Many women tend to feel once they lose the weight they want, they will then be healthy and happy. However, the journey there in and of itself is frought with misunderstandings and potential backfires. Here are 4 reasons why you might find weight loss stalled or not easy. 

1. You have been dieting on and off for so long, your body is depleted and run down, and you are running on empty. When calories are low for too long, the body turns down the metabolic rate, lowers body temperature, lowers digestive juices, reduces the heartrate and slows down thyroid function. This is a natural survival mechanism to prevent further weight loss!

2. Your gut bacteria are imbalanced and are contributing to issues such as oestrogen dominance, which then leads to weight gian or stalled loss.

3. The fatty acid balance in your cells is skewed toward omega 6, and this is linked with obesity.

4. Not eating enough carbs and natural sugars- such as in fruit or potatoes - which stimulate the metabolism and help with the conversion of thyroid hormone from inactive to active, T4 to T3. The active thyroid hormones are important for metabolic rate.

You can check if your metabolism is likely slowed down or crashed, by checking your temperature. A low temperature first thing in the morning before you get up- such as below 36.4 C,  and a low heartrate such as below 75, are both signs of a slow metabolism. Another sign is having really cold hands and feet, or feeling the cold a lot. ANother is not sleeping well, and nothaving much energy. 

It takes a certain robust health to lose weight in a way that is not going to hurt your metabolism. Sometimes some weight loss can help kick the process into gear, but so many women have been chronically yoyo dieting or living on 1200 calories for so long that their bodies will not let go of that weight. 

My approach is to first focus on nourishing the body and eating enough calories to have energy. As women, we need to eat, we need to fuel ourselves to get through our busy lives. You can’t look after toddlers, or go to work everyday, or build a business, while starving yourself. There is no way you are going to be happy once you have lost th weight if the cost is a shot metabolism, and no energy, messed up digestion and nutrition depletion. It’s just asking for more issues down the track. 

It takes some balance and dedication to coming back inside yourself and taking care. My experience is that when I eat a varied and nutrient dense diet,  focus on balance, eating enough carbs, protein, eating several times a day…..I have energy. And when I have energy, I can do what I need to do, I can sleep better, I can physically move (and I want to move), and I care less about what my body weighs or looks like, I am grateful for what it can do and how it feels from the inside. 

From that place, where its not the most important thing at any cost including energy and health, weight loss can be possible if still desired. Or you can just get on and enjoy your life and not worry about it so much.