Today’s blog post is a little different from my normal approach!

I recently got a really great question in an email about weight loss resistance and wanted to share my answer is all of you.

The Question

The question I received was about weight loss resistance in the setting of a pretty clean diet and lots of exercise.

That’s sooooo frustrating! Is it not??

So here are my thoughts on this matter.

My Answer

“When I hear weight loss resistance, there are a couple things I think about:

1) Poor detoxification pathways.

When the liver, lymphatics, colon, kidneys are overloaded, weight loss resistance is a pretty common phenomenon. Have you ever incorporated things like lemon water first thing in the water, dry skin brushing, tongue scraping, coconut oil pulling, etc into your daily routine? If not, these are great places to start for supporting natural detox pathways. The other side of this coin is that we have to work on minimize the toxins coming in in the first place. So switching to non-toxic cleaning/beauty products, getting a water filter, adding in some air purifying plants to the house can all help in that regular. I know I’m throwing a lot out here! But that’s just because there are so many options to choose from. If you want help with this, Megan and I run our seasonal detox quarterly and the fall one is coming up but you can start whenever on your own if you’d like. Here’s the Love Your Liver Detox link. It makes things really streamlined for you with recipes, shopping guides, and strategies for when to do stuff that makes it really simple.

2) Blood sugar regulation issues.

Sometimes weight loss resistance can be an indicator of poor blood sugar regulation. Have you tried getting a glucometer to measure fasting and post-meal blood sugar values? That can be helpful to figure out what’s going on. This is kind of an advanced move but gives tons of information. Here’s a Chris Kresser article on normal values. Then, you can begin to tailor your carb and fat intake to help get in range. I think going too low carb is the most common problem I see for women trying to lose weight. Seems counterintuitive but really comes down to hormone dysfunction.

3) Over-exercising.

Oftentimes, women who are trying to lose weight have underlying hormonal imbalances and over-exercising leads to more problems with cortisol release which impacts the sex/blood sugar regulation hormones. Exercising is really helpful! Don’t get me wrong. But if you’re exercising to the point where you aren’t recovering in 30 minutes or so, get headaches after working out, or stay sore for several days after a workout, you might be doing too much and it’s time to cut back.

4) Hormonal imbalances.

Have you ever gotten any lab work done to look at your hormones? This is usually one of the most common issues we see with weight loss resistance. We have our Healthy Hormones Group Program that we run lab work and create a customized protocol for women, as well as a lifestyle overhaul. The next group will be in the Spring. You can also see a provider on your own and have lab work done for you to see where you are at. (Sometimes, providers will just run a progesterone test on day 21…that doesn’t really give very much info. We do neurotransmitter and a complete hormone panel to get a full picture of what’s going on).

I hope that’s all helpful! I know it’s a lot of info! But that just means you have a lot of options for where to go next 🙂 If it were me, I’d start with the detox stuff and making sure I’m not over-exercising. Then hit up the hormone aspect next.”

Hopefully you can find some helpful tidbits that work for you from this answer as well.

XOXO,