Most clients come to weight loss coaches with a similar story:

They’ve been trying to lose and/or maintain their weight for years with unsuccessful sustainability.

They’re too busy to find time to focus on nutrition and fitness, they opt for quick fix diets and extreme exercise plans. The weight drops but the results don’t last.

Sound familiar? Thought so and girl, you’re not alone.

So what’s the big fat loss secret that Carol next door isn’t sharing? We may just know, and guess what? It’s FOUR big secrets.

Is Your Approach to Weight Loss All Wrong?

"I already know what I need to do, I need to eat less and workout more."

I hear that ALL the time from women, but often what we think we need to do and what we actually need to do are VERY different.

That 5lbs down, 5lbs up yo-yo weight-loss/weight gain you've been living.

That fear of carbs, of eating that slice of bread because well, you gain weight if you smell a carb.

The continued frustration with your "willpower" and consistency.

The guilt you carry around from having that cookie or eating that slice of pizza.

The fear of missing a workout because the scale will instantly goes up.

Weight loss doesn’t have to be so hard, and truly shouldn’t be so hard (it’s often a sign there is something else going on).

And along these same lines, food doesn't have to take up so much space in your mind throughout your day.

As a functional health coach, I work with people like you to re-train attitudes towards food, dieting and exercise. It’s my passion to educate clients on how to achieve weight loss in a healthy manner, that isn’t so hard, and a plan they can be successful with sustainable results.

Why A Constant Calorie Deficit Can Harm Your Body

Yes, eating less and working out more is part of what we need to do in a fat loss phase( because you will need to be in a caloric deficit, that's a fact). . However, if you have been dieting for a long time and find your weight plateaued or if you have serious stress, energy, digestion, hormone, sleep or other internal factors that are not optimal, you MUST, I repeat, you MUST attend to those first prior to creating a calorie deficit.

The place that I see most people get fat loss wrong is in the time frame they attempt to lose weight. They treat it as a lifestyle, something they do year round. Do you find yourself answering the question, what is your health goal right now? as fat loss or weight loss, every time you have been asked the question for months and years? Then you’ll want to read on.

Fat loss is a phase. If your goal is fat loss right now, and it was fat loss 6 months ago, 1 year ago… and in another 6 months and then in 1 year it is still fat loss, you are doing something wrong and possibly hurting your body too.

It’s important that you don’t get stuck in a fat loss cycle for too long. If you continue to lose fat in an unguided way, you will also be losing muscle. You need this muscle to keep your metabolism healthy, so if you lose too much muscle, your metabolism will actually slow down, hindering further weight loss efforts.

It’s important to approach weight loss and dieting knowledgeably and we love to teach. Ultimately, sure, it’s gonna be best to get a health coach but let’s break down the ground rules for long-lasting weight loss results. I like to explain body transformation in 4 phases, here they are:

1. Assess & Prep (the soil)

I mentioned quick fix diets above - this crucial stage is where so many of these programs often miss the mark. In order to help you create results that last, you need to first assess how you got here.

This involves a deep dive into your health history, current fitness, nutrition, lifestyle behaviors, and how you are feeling. Not just an off the shelf “one size fits all” approach, you need to personalize your journey. You need to look at what needs to change in your whole lifestyle, what you need to prioritize and where you need support to achieve your desired outcomes.

I’m guessing you’re here because results haven’t stuck around in the past. Likelihood is, you previously missed this step. Most people jump directly into restrictive diets and unsustainable training routines without properly assessing and preparing the body for change ensuring that it is going to be receptive to the changes you are making (usually these come down to more movement and less food aka dieting).

So I suggest you note down your behaviors each day to assess how you are really feeling and what behaviors may need to change to bring you into a smart place to start inflicting more ‘stress’ (less food more movement IS stress) on your body. Here’s just a few areas to start assessing:

Do you sleep through the night and wake up easily?
Morning habits (e.g. snoozing your alarm, what time you eat your first meal, starting your day with coffee vs hydration and food, morning movement?)
How are your eating and drinking habits throughout the day including snacks and coffee (are you looking for energy at that 3pm time or feel like energy is solid?)
Step count and how often you take breaks to balance the focused attention on work
Energy and mood throughout the day
Your night time routine (How long before bed do you start to wind down, turn off tech and lights, do you stretch or meditate? Do you snack?)
Do you feel good at the end of a day or exhausted and drained?

2. Create the Foundations (the roots)

Once you have assessed your current habits, you need to focus on the foundations you’re going to change. No denial here, be real, you NEED to make drastic changes else you wouldn’t be here. As coaches, we use this stage to help you build the strategies and systems you need to be able to improve follow through and consistency. We cover daily habits including nutrition and movement.

It’s in this stage that you need to learn what foods your body thrives on and how to create a balanced plate at every meal, nutrient timing and how to stay consistent with your nutrition.

