing, it's not your fault if that is happening. Because what you are doing is you are trying to change your results by only focusing on the behaviors and only focusing on the actions. And that will never be a long term change. What actually has to happen is you have to change what is beneath it. And what is beneath your actions are the beliefs and the identity that you hold. 

 

Recognize that your actual goal is to lose weight and maintain it  5:07

So those are two things that we focus on inside of Macros 101 that makes it different. So that it's not only about losing weight, I honestly couldn't care how much weight you lose. If you can not maintain it, that's a loss to me. I don't care if you lose 100 pounds, if you are not able to maintain that loss long term, that is not a win. You guys BS I'm dying. Because if you can see me, I'm talking with my hands. And I keep hitting my microphone. So I don't know if you're hearing that, but this is me getting intense and excited and passionate about what I'm sharing, because this can be such a game changer for you. To understand this. Recognize that your goal is not just to lose weight, it's to lose weight, and maintain it. And that's a very different process that you need to go through if that is actually your goal. And so these are the two tools that we utilize inside of Macros 101 to help clients get to that place. We're not going to be talking much about the second part, I have other podcasts that are about that. I teach that all inside of Macros 101, but what we are going to focus on is that first part that I talked about. The piece that is missing in so many women's journeys, before they find Macro counting, and that is the reverse diet and I teach inside of Macros 101. 

 

What’s in store in Macros 101 6:24

So in Macros 101, it's an A-Z walkthrough of how to create a customized plan for you, how to use Macro counting, how to become the Macro scientists in your own journey so that you are able to create a customized, unique plan that fits you. it fits the goals that you have set for yourself. And it actually is enjoyable to you. And there are five puzzle pieces, if you will, that must be included or I call them ingredients. There are five ingredients that must be included in this process to be able to make it work. And those are the five things that I teach inside of the content inside of Macros 101. So step one is setting your starting Macros. Step two is creating a customized meal plan. Step three is removing the mental blocks. This is where we do a lot of the work on self-sabotage that often occurs with people. Talk a lot about shifting beliefs, we talk a lot about shifting identity. Step number four is making adjustments to your Macros. And then step number five, which is what we're gonna be talking about today is the reverse diet.

 

Recognizing that all five ingredients are essential for you to be successful  7:26  

And the thing with ingredients, if you think about a recipe, and your recipe for a cake, if you leave out one of the ingredients, what's going to happen to the cake? Like if you forget the eggs, or if you forget the sugar. Or if you're like me, I made cookies once as a young kid and I didn't forget, but I added way too much salt instead of a teaspoon of salt. I, you know, I confuse teaspoon a tablespoon. So I added a tablespoon of salt. And they were actually called surprise cookies. And boy was it a surprise when you bit into it because it was very salty. But if you forget, like the salt in a recipe, the recipe is not going to come out until you turn out the way that you want it to. And so we can recognize that all five of those ingredients are vital and important and must be in place for you to be successful. And that piece, even if you have all of the other pieces, if you don't have a reverse diet, you're never going to be able to lose weight and maintain it long term, which is the goal. That is the win that we are looking for.

 

Reverse dieting might be scary but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be doing it 8:27  

So let's dive into this. I titled this, “How eating less actually makes you weigh more.” And so I want to kind of explain this concept because I think when people: a reverse diet, it can feel very scary. It can feel very out of the comfort zone for most women. And the thing that's important to recognize is that when something feels scary, it doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, it doesn't necessarily mean that you should not do it. In fact, I have a whole podcast episode dedicated to fear and what fear actually means. I think it might be an underrated episode. I really love the content that I put into it. I think it's really powerful content. But I think it's kind of an underrated episode that people kind of skip through because maybe it doesn't the title doesn't draw them in. But I highly suggest going back and listening to Episode 38 What fear actually means, because so often we feel like when we feel fear, it means that we shouldn't do something. But in fact that isn't really what fear means. And so there is a lot of fear for a lot of women around reverse dieting and around this process that we're going to talk about. But just because it feels scary, doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing it.

