Why You're Not Losing Weight in Perimenopause

You're doing all the things to lose weight in perimenopause: eating better, getting your protein in, trying to move more. But the scale? It will not budge. If you've quietly started to wonder "what's the point", this episode is for you.

I keep hearing the same thing from women in my world. They feel like they're trying everything and nothing is working, so they've started to give in at the barbecue and stopped bothering with workouts. Inside this episode I walk you through the bridge between where you are now, and where you want to be, and why the gap in the middle is driven almost entirely by the way you think.

We get into the three pillars that decide whether you lose weight in perimenopause: a true calorie deficit, strength training with heavy enough weights, and consistency. Plus, I show you the sneaky thought hiding underneath each one (that is stopping you from actually losing weight).

If you feel like you're on an island with your health while the rest of your family eats however they want, this episode is for you.

What You'll Learn

• Why a 1,200 calorie diet keeps you stuck, and how much you should be eating instead
• The macro balance that actually protects your muscle and your energy in midlife
• Why 5 and 8 pound dumbbells feel heavy when they really aren't, and how to talk your brain into lifting more
• How more muscle quietly buys you food flexibility through your metabolic rate
• Why the need to belong wrecks your consistency without you ever noticing

Resources and Ways To Connect

• The fitness library I use for safe strength training (use code ASHLEY1SBODI for 15% off!)
• Learn more about the Perimenopause Weight Loss Method and book a call to see if it's the right fit
• Get started with 5 Easy Steps to Lose 1 lb/week in Perimenopause (Free Guide!)
• Come say hi on Instagram

Transcript

Ashley (00:07)

Hello, my friend, and welcome back to the Family Fork. Today we are gonna talk about something that I keep hearing over and over again.

And I have a feeling it's going to be something that hits close to home for you too. So I actually had a completely different episode planned for this week, but over the last couple of weeks, I've been talking to so many women, both my own students and women I just chat with all the time. And they keep telling me the same thing. They are doing all the things. They're trying to eat better, trying to get in their protein, they're trying to move more, yet the scale will not budge.

just this week I had a woman reach out to say she's 47 years old and she's tried a lot of programs, but she still can't lose weight. She wants really simple strength training, but nothing that she tries seems to stick.

She also shared with me that she has a husband and two teenage boys. And essentially she feels like she's on an island when it comes to food and exercise, since what she wants and needs is so different than the rest of her family. So, what happens after you've been trying all the things for a while is that you get tired and frustrated, and quietly you just give up. Not in a like big dramatic way. It's more like,

You know what? Nothing I do is working anyway. So I'm just gonna have that extra glass of wine at the barbecue. I won't even bother to try and find a workout that I can actually do because what is the point? So if any part of this resonates with you and it makes you think, my gosh, that is totally me, then I want you to stay with me because today I wanna show you why this is actually happening. And I promise you it's not what you think it is.

So I want you to close your eyes and I want you to picture a bridge with me for just a second. On the left side of that bridge is where you are right now, today. Maybe you are in your early or your late 40s and you're tired. You've been trying to eat healthier, trying to get some steps in, and really trying to squeeze your health into a life that already feels so full. And no matter what you do, it never feels like it's enough.

Now look over to the right side of that bridge. That is where you want to be. You want to feel strong and healthy. You want to put on a tank top and actually see some muscle definition on your arms. You want to go to the pool and feel good in your swimsuit instead of saying covered up in a towel the entire time you're there. You want to pull on a pair of shorts without feeling like your thighs are just being squeezed into them.

You want to wake up in the morning and feel really good in your body. You want to go to the barbecue and eat what you want and still feel completely in control of the balance and the rest of your week. And honestly, you just want to spend way less time thinking about your body and your weight and a whole lot more time just loving your life

Okay, does that land for you? Does it feel like you are standing on the left side of that bridge looking across at the right, knowing exactly that's where you want to be? Here's what I see. I watch my students do this, and I watch women in my audience do this all the time. They try to jump the gap. They want to go from the left side straight to the right side. And what stops them every time is all of the stuff that's in the middle.

