Hey everyone. It's Vesna here and I want to talk about… I just was interviewed for a summit in the US and we talked a lot about weight loss and metabolism and hormones and things like that.
So I wanted to kind of to share some of the things that I talked about because I know that if you've cut out sugar or carbohydrates from your diet and you're still finding it hard to lose weight or to maintain your weight. I want to talk about that because what the stats are showing is that gym memberships nationally have gone up and sugar consumption is lower than it has been in 20 years yet obesity is on the rise.
So in Australia, obesity has risen from 56% to 63%. Same in New Zealand and in the US it's almost doubled since the 1990s. So what is going on? Even though we're eating less sugar and trying to exercise more, why are we not losing weight?
The problem is that it's definitely a holistic problem. It's not just about cutting out sugars or cutting out carbohydrates. We really got to look at what is controlling our metabolism and there's key major players that control our metabolism. Key systems in the body that keep our internal fire super high so we're burning fat even when we're sleeping.
When we're not doing that, something has gone wrong. And it's more than just cutting out a particular food. And so the reasons why we struggle to lose weight, the things that kind of break down our metabolism and these key systems is #1 chronic dieting. We're constantly on a diet and I get it.
If you want to lose weight and you want to feel really good and fit into clothes and feel really comfortable again, then you're going to try all these different things.
Unfortunately what happens is is that we go onto restrictive, rigid diets which are really low in calorie, which causes our metabolism to slow down. And study after study has shown that once we've been on a diet that's restrictive and our metabolism has slowed down, once we return to normal eating our metabolism doesn't increase with it which is why when we finish a diet we put the weight back on and a little bit more.
So chronic dieting is a big factor. Nutritional deficiencies really have an impact particularly on thyroid health and gut function and things like that. But also starvation.
We can be nutritionally starving even though we're eating a lot of foods. we're not getting the right nutrients which support these key systems. So the adrenals, the liver, the thyroid. These key systems are important for the metabolism.
If we don't have the right nutrients, we are not going to be able to be balanced in those systems. And it can also be that we're actually starving. So I get a lot of women that say, “I'll go all day without eating and then come home and can eat the entire pantry and not feel satisfied.” So that kind of puts your body into fat storage mode. So when your body's under stress, it's not going to burn body fat for fuel. It will look for more carbohydrates which is why we feel that kind of insatiable appetite.
Stress, stress is the biggest factor on our metabolism because stress hormones block the very hormones that control our metabolism. Our thyroid hormones have a big part to play. And then also too you may be doing all the right things but the foods you're eating are GMO, they have pesticides, artificial sweeteners, et cetera, which are going to put your body again into a fat storage mode or encourage your body to gain fat.
Chemicals in diet foods. they are called obesogens. So they actually increase the likelihood of obesity. So we need to, even though we're eating well we really need to look at what are we getting in our foods. So, those are the important things. While we tend to focus on food. I think that's one part of the story. I really talk about food and making sure that you have the right nutrients to activate those key systems but also stress.
I think we can safely say that the modern world is pretty stressful and we walk around with a lot of ongoing, unrelenting stress and that stress is creating what I call stress fat. And actually on this summit we talked about how a lot of women will say, “I'm starting to look like my husband.” You're putting weight in the areas that your husband has. Like around the gut. Even upper body. And the reason being is because that's stress fat. So when we're stressed, our body is not going to burn body fat.
We are going to need more glucose. So glucose is what our body goes for when it's stressed. So the more stressed we are, the more glucose that we need and so therefore we're going to crave more sugars and carbohydrates and even if we can resist the urge to have them, it doesn't matter because your body will source it from other areas.
So if we are stressed and we resist the cravings, our body will break down muscle tissue, convert that into glucose and refuel kind of our glucose tank. And so what happens there is that we start to have this change in body composition. So we have less body muscle and more body fat. So we get fat in areas that we never had before. We can get more cellulite and things like that. So that's a really important area to look at.
Looking at where you can destress and doing things like in my work I talk about having foods that help to relax the stress response and those foods which relax the adrenals and the HPA axis. Those foods are carbohydrates. And so I introduce that into my programs because that'll allow your body to be relaxed which will then allow your body to burn body fat for fuel. And probably the other third thing that I want to mention is – thyroid health.
Under-active thyroid health for women in midlife is the most commonly under-diagnosed condition. And so a lot of women are walking around with an under-active thyroid which is affecting their metabolism. Making it hard for them to lose weight but also affecting mood and brain fog and sleep and all of that kind of stuff and it's not being picked up by a regular blood tests. So that's really another major factor.
So if you want to know more I'm doing a training on it this week. It's free to join. I put the details below. There's a link there. If you click on that link and go there you can read all about it and I'm going to go into detail about hormones, metabolism, mood, energy. All of those are connected to the metabolism. When our metabolism's low, we're going to feel tired. We're going to feel exhausted. We can also feel tired and wired.
We can also feel like I've been tired all day but I can't sleep at night. Or you can feel that your mood is really low or you can have the brain fog. Anyway, so I'm going to talk all about that on the upcoming training. Like I said, there's a link below. Hope to see you there. By for now.