 

Many factors play into how many calories your body burns  9:37  

So let's start at the very beginning. And let's understand that for most of us we have been sold a trash bill of goods for most of our life. We've been sold this idea and told this idea that weight loss is as simple as calories in versus calories out. Now on a Scientific equation like platform, that's true. Of all thermodynamics states like this is a true statement. However, we are very much simplifying this when we say something as simple as calories in versus calories out. Because if our body was very static, and unchanging, then that equation would be very simple. But our bodies are not, our bodies are constantly in flux. Things are always changing. The amount of calories that you burn each day is never exactly the same. It is not like you burn 1,852.5 calories every single day, no matter what, like clockwork, that's not how our bodies work. So if it was like clockwork, and every single day, you always burn that amount of calories, it'd be very easy to create a caloric deficit, it'd be very easy to see a weight loss. And we just eat less than that. But the problem is that it's not that simple. Because our bodies are adaptable. Our bodies change the amount of calories that they burn in a day. And I'm not just talking about whether you went for a run today or not. I'm talking about all of the other factors, your hormones, the stress level in your body, where you are in your weight, do you weigh more? Do you weigh less? So many of these factors play into how many calories your body burns in a certain day. And so this idea of calories in versus calories out, while scientifically accurate, stops being helpful for us when we start to make this leap of logic that because of that scientific reality, then less is always better. Because that's the conclusion that a lot of people draw. If it's calories in versus calories out, and I just need to create a caloric deficit, then the solution is really simple, I just eat less calories. And that's the conclusion that so many people draw. And that is the assumption that they make as they go through their journey.

 

Adaptability  12:08  

And now here's the big problem with that, because when you eat less calories, we have to recognize that our bodies are adaptable. And this is a good thing. This is the way that our bodies have evolved to be able to stay alive during feasts, and during famines and all the things that life throws at us. And I like to think of the analogy of a fire because I think that helps to explain this idea of adaptability, where fire gets as big as what you give it, right? So if you want to get a big fire, what do you have to do? you have to put a lot more fuel on the fire. And the more fuel you put on the fire, the bigger it can get and the hotter it can get and the hotter it can burn. Whereas, if you start removing fuel, you take away that wood, then your fire is going to start to die down lower and lower and lower. And it's the same thing with your body. If you feed your body a lot of fuel, your body's metabolism will increase to be able to burn that fuel. And if you take away fuel and you eat less than less than less, your body metabolism is going to adapt down and down and down. Because it wants to be able to keep you alive. That's really the name of the game, your body doesn't really care how much you weigh, as long as you are alive. And so when we can understand this that our metabolisms are adaptable, our bodies are adaptable, we can see how so many women get into this cycle of going on a diet, eating less calories, staying there for a while, and their body's metabolism actually down regulating adapting downward to burn less and less calories. Your body is not dumb, it wants to stay alive. So it will do things, it will make you move less, it will slow things down to be able to burn the least amount of calories, it'll make you not motivated to do things. These are all protective mechanisms that our bodies use to be able to make sure that we can stay alive.

 

Calories in versus calories out doesn’t make sense 14:18  

And then what happens, women eat less. They may see a little bit of fat loss occur, but then it stops. And the only tool that they have in their tool belt is to eat even less. And so what do they do? They drop their calories. And that may work for a little bit. And then it stops working. And what tool do they use? dropping their calories. And so we get women who overtime have eaten less and less and less and less. And the irony is that they're eating so few calories and yet aren't seeing the results that they want. So many women will come to me and they're eating 1200, 1100, 700, 500. I've heard women coming into the program, eating 500 calories, but not seeing any results. And if you just think, “Oh, calories in versus calories out, that literally doesn't make any sense.” until you start to recognize that their calories have dropped significantly, because over time, their metabolism has adapted. So they're eating 500 calories, and they're burning about 500 calories, and so nothing is changing. Eating less and less, I don't have to say this, you probably already recognize it. But eating less and less is a losing strategy. Because it cannot go on indefinitely. There's only so much that you can cut. And so we get to these women who are eating 500 calories a day. And it's like, how much more do you think you can cut from that? And keep it up and survive and keep going. And so eating less and less, while that could be maybe one strategy, if that is your only strategy, you're never going anywhere faster, other than eating less and less calories.