In this stage you will begin to see that you start to FEEL better with improved sleep, less cravings, fatigue that lifts, managed stress and solid energy through those afternoon hours. If you were coached through this stage, it is here that we would help you build the strategies and systems you need to be able to improve follow through and consistency.

This all sounds like a lot to think about and it may well be a huge overhaul of your current habits but if you start out with simply assessing and gathering data you’ll be able to break down the steps of change easier. First, start by logging what you are eating throughout the day for 1-week. Assess the nutrients that each meal is providing. Are you hitting your protein, fat, vitamin and mineral suggested servings? If not, or you don’t know, it’s time to learn more and grow your knowledge on which foods can provide you with what you need (remember once you learn, you can’t unlearn, it’s a lifelong investment). General guidelines can start you off then working through any outlying factors to do a deeper more personal dive on your unique recommendations. We do offer a nutrition consultation if you feel lost here!

If you’re doing this solo, it’s going to be a trial and error process. You’re going to have to know when to listen to what your body is telling you and when to take the lead and direct your body. There’s a lot going on in there with metabolism, hormones, gut health and more. Enjoy the process of getting to know your body, it should be a fun journey!

3. Optimize your Health & Metabolism via a Customized Approach (the bloom)

This stage comes after your foundations are consistent. Once you have a healthy base that’s become routine, you’ll be able to spot outlying factors that are standing between you and feeling and looking your best. On your own, this stage can be hard because it will involve looking deeper into your health and connecting the dots of all the systems of the body. As coaches, this is where we may discuss obtaining lab work to help guide us more specifically on improving your digestion and gut health, optimizing micronutrients and mineral status, improving your hormonal balance, supporting your adrenals and stress response, understanding why you are weight loss resistant, and overall helping you to optimize your metabolism for sustainable weight loss.

It’s not all about lifestyle and nutrition (although that’s a big part), this phase is also about optimizing your training and execution in exercise. In order to see results you need to build a progression in your routine, this often means working at getting stronger in a set of workouts tht you repeat for 5-8 weeks. This may seem boring, but your muscles need this to build and change (check out this blog on getting toned). If shape change is your aim, you may also introduce something called ‘reverse dieting’ in phase 3.

This stage is intricate which s why it’s often the place people get stuck doing all the things and still not seeing the results they desire. Working with a health coach can streamline the process big time!

In terms of training, I suggest mapping out 3 different workout routines that take around 45 minutes to complete. Repeat these each week for 6 weeks and monitor your progress via strength improvements, did you start out lifting 40lbs in your lat pull down and can now do 65lbs? Write down your weights lifted and it’ll help you stay focused and see progress in a new light. From here you can get more detailed looking at strategic programming and execution for upleveling your physique even further.

4. Permission to Diet & Learn how to Maintain (the flower)

Being in this phase means that you have received the “permission slip” from your body and behaviors to start into a calorie deficit. You are here because you have created an adherence plan, your life is not in a stressful place and your health is thriving.

Side note, do you see the steps you will have missed if you just opted for the random diet plan or simply started just eating less and working out more without any strategic thought? As you may have noticed, the first three stages are what set you up for success and sustainability so you don’t need to continue to chase fat loss.

It’s this 4th stage that people can abuse, please remember that dieting is usually a 12-18 week period. It is a strategic process that is very simple when you have the behaviors and physiological state optimized first.

Dieting is NOT the end goal. The end goal is actually maintaining those results. No one wants to put in a whole ton of effort only to lose them weeks or months later. It’s tricky to give specific to you diet advice here because it is so individualized with your unique self. This is the stage where seeking guidance can be incredibly helpful!

The final component of this stage is coming out of ‘dieting’ or we like to call a ‘caloric deficit’ and learning how to increase your food to bring you into a state of maintenance while sustaining the results you worked hard for. Without returning to maintenance intake you will end up burning out, tanking hormones and weight will start to come on quickly, usually back where you started, sometimes even more, making the next time you diet even harder to see change.

It is this final phase we lead our clients through (maintenance) which leaves them with the knowledge and tools to feel confident navigating their weight and health on their own and sustaining health and results for the long haul.

What Comes Next?

These phases are a good base to start your health journey education, but you do need to remember that everyone is different. So please, start your journey with these tips starting with stage 1, and know that if you feel lost, stuck or struggle with either understanding your body or building consistency, get in touch and we’d be happy to help steer you in a helpful direction!

You have the rest of your life ahead of you. I don't want to see you so frustrated with yourself, so uncomfortable in your skin, or putting in so much effort when you aren't keeping (or seeing) results. You've been here too long already. Stop investing your efforts in the yo-yo. Start investing in learning the how and why for your body. Let’s do this!

THE 4 NEED-TO-KNOW PHASES OF WEIGHT LOSS