I’ve been guiding women through their weight loss / hormonal balancing journey for a while now.
I’ve seen all the overarching patterns that get in the way for women longing to be free from their never-ending “battle” with food, over-indulging, weight, dieting, symptoms, etc…
In a strange way, I’m grateful I went through my own personal version of this too, because that 3 decade struggle gave me compassion and deeper, experiential insights that allow me to help women fast-track their journey instead of dealing with the back and forth – yo-yo – lose and regain – rollercoaster – over and over again.
You don’t have to spend another year (or decade or lifetime) doing this either.
You can be free of the confusing, obsessive, restrict>binge, on>off, good>bad disordered diet cycle for good, because you’ll see right through the self-inflicted barriers that are preventing you from being truly empowered.
As you read these, I want you to check in with yourself.
You could be bumping into all 3 of these barriers (like I did), but for now, I want you to identify which one speaks to you the loudest as the primary barrier (reply back and let me know):
BARRIER 1: OVERCONSUMPTION
There are 2 sub-sections to this:
- YOUR MEALS – Let’s assume you already know you need to eat real food vs. processed ‘non-food’. You eat (mostly) “healthy” meals most of the time, but they’re not balanced. Whether you’re low carb/keto or eat moderate carbs; if you’re not improving, it may be an overeating-issue. Either there’s not enough protein and veggies to meet basic requirements and to increase satiety and/or there are too many carbs and/or too much fat being consumed.
- In other words, your carb/fat portions overall contain too much ‘energy” (calories) for your body to produce the signals to release stored energy (i.e., body fat).
- YOUR INDULGENCES – If you’re familiar with my approach, then you know that I encourage ‘intentional indulging’ to make your approach sustainable, pleasurable, flexible and not so restricted, BUT the key here is balance…You must find YOUR right dose and frequency of the indulgences that work for YOUR body and YOUR goals.
- If you consistently balance your meals well and you’re not seeing results, this is a good indication that you may be over-indulging AND/OR your indulgences don’t work for your body.
BARRIER 2: LIFE BALANCE
If you’re in a constant state of stress*, know that your body is designed to protect you – and it will do just that by 1. storing fat and by 2. activating or down-regulating physiological responses like turning up inflammation and cortisol while dialing down processes that are considered ‘non-essential’ for survival – like lowering things like brain function, reproductive/sleep/relaxation hormones, digestion, etc…
*Stress is tricky (I’ll do a separate article on this) because you can normalize being in that heightened ‘fight-or flight’ mode and appear ‘fine’, yet that adaptation still hinders all of the above. This definitely was me.
In other words, you may feel like everything’s OK – that this is just ‘modern life’ and the ‘new normal’- but your body knows the truth, because you’re really not fine and this is NOT normal or sustainable – you’ve just compensated and adapted to it.
An important note: Stress occurs in all areas of being: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. We think of stress more as mental/emotional – just in dealing with the challenges of life (i.e., work, finances, kids, parents, other relationships, illness, world events), but we often ignore the insidious physical stressors like toxic exposures, deficiencies, chemicals in food, air, water, wifi/electronic stress, sleep deprivation, injuries and…even exercise – yup….overexercising is a stressor (I stubbornly found this out during my over-training Crossfit days).
BARRIER 3: YOUR BELIEFS AND PATTERNS
This was the biggest barrier for me after I optimized the first 2 as much as I possibly could.
I ate perfectly. I saw all the functional doctors and ran all the functional tests and took all the supplements. I balanced my exercise and sleep. I meditated, did weekly cranial sacral/nervous system physical therapy, practiced self care, but the inner work still needed to be done…
How did I come to this realization?
Because I kept repeating the same thoughts, the same patterns and the same behaviors – and that’s what kept me stuck again and again….both in my hormonal/nervous system, my cellular energy capacity and with my compensatory pattern of overthinking, over-drinking and sometimes overeating followed by poor sleeping and feeling sluggish the next day (or days) afterward.
I find similar compensatory patterns with nearly all of my 1:1 Transformation Package clients too:
After our first session together we figure out their food, fasting and indulgence plan very easily…The diet is always the easiest part of this journey.
Tiny questions may pop up here and there about food, but the real work begins by facing those attachments to dysfunctional patterns of being and thinking that lead to compensation behaviors (avoiding, escaping, etc..).
This is why I talk about this “mindset” stuff and doing the “inner work” all the time.
Because we – as a culture – always want to focus on the diet – the food – the macros, the meal prep strategy, the grams or calories or points, or the workouts – the EXTERNAL – while the internal is the ‘elephant in the room’ the festering wound that no amount of kale or salmon is gonna fix.
FREE RESOURCES
OK – hopefully you understand where the problem(s) lie in your story and now.. (finally), here are some solutions to get you started (or to revisit if you’ve forgotten)…
Some of these resources are new this year and some have been around for a while.
Regardless, they are essential and they will show you the way BUT YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK…even when it’s hard…even when it seems to take forever…even when it’s easier to stay stuck…even when you believe it’s impossible for you…and especially when you’re not “perfect”…
REMEMBER: It’s not about being perfect…It’s about PRACTICING and then learning what you can when you’re NOT perfect and then shifting into alignment as soon as you’re ready again.
Let me know how you do or what you connect to most with this. Your questions and feedback are so very appreciated and will determine what I create/write next.
xo,
Ev