 

It’s possible for your metabolism to adapt up  16:09  

Okay, and so we can understand that. If we get caught in that cycle, then there is a way out. And that's what I really want to know. For those of you who are listening, you're like, “Dang, that's me, she's describing me, that's literally my experience.” I want you to know that it's not a death sentence. It's not like “Oh, well, you've just messed up your body, you have permanently damaged your metabolism. And sorry, you're out of luck.” Wonderful thing about our body is that it's very hard to permanently damage your metabolism. In fact, I don't even think that can happen. If your metabolism can adapt down, that inherently means that it is possible for your metabolism to adapt up.  So I think that's so interesting. There's so many women who are like, “I don't know, if my body feels like I've been dieting so much. And I've done this for so long that I have permanently damaged my metabolism.” And I always say to them, no. The fact that your metabolism has dropped down, the fact that you're eating 500 calories and not seeing any progress inherently means that your metabolism is adaptable, which means it can adapt back up. And so I just want to give you that comfort and understanding of knowing that if that's been you in the past, and you're listening to this, and you're like “Crap! that's me. Screwed this all up.” I want you to go first of all, have a little bit of grace for yourself. Because you were doing the best that you could with the knowledge that you had at the time. And we know better, we do better. And unfortunately, this concept of reverse dieting and what we're going to talk about metabolic adaptation is not something that is taught to the general population. I wish it was. I wish more people would understand this concept. So often when people learn about this, they're like, “Why is this not taught?” I'm like, “I don't know, why do people not teach this.”

 

Have some new knowledge and it's going to be a game changer for you  18:08  

But understanding this is the first step towards having your future be different than your past was, especially if you're somebody who has been in that dieting cycle. We've had women come into the program. In fact, I interviewed Leslie on episode number 114, who has been dieting for 30-40 years. And you'll hear in Leslie's episode that even after dieting 30-40 years, she was still able to reverse diet. Her body was still able to be adaptive. And her metabolism was able to adapt back up to a point where she was struggling to get the food in because she was eating so much food. So if you want to listen to a good story about an example of somebody who went through that process, Episode 114, where I interview Leslie, is a really great episode to listen to. But I want you to take comfort in knowing that you've not permanently screwed something up, your body is doing exactly what it was made to do. And your body will respond the other way. You were doing the best you could with the knowledge you have. And now you're going to have some new knowledge and it's going to be a game changer for you.

 

Restrict and binge cycle  19:15  

So the other thing that I think is really important to understand is that if someone gets stuck in that cycle, where it's like eating less, plateau. Eat less than that, plateau. Eat less than that, and it's just this continuous cycle. Other women experience a very different cycle. And their cycle looks more like eating less. We could also call that restrict and be able to hold on to that for a little while and then binge. Because they're not able to do it long term. And then try again. Restrict, restrict, and then binge and this like cycle often comes from the underlying belief, we talked a little bit about how beliefs influence our actions come from the underlying belief that less is better. And so we feel like the solution to binging is better restriction is eating less, is holding back, when in reality, that is the actual thing that causes the binging to happen. And when you do that, what happens for a lot of women is you actually erase the caloric deficit that you're trying so desperately hard to create. And you get stuck in the cycle where you restrict yourself because your intention is to reach your goals faster. And if I eat less, I'll reach my goals faster. But ironically, that restriction, and then producing the binging actually slows down the process.

 

Eating less creates the binge and restrict cycle making hard to lose weight 20:47  

So if you go into your journey, thinking less is better, you'll often set yourself up, lower, less is better, less is faster, right? The lower I set my calories, the faster I'm going to be able to get to where I want to go. In actuality, nine times out of 10, I see it actually backfire. That the lower you set your calories, the harder it is to stick to it. The more you get into that binging restrict cycle, erase your caloric deficit, and actually go longer it takes. So I would actually argue, eating less in the long run for most women actually causes you to gain weight, because it causes your metabolic rate to drop, which means it's much easier to go into a caloric surplus. And eating less often will create that binge and restrict the cycle that actually makes it harder to lose weight. You cannot fix a binge and restrict the cycle by restricting more. Because it's the restriction that actually causes the binge. So a lot of people try to fix the binge and restrict cycle by just being better at restricting. And you have to understand that is actually the cause of the binging. And so it's not going to be the solution. Okay. 