That's what I call the gap.

After working with hundreds of students and thousands of women over the last few years on how to actually lose weight in perimenopause, I can tell you one thing for sure. That gap, the distance between where you are and where you want to be, is driven entirely by the way you think, the way you think about food or your workouts, the way you think about your body, the way you think about the people around you.

And whether or not they're eating the same way you are or not. Now, I get it. You're a smart, high-achieving woman. And right now, there's a part of you saying, No, Ashley, I'm I get it. I'm a grown woman. I can eat differently than everyone else at the table. And I hear you, but I will tell you, after all the women that I have worked with, the way that you think about this journey is the exact reason that you are not getting the results that you want.

Yes, there are some real practical and tangible things that you have to do to lose weight. And we're going to talk about those in just a second. But if you're not seeing results, you have to start paying attention to your thoughts and how those thoughts are quietly keeping you stuck on the left side of the bridge. So here is what I know to be true. After all of these years working with all of these women, there are three

Pillars that come up again and again when someone is not losing weight in midlife. Yes, there are other pieces too, but these are the big three. And these are where I see that women struggle the most. Number one, you have to be in a calorie deficit, but with decent macros. Number two, you must be strength training with heavy enough weights. And number three, you have to be consistent.

So let me take them one at a time. And as we go, I want you to notice that the tactic itself is rarely the problem. It's usually the thinking that goes underneath it. So let's start with the calorie deficit.

You have heard that old line, calories in, calories out. And I don't love that phrase, but there actually is a little bit of truth in there. If you want to lose weight, you do need to be in a slight calorie deficit, not huge. So here's where most women go sideways. A calorie deficit does not mean 1200 calories. 1200 calories is what is appropriate for a toddler. You are not a toddler. 1700 calories.

That's about right for a growing teenager. You're not a teenager either. Now, it is true that as we move into perimenopause and menopause, our metabolism, it just naturally slows down a bit. So you may need somewhat fewer calories than you used to, but that is a far cry from 1200 calories. You, my friend, need more food than a toddler.

What you actually need is a daily calorie goal that includes a reasonable mix of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. And yes, even in a deficit, you still need carbs. You absolutely need protein. That, of course, is your number one priority. And then carbs and then fats. So for most of the women that I work with, we're looking at somewhere between like 50 to 85 grams of fat for the day.

And then proteins and carbs get balanced out based on how active you are and how much weight you actually want to lose. now I really do hesitate to throw out exact numbers because every single woman is different. Inside of my program, the perimenopause weight loss method, I really help my students land on a calorie target that actually fits.

their body, their activity level, their goals, their lifestyle. But as a general rule, about 1600 calories is probably as low as I would ever want most women to go. Because any lower in your body, it is going to start to fight back. And then you'll hold on to weight. So the reason I bring up macros in all of this is that if the balance of your macros is off, or say you're eating most of your calories from fat.

You will not have enough protein to build muscle and you won't have enough carbs to hold your energy through the entire day. So you don't need to be perfect or obsessive about the macros, but you need a reasonable balance. And that usually means carbs are your highest number, then protein, and then fat.

Okay, so that is the tactic. Now, here's the thinking or the mindset that quietly wrecks all of it. The biggest thing that I see is that women go too low with their calories. In your head, the math feels simple, right? I'm just gonna eat a little bit less and I'm gonna try and move a little bit more. And I understand why, because somewhere in your brain, there's a memory of being in your 20s or your 30s when that kind of thinking actually worked.

So your brain says, ⁓ well, I'm just going to cut the food way back and add in a workout or two. It's all going to even out. But in midlife, that is absolutely not how it works anymore. So the other thought that I hear women having consistently is, I don't want to give anything up. You don't want to give up that nightly glass of wine that feels so relaxing after work. You don't want to give up cocktails on the weekend because that's how you and your partner and your friends really connect.

