Are you struggling to see results with weight loss? Here are some reasons why the scales aren’t moving.
We’ve worked with so many women over 40 who were struggling to lose weight. They weren’t seeing any movement on the scales no matter what they tried.
We helped these women to remove the barriers that were blocking them from seeing results. Now, they can quickly and easily get the scales moving.
In today’s blog, we’re going to reveal the most common reasons that women over 40 struggle to see movement on the scales.
You can also listen to this blog in our podcast!
Too intense exercise
A lot of people feel like they need to “kickstart” their weight loss by doing something extreme and intense. This can work for women in their 20s and 30s… but it doesn’t work for women in their 40s and 50s. This is because the body’s sensitivity to stress increases with age.
If the body is over-stressed, cortisol is released. If cortisol levels are too high for too long, it can trigger the weight gain triangle, which causes increased cravings and a slower metabolism. This means the body holds onto fat around the middle. This makes it harder to lose weight and easier to gain it.
Intense exercise is interpreted as a source of stress by the body, and this includes things like:
- Gym classes
- Spinning
- HIIT training
- Running
So whilst in your 20s or 30s, you might have found these helped to shed the Christmas weight quickly. But now they could actually make things worse, not better.
However, you also don’t want to swing all the way the other way to doing nothing, or do exercise that isn’t intense enough to stimulate a change in the body…
Not intense enough exercise
A lot of people have had bad experiences with intense exercise. Whether it’s getting an injury, not seeing results from all that hard work, or struggling to find time to commute to and from the gym.
Some people then end up doing more gentle exercise like
- Yoga
- Pilates
- Walking
All of these are things we recommend, as they’re great for improving mobility, flexibility and core strength. Walking is also a good low-stress, low-impact way of burning a few extra calories.
However, they’re not very effective for changing how you look and feel physically. Especially in terms of toning up, as they don’t provide the right stimulus for the body to change.
Like goldilocks, you need to find something which isn’t too much, isn’t too little, but is just right. It needs to be enough to stimulate the body to change, and something that focuses on building muscle, as that will tone you up, lift your bum and get rid of those bingo wings.
We do this using something called LIST training, or low-impact strength training, which is designed specifically for women over 40.
Our clients typically do 3 sessions a week from home for just 30-45 minutes, and they usually drop 1-2 dress sizes in 12 weeks!
Restrictive nutrition approaches
A lot of people think if they do a more extreme nutrition approach, it’ll help them to lose the Christmas weight gain faster in January. So they try things like low calorie dieting, shakes, keto or fasting.
Again, just like extreme exercise, this can work well for women in their 20s and 30s. However, extreme dieting is interpreted as a source of stress by the body. And for women over 40, this can trigger the weight gain triangle, actually making it harder to lose weight, especially from around the middle.
The only way to see good results as a women over 40 is to work with your changing body and hormones, rather than against it. We do this using an approach called Hormonally Balanced Eating. This way, you eat the right amount of key 3 nutrients: calories, protein, and fibre.
This is very flexible, and most of our clients are surprised by how much they can eat and still see their weight drop every single week.
Lack of support
A lot of people think that they’ll be motivated to shift the weight all on their own in January, especially if they gained quite a bit over the festive period.
Again, this may be based on the fact that in their 20s or 30s, they could just move more and eat less and shift the weight pretty quickly and easily doing almost anything.
However, not only have their bodies changed, requiring a more specific approach, but also their lifestyle is far more busy and stressful than it used to be.
This means it’s far easier to get derailed and think “sod it”, order a takeaway or open a bottle of wine and a pack of crisps, and undo all the hard work from that week.
Doing it alone is hard! There’s a reason why all our clients were stuck for years before joining Trinity. It’s not just because we give them an approach that works with their changing body and hormones but we provide 3 additional things that make all the difference.
- Expert support: We’ve seen every issue a hundred times before, so we can give you a solution instantly.
- Accountability: It’s easy to fail in private and give up on yourself. However, it’s human nature to not want to let others down. Having someone check in with you every week and ask “did you do what you said you’d do?” makes all the difference.
- Community: It can feel like you’re the only person struggling with your problems. Being part of a community that’s succeeding with the goals you also want to achieve will help to bring you up and motivate you when you’re struggling.