 

Reverse diet is the solution 22:04  

Alright, so moving on, we've set the stage for what often happens this metabolic adaptation, this downregulation of your metabolism, eating less food gets you into the cycle of you burning less calories, which means then you have to drop your calories lower, which means that you burn less, and it's like this ugly cycle that a lot of women get into. So what is the solution? The solution is what is often termed the reverse diet. Now, that's a weird term. And I've had people look at me like, where did that term come from? I didn't make up that term. That is not my term. That is a term that is used in the industry to describe what we're going to talk about. But the essence of a reverse diet, the high level understanding of what a reverse diet is, is that we are increasing calories slowly, we are titrating calories, slowly over time up so that your metabolism adapts the other way. Just like when you slowly dropped calories over the years and your metabolism dropped down, we can do the exact same process in the reverse. Use that adaptation to your advantage. Adding calories slowly over time.

 

Reverse dieting isn’t just about adding calories up  23:14  

Now, making sure I think this is a really important concept. Because when I start talking about this, a lot of people make some assumptions about like how this process looks and what should happen during the process. And it can be very confusing, but I think I really just want to highlight here that when we're adding calories in, we're not just blindly adding calories. If you've listened to any of the reverse episodes that I've done before this episode number 9, episode number 42. I talk about the process through which you do a reverse diet where you're essentially adding 100 calories. But it's important to understand, we're not just adding 100 calories every week, no matter what happens, we're adding 100 calories, looking at how our body responds to that. And then titrating those calories up over time based on our body's response. So some people's metabolism may be a little bit slower to adapt, and you need to be a little bit slower with that caloric addition and some people may be able to add faster than that. And so it's important to understand that when we're in a reverse, you're not just blindly adding calories. And I think a lot of people when they hear about a reverse and they don't have anybody walking them through it, that's kind of what they do is they just kind of blindly add calories.

 

Titration Process  24:23  

And it's really important to understand the titration process. Okay, so you add calories, gather feedback and data from your body to see if it's adapted, and then when it has, then you add more and repeat that process until you've gotten up to your maintenance level. And that is how we can take somebody who starts out, comes to Macros 101 eating 500 calories and leaves eating 1800 calories. That was Sarah. Sarah came into actually eating 500 calories. She left eating 1800 calories, no weight gain, eating almost two plus times the amount of food that she was eating, no three times, my math is not very good. Three times the amount of food three times plus the amount of food that she was eating, previous. 

 

Concept of reverse diet  24:23 

So that is the concept of a reverse diet. And what that does is it allows you to eat more, it allows you to get your metabolism up, and it allows you to maintain it long term. If you're anybody who in the past who've lost weight and regained it, you know that when you go into a fat loss period again, that fear is often lingering there, like, “I lost the way before, but then I regained it.” and how you're scared that's going to happen again.  And I think it's important to reassure yourself that for most women, one of the reasons that they weren't able to maintain it is simply because they were missing a piece. They were missing an ingredient, you didn't know about reverse dieting, you didn't implement it. And why is this time going to be different? Well, for one, because you're going to be able to implement a reverse diet, you're gonna be able to gain metabolism back up so that it's not so easy for you to go in a caloric surplus. If you are burning 700 calories a day, how easy is it for you to go in a caloric surplus? Really easy to see a normal meal and like you're over your calories. If you get your metabolism up so it's burning 2700 calories a day, how hard is it to go into a caloric surplus above and beyond that. You have so much more wiggle room, the higher metabolism is, which results in you being able to maintain your result so much easier.

 