You don't want to give up happy hour or pickleball with your girlfriends on Thursday night. And because of that, you keep adding in the extra drinks and the extra desserts. And when that happens, your calorie deficit, it disappears. Not just for the day, but sometimes for the entire week. So if you're sitting here thinking, well, I'm in a deficit. I'm trying, but I don't want to let go of these things, then we have some thought work to do.

And these thoughts can be so sneaky. They hide. This is why I help my students to dig it out because you can't change a thought that is even hard for you to see. So pillar number two is strength training. And I'm gonna give you some tough love here. It's no longer enough for you to just get in 10,000 steps and call it your workout for the day. The steps are great. Keep doing those, but they are not strength training.

You need to be lifting weights, and they need to be heavy enough to actually matter. This one is a non-negotiable for women in midlife. And here's why: heavy lifting does so much for you biologically. As your estrogen drops, your risk for things like insulin resistance and osteoporosis goes up. And building muscle is one of the best things that you can do to protect your bones and your joints.

And here's a bonus. Muscle is what we call thermogenic, which is just a fancy way of saying that muscle burns fat even when you're doing absolutely nothing, just sitting at your desk or sleeping or hanging out on the couch with your family. So the more muscle you carry, the more your body burns all day long. This is what we call the basal metabolic rate. And you may have seen that number, the BMR.

if you've ever played around with a calorie or a macro calculator.

So here's the part that I love. When you raise that number, the BMR, you actually give yourself more freedom. More muscle means you have a higher metabolic rate, which means that there's more room for the little things that can often get in the way of weight loss, like dessert or a glass of wine. So muscle literally buys you eating flexibility. So that's the tactic, strength training. Now let's examine your thoughts.

About strength training. When I ask women about lifting weights, almost all of them say, Yeah, no, I I've I've got dumbbells, I'm lifting weights. And then we really dig in and I see that they're using five and eight pound dumbbells. My friend, I promise you, you are much stronger than you realize. And I know you can pick up more than that. So here's what's really going on. When you reach for, say, a 20 or 25 pound dumbbell.

It feels different. It uses your muscles in a different way. And your body, it gets nervous. my gosh, can I even lift this? Can I set it back down safely? Is it gonna crash down on my face if I press it up overhead? And because your brain loves predictability and it doesn't know what to expect now, it does this really clever thing. It convinces you that the five and the eight-pound dumbbells that you're already using, that that's plenty.

It tells you that you are lifting heavy when really you are just lifting in a comfortable and predictable range. So I want to ask you honestly when you say you are strength training, are you reaching for 15, 25, even 35 pound dumbbells? I get it. You need to learn to do this safely. And I want you to do that. I actually use programs from a fitness library every single day.

To make sure that I am lifting safely. And I'll drop a link for that in the show notes. But the goal is to gently talk your brain off the ledge. You know what? I can probably go up to 10 pounds today. And maybe I'll try 12 in a couple of days. And in a few weeks, I can be lifting 25. All right. So this brings us to pillar number three. And this is a big one consistency.

This is exactly where I see women struggle the most. And it's where I'm going to give you the most tough love for today. So when life feels like a lot and you're trying to take care of your health on top of everything else, it is so easy to look back and say, you know what? I have been really consistent. I've been eating better. I've been getting my steps in. But if you sit back and get really, really truly honest with yourself.

What you're gonna find is that you tried something for about a week, or maybe it was for an entire month, but in reality it was kind of off and on, a little bit here and there, not really every day.

So here's your hard truth. When you are starting out on a weight loss journey, you have to be consistent every single day. I know that is not the fun answer, and it's definitely not what you want to hear, but it is what works. Your brain needs enough repetition to settle into this new way of living before it stops feeling so hard. So the good news is that this doesn't have to be forever.