Address the beliefs and identities that affect your actions 26:42  

And then the second thing, and I talked about this the beginning, but I'm gonna wrap it back around, because even if you do a reverse diet, if we don't address all that other stuff, we don't address the beliefs, we don't address the identity, we don't make shifts on those levels, yeah, the reverse diet is really important, scientifically, metabolically. But unless we pair it with the actual shifts in the beliefs, the actual shifts in the identity level,  it's not gonna stick. And this is why some women can even go through the reverse diet and still have struggles with being able to have that weight loss be permanent. And that is often because they haven't done the work underneath, right? They haven't done the internal work, which is why in Macros 101, focus so much on that internal work on the beliefs, on the identity level, because when you shift from that level, everything else permanently shifts. Those actions that you want to do, they just become a part of who you are. It becomes a habit, it becomes just something you don't even have to think about, something that's subconscious. I don't make a decision every morning to go to the gym. That's just what I do. So I am sort of done. It's a habit I've created. And so moving things from a conscious decision to making them unconscious as part of this work. So that you're not thinking about, “Oh, what am I going to eat? Like, it's just, it's just normal for how you normally eat. And that's where I want to get my clients to, that's where I want to get you to is this place where maintenance is easy. Maintenance is just you living life in a very normal way that you're not thinking about it all day long. And I know for some of you who think about food all day long or think about your body all day long that seems like a very lofty idea that you can ever get to that place. And I promise you it is possible. You can get to that place where you're not thinking about your body all day long, you're not thinking about food all day long. And it just has become ingrained in who you are, how you show up, the things that you're telling yourself, and that gets translated into the actions that you take and it gets translated into the results that you're able to have.

 

Expectations when it comes to reverse dieting  28:58  

Okay, let's talk a little bit about expectations when it comes to reverse dieting. Because often, I find that people's success with reverse dieting really comes down to what their expectations were of the process. It's important to know that as you go through a reverse diet, as you're slowly titrating these calories up and you're increasing that metabolic rate, your goal is not to lose weight. And that's a really hard thing for a lot of people to swallow. Because it makes it feel like in their mind, they're not making progress. Because if you have 30, 40, 50, 100 pounds to lose, and you're not losing anything and the point of what you're doing right now is to not lose anything that can make it feel like “Oh my gosh, this is taking so much longer. Doing this reverse is making this process take so much longer.” And so I think it's really important to understand that we do a reverse diet oftentimes when you're stuck, or when you're in a cycle that you're stuck in, and you're not making progress. So this idea of taking a different route doesn't actually make it slower. It makes it faster. So I want you to think about it. Like if you're driving your car, and you normally go, you know, a certain way down the road to get to where you want to go. And you come across some construction and a detour, which is faster to sit at the construction, and say, “I'll wait a wait till this construction is over. And then I will be able to go straight on through on my normal path on the shortest route from A-B.” Or do you say, “Oh, there's a detour.” Yes. Theoretically, it's longer. It's going to put some extra miles on my car. But even though it's extra mileage, it's actually going to be way faster than sitting there and waiting for all of the construction to be finished. And so I want you to think about that in terms of a reverse diet, people often think, “Oh, this is going to make the process take a lot longer.” When in actuality, it gets you unstuck and makes the process actually go faster. Because you actually start making progress, you actually are fixing what is broken, rather than just trying to keep going with a broken wheel. 

 

Cycles of weight loss  31:34 

In fact, that's another good metaphor. I love metaphors. If you think about if you had one flat wheel, one flat tire, and you were putting along at 15 miles an hour, because you were like, “Oh, I don't want to stop and change the tire, because it's going to slow me down.” Like how silly would it be to say that? No, you actually know that, yeah, you can sit here and put it at 15 miles an hour. Or you could stop, take 30 minutes, or yeah, maybe you're not like moving forward. But then once you get that tire on, now you lose 80 miles an hour. And so who's actually going to win this race? The person who's putting along at 15, or the person who takes a break, changes the tire and goes at 60 down the freeway, it is the same thing with Riverside. Sure, you can continue to putt along, you can continue to like struggle and stay in the cycle and tell yourself that this is the way to do it, you're free to stay in that. Or you can realize that by taking the time to reverse, maintain, and then go into a cut is in the long term, the fastest way to get to where you want to go. And I snuck that into that you can hear that whole maintenance thing, that's a mind blower for people too, because a lot of times people are like, “Okay, fine, I can wrap my head around this reversing. Let's do it. Let's get it done as fast as possible, so I can get right back into a deficit.” And then I'm like, “No, no, no, there's actually a maintenance base after the reverse. And then you can go back into a cut.”

 

More on Cycles of weight loss  33:03  

If you want to hear more about the cycles of weight loss, episode number 76 is called the cycles of weight loss. And I talked about those different phases and how long you need to stay in each so that your expectations are accurate with what this process is going to look like. Okay. 

More on Cycles of weight loss  33:19

Another thing that people, so during the reverse, let's go back to this expectation. During the reverse, the expectation is not to lose weight. Now, sometimes it happens. Some people as you start to increase their calories will actually see fat loss, will actually see their waist get smaller, and they'll see the scale drop down, that sometimes happens. But it is not the purpose, it is not the goal. And it is not the expectation that you should go into this process thinking that it's going to happen. The expectation can and should be that the goal during the reverse is to maintain. That's the goal. That's a win. If the scale is not going up and your measurements are not going up, that's a win. It's not a goal to have the measurements go down, it's not the goal to have the weight go down. If it happens, that can be a happy accident. But it's not the goal, don't go into it with the expectation that it is because then you're going to be set up for a rude awakening that for most women, that's not actually what occurs during a reverse.

 

Scared to eat more food  34:24  

Okay, another thing that people find really scary about the reverse is simply eating more food. And this comes back to this lie that you've been told your whole life that eating less is better. And so conversely, you've internalized that eating more is bad. And it feels very scary for a lot of women to add food or to reduce their exercise. That's been a tool that you've used in the past to be able to to try to maintain things and it can be very scary to cut back on those things for people. And if that's you, and you're sitting in that space where it does feel scary. The first thing I'll say is just because it feels scary, doesn't mean it's not something you should do. What it does mean is that it's something outside of your comfort zone. And the irony is that everything that you want that you don't have is outside of your comfort zone. So if you think that you can get something, get a new result, without getting outside of your comfort zone, you're in for a rude awakening. Because if it was already in your comfort zone, you'd already have it. So it's this like, push and pull with recognizing that yes, it's scary. But no, that doesn't mean that it's not the right step. Simply means it's outside of your comfort zone. That's where you got it. That's where you got to go. But it's okay for it to be scary. So that's a sort of first thing and then recognizing in reality, what's really scarier? eating more food, or having a life stuck in the cycle that you find yourself stuck in, or having a life under fueling your body, have a life where you're constantly in this state of being under fueled, you're constantly in this cycle of worrying about regaining the weight, worrying about how many calories you're eating, worrying about if you can have bread or not, worried that anything that you do is going to cause weight gain. What is scarier? To me, that life is way scarier than eating a little bit more food. And going through this experimenting and trying this out, especially for those of you who have been caught in the cycle, it's like what do you have to lose? You spent years trying the other way, why not try a new thing that could be the solution to why you've struggled for so long in that cycle.

 

I don’t want to maintain this body weight  36:41  

And then I would say the last concern that so many people share is this idea that I don't want to maintain here. And I hear this, especially for those of you who have 40, 50, 70 pounds to lose, there's a big push in your mind to get out of here. “I don't like it here. I'm uncomfortable. No part of me wants to maintain this body, this weight, this size, a day longer than I have to.” And I hear that and I get it. And I would revert back to what I said earlier, that there's probably a part of you that feels like “This is going to make it take longer, it's going to mean that I have to spend more time at this body weight.” And yes, it may mean that you have to spend a little bit more time at that body weight. And it means that you'll be able to get to the body weight that you want to so much faster. My friends who do have a lot of weight to lose are usually the ones who have been caught in the cycle of eating less and less and less. Because there's this push and this drive to lose weight and to do it all at once.

 

Go through cycles  37:55  

And I dive deeper into this topic in Episode 76, where I talk about the cycles of weight loss. But the goal is not to keep dieting until you reach your goal. The goal is to diet for a period of time, reverse, maintain, and do it again. And so for my friends who have a lot of weight to lose, I want you to recognize that the goal is not for you to keep dieting until you lose 50 pounds and hit your goal weight. The goal is to go through cycles. So that not only are you able to hit your goal weight, but you're able to maintain it and you're able to do it in a way that doesn't tank your metabolism.