I would say that the first 90 days or so is when you need to be really, really dialed in. And after that, once you start losing the weight, once you start feeling better, once you see that number on the scale start to go down, it gets a lot easier. Your body, it'll adjust to that deficit, to the strength training, and it will stop feeling like such a battle. So

I want you to actually track this, not in a way that is going to make you feel guilty, but just being really honest with yourself. How many days did you hit your calorie goal? How many days did you actually lift heavy? Not just like walk, but lift heavy. When you write these things down, I think you're going to be surprised because your brain wants to tell you that you are doing it all the time. But the numbers, the data.

It usually tells a different story. Now, here is where the mindset piece gets really interesting because consistency is typically never about willpower. It's actually about belonging. We are wired to belong. As humans, we feel really safe when we know that we are part of a group, whether that's our family, our friends, our team at work. And the moment you start

pushing against that group, even in a small way, it actually pulls at your sense of safety. Your nervous system feels that's risky. So you do the easiest thing. You just go along with what everyone else is doing. Now, this one is harder to spot in yourself. So I want to give you an example. So picture this: it's Thursday night and you and your coworkers, you've just wrapped up this big

Project and everyone feels so excited and relieved and accomplished. And someone says, Hey, let's like head down to the bar down the street and we're gonna celebrate. You have been working really hard on your calorie deficit, but your brain pipes in right on cue and it says, you know what? We have worked really hard the last couple of weeks. I deserve this. I've earned it. I'm just gonna have a couple of drinks. I promise I'll eat better the rest of the week. So here's the problem.

Alcohol and desserts, but alcohol specifically is really sneaky in a way that food in general is not. So a couple of glasses of red wine can really add up like four to five hundred calories to your day. If you have a couple of margaritas, depending on how they're made, that can get you close to a thousand calories. So even if you have been eating beautifully all week long.

You just added a thousand calories on a Thursday night because you had three margaritas with your coworkers. And just like that, your deficit for the entire week is gone.

And why did it happen? Not because you don't know how to eat well or how to moderate your drinks, not because you aren't committed to your weight loss goal. It happened because you didn't want to be the one ordering a soda water with lime You didn't want to be the odd one out. You wanted to belong and to fit in. So your brain, it handed you a permission slip. I deserve this. I've been so good.

And unfortunately, it can cost you the whole week.

Okay, so let me pull all of this together. When my students are not hitting their goals, it always comes back to one of these three pillars. Something is off in the calorie deficit or strength training or consistency every single time without fail. But here's the part that you really need to understand. It is not because you don't know what to do. You know how you understand like the mechanics of eating in a deficit.

You know how to pick up a heavier dumbbell And you know what consistency looks like. What is actually getting in the way is the thinking underneath. It's the thought of, should I really stick to this deficit? Or it is too hard. Or I'm feeling deprived. Maybe it's that thought of, I am lifting heavy enough, right? I don't need to go heavier than this.

Or maybe it's this thought of, I'm so consistent. I'm so, I'm doing such a good job. Your brain is brilliant at convincing you that the strategy or the tactic is the problem when really it's just the way that you are thinking about that strategy. So if you take one thing away from this today, I want it to be this. The next time you catch yourself believing that nothing is working, I want you to pause.

And then get really curious about the thought that's right underneath that. Because that thought is usually the thing that is keeping you on the left side of the bridge and not moving forward to the right side of the bridge, which is where you want to be. This stuff right here is the work that I do with my students inside of the perimenopause weight loss method. Yes, strategy matters, of course it does, but the real work happens in.

The gap in learning to notice and shift the thoughts that have been quietly keeping you stuck on the left side of the bridge. And honestly, most of us can't see our own thoughts clearly enough on our own. It usually takes support from the outside in order to spot them.

If something in this episode made you feel like I was talking directly to you, that is worth paying attention to. So you can learn more about my program, the method, and book a quick call to see if it's the right fit for you. I will put a link in the show notes for you. So this week, my friend, I need you to get really honest about those three pillars.

calorie deficit, strength training, and consistency. And I want you to start listening to the thoughts that are underneath all of those. This is where everything will change for you. Thanks for joining me today, and I can't wait to see you back here next time on the Family Fork.