 

Maintenance as a mindset  38:36  

Another great episode to listen to if you are in that situation of having a significant amount of weight to lose is episode number 72. When I interviewed Heather Robertson, she lost 170 pounds. And she is such a great example of talking about maintenance as a mindset. And the importance of having periods of maintaining your weight when you are somebody who has a lot of weight to lose. Which is the opposite of how most of us think about it, most of us think “I want to get out of here and I want to get out here as fast as possible.” And she really makes a case for why it's so valuable for someone who has a lot of weight to lose to do it in phases. And to do it with maintenance periods in between and why that is the secret to how she was able to lose 100 and maintain the loss. I think she's now 10 years out of her weight loss and may be able to maintain the 170 pound loss. And so I hear this fact I don't want to maintain here. And the question is what if maintaining here for three, six months allowed you the rest of your life to be able to actually hit the way that you want to hit? Is that worth it? Because that's the reality for a lot of people is that if you keep trying to do what you've always done in the past you're gonna get the results you've probably gotten. That's a definition of insanity. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Eating less, continuing to diet over and over and over again is not working. It's not gonna magically just start working. And so doing something different, what got you here, won't get you there is going to be the solution that will make a difference for you.

 

Why eating less actually makes you way more 40:22  

So bringing in this podcast topic full circle, at this point, you now understand why eating less actually makes you way more. Whether eating less makes you go into the binge and restrict cycle, or eating less gets you into the cycle of metabolic adaptation where your metabolism goes lower and lower and lower. Okay, so you understand why I say eating less is not the solution. The goal is not to eat as little as possible. I was actually just on a coaching call with our Macros 101 clients, and I told them, “Our goal is not to eat as little as possible, our goal, and our goals are to change as many things as possible in your life, our goal is to change as few things as possible, of what you're already doing. Change as little as possible in order to get you moving towards your goals, to have you eating as much food as possible, and get you moving towards your goals.”  Okay, it's not about eating less, it's about fueling properly. And that's what we are able to do is we're able to find that sweet spot with Macro counting. It's what I help my clients do to find that sweet spot, high enough that you're fueled well low enough that you're creating a caloric deficit, where that spot is unique for everybody. And that's why I help you to create a customized plan and figure out where that spot is for you.

 

Macros 101  41:38  

I've mentioned Macros 101 a couple times. The program's not open right now. We open it twice a year. And our next enrollment will be March of 2022. So if that's something that you're interested in and curious about, I highly recommend getting on the waitlist at bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist and make sure that you're on there because we only open doors for a couple days. And then we close them and we're off to the races and Macros 101 is where we do a lot of this work. I've given you the highlights and the higher knowledge about reverse dieting. But there are so many things that tend to come up personally and internally as you go through this process that's where we can really kind of hold your hand and walk you through it and really help you to be able to know how to implement this tool that can be such a powerful life changing experience for so many women. I think walking women through reverse diets are one of my favorite people to coach through because it blows their freaking minds. They're like “I can eat more? and not gain weight?” Like just mind blown.

 

How to go through the process of reverse diet download freebie  42:45 

If you are looking for a little more help with your reverse diet, I do have a free download that we made for episode nine about how to go through the process. And you can find that by going to bicepsafterbabies.com/9. It'll be on that episode page. It just says download the freebie. And we'll also put it on the show notes for this episode. So that's bicepsafterbabies.com/170 is where you can find the show notes. And you'll be able to download that free resource as well that walks you through how to do a reverse diet. And I also walked more into that process in episode nine, and 42. So those are good episodes. If you are in that place of wanting to learn more about reversing and the process and what it looks like I really recommend episodes nine, Episode 10, also 9 and 10, 42 114. And then this episode, and that's going to help you to wrap your head around this for some of you this is the first time you're hearing this concept. For some of you, this is the third time you've heard it. And maybe it's the time that will convince you that maybe just maybe this could be the best next step for you in your journey.

 

Continue to share this podcast  43:53  

Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. If you would do me a favor, I would be so grateful if you share this podcast episode, share it in your story, share it in your feed, text it to a friend. But if you could think of somebody who would benefit from this information, please please please share this with them. It's why I create this content is to be able to have more people like let's fill the world with understanding this concept of metabolic adaptation. Let's make it so that people aren't learning about this process for the first time at age 55. But that it's something that is well understood and that people get and they grasp. So please share this episode. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a listener. Thank you for hanging out with me again. That wraps up this episode of Biceps after Babies Radio. I'm Amber, now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything.

 

Outro

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