Weight Loss Isn’t Linear—And That’s Okay

When it comes to weight loss and health journeys, one thing is clear: the path is rarely a straight line. If you ask anyone who has tried to lose weight or manage their health, they’ll tell you that the body’s responses can be unpredictable. So when a patient recently shared their frustration at feeling hungrier after increasing their anti-obesity medication, it highlighted a common concern many people face.

In this episode, we’ll explore the realities of non-linear weight loss journeys and the importance of patience with medication adjustments. We'll discuss how factors like stress and sleep can impact hunger levels, and why emotional regulation is key to navigating these challenges. Join me as I share practical tips and personal strategies to help you stay grounded, and discover how regulating your nervous system can lead to long-term success on your health journey.


References

Join my email list here (see right-hand side) so you’re the first to find out about the next round of my 30/30 program, starting January 2025! (Spots are limited to just 20 people!)


Audio Stamps

00:43 - Discussing a patient's concern about increased hunger after a medication adjustment, Dr. Rentea highlights that health journeys are not linear and the body’s responses can be unpredictable.

01:53 - Dr. Rentea stresses patience with medication adjustments, as hunger can result from factors like stress or poor sleep.

04:39 - Understanding the non-linear nature of weight loss is ineffective without emotional regulation.

07:42 - Dr. Rentea highlights the need for personal strategies, like journaling or physical activity, to achieve emotional regulation.

10:40 - Weight loss is not a linear process. It requires patience and nervous system regulation to navigate the ups and downs effectively.


Quotes

“Our body is not a robot.” - Dr. Rentea

“We can think certain things rationally should happen, but that doesn't mean it's going to play out in that way.” - Dr. Rentea

“This path is not linear, and we can't be so quick to think things won't work out, because it increases our stress to think in that way.” - Dr. Rentea

“If you want to be successful on this journey, the thing you're going to have to get behind is how am I going to stay regulated?” - Dr. Rentea

“No one wants to embrace the journey, but everyone wants the result. And unfortunately, if you're not going to embrace the journey, that resistance makes it a lot harder.” - Dr. Rentea


“For you to continue to stay on your journey, to stay true to seeing if these things work or not, to really being creative and energetic in solving these problems, you have to regulate your nervous system.” - Dr. Rentea

“If people can wrap their mind around, this is not going to be a linear journey, they are a lot more calm. They stick with it. These are the patients that stick with me long term.” - Dr. Rentea

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

Transcript

0:28

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today, I know I always say this is going to be a quick one, but it really is because I want to make some of these episodes where we focus on one specific little message and we don't convolute it with many other things. So I recently got a message from a patient here that said to me, look, I don't think that they're in the, And they, they, there's a phase of, you know, sort of monthly titrating or let's just say they're sort of in the first few months of being on a medicine, right? It doesn't mean necessarily every month we're going up but we had recently gone up and what they messaged me is, you know, I don't think it's working, I'm more hungry this week despite them having gone up on the dose. and I'm going to call this a freak out moment, okay? When someone's thinking, you know, they had thought maybe there was some hope in this medication and now they're thinking, again, I'm hungry, you know, this and that. I get messages like this quite often and here's a thing I want to highlight here that I don't think we talk enough about on these anti obesity medications or just in general if you're on a fat loss journey. Or you're working on your health, you're working on, this applies to blood sugar management, this applies to weight, set point, all of it. This journey is not linear. So I often say our body's not a robot. And what I mean by this is it's not, easily predictable what's going to happen. We can take steps in a certain direction. We can go a certain way. We can think certain things rationally should happen, but that doesn't mean it's going to play out in that way. And part of what needs to happen is that you need to have faith long enough to know if this trajectory or that step was the right step. So it's really hard to go up on a dose of a medication. Let's say that you're three months in and you're at a next dose up and you're four days into a one week. medication. Okay. So three, four days ago, you took the next dose up and here you are and you're thinking, and I'm, I'm more hungry and this isn't going to work for me. It's too soon to go down that path. You don't know yet if that dose has not fully kicked in. Remember we talk about, again, just to reiterate, it can take a few weeks for that medication to finally get to that level for you. And the reason being, for example, um, Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC. A week later when you take your next shot, you still have half the medication from the previous week. So there's no way that first week when you take it that you're really going to know how you're going to feel in a few weeks. It's too soon to know. The things, so the main thing that needs to be remembered here is that this path is not linear. Sometimes you're going to be more hungry because you got bad sleep for a few days. So, Sometimes you're going to be more hungry because there's more emotional things happening and it's just activating you in different ways and your stress hormones are up. That's a reality by the way. There is really a reality if you are stressed out all day long it is harder for you to go down this road. And I always say, it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean we're all quitting our jobs, but it does mean emotional regulation, grounding, I use many different terms, but you figuring out daily how to bring that stress scale down, you figuring out, is it me doing a walk? Is it me meditating? Is it me spending a few minutes in silence? Is it me having control over what my day looks like? For some people, they have less stress if they can just plan when the meetings are, or they can decide when I'm in the meeting, if you're in a traditional setting where you're sitting around, that's fine. Like if you're sitting in a boardroom, things like that. But let's say that maybe it's a virtual meeting. Maybe you have video off and you're going to walk on a walking pad. I don't know. The scenarios are different for everyone. I have a lot of people that are super, super, super, super, super, super busy. And they will do what we call micro breaks, like they for one to two minutes will do a few squats, or if they have a five minute break, they'll do a quick walk. These things sound small, they massively add up, they are regulated, their journey is easier. But this path is not linear, and we can't be so quick to, so quick to sort of think things won't work out, because it literally increases our stress to think in that way. So what, what is it that you need to flip into in these moments? It's because. Trust me, I get that the first instinct is to freak out. And I want to bring up a different analogy that's not related to anything to do with health and weight, things like that, because we're going to all see this very objectively. All right, so my husband's out of town. He, yesterday, today, yesterday, I need to go pick up my stepdaughter. After school her theater what she's doing. Okay, so I'm like great my day 430. I end my patient I think I'm just gonna go down grab my keys. I can't find my keys Context I've been on a I've been on a trip the days before that I wasn't like I don't know where these keys are I have no idea and of course Can we just side note, we have the little thing on it where you can ding it, the battery's out. Isn't that always the truth? So anyway, I was just laughing. I mean, not at the moment, but later. So I can't find these keys. I'm freaking out in my mind. Oh my gosh, I'm not gonna be able to get my stepdaughter, then my son at school. I'm not gonna be able to get him from aftercare. I'm just thinking, I don't have a friend close by. You know when you go down the spiral? And then I said, calm down, right? Had a moment. I was like, we have a backup set. Let me see if it's still there. Haven't used it in years. Thank the Lord. I've thought ahead and have a backup set. So it all worked out. But the point is, when you're in that moment of panic, you need to breathe, you need to center yourself. You do not have access to logical reasoning and thinking. She literally, we literally have a friend, you know, literally next door, I could knock on their door, say, Hey, can you help me go pick up the kids? Like, there are a million things I could do. There is Uberteen now, there are so many things, but I don't have access to that, to thinking where the key is, to thinking this, to thinking that. I cannot reason. I cannot have curiosity, compassion, I cannot lock into anything that is helpful when I'm in that state. So when we intellectually can know that the path is not linear, I'm telling you that as an obesity medicine physician, majority of my patients, they will lose weight in bursts. So they will lose two, three, four pounds. And then there might be a week or two or maybe a month, there's a period where things aren't moving as much. And then again, whoosh. Some people really lose, I wish there was like a medical term for this, but they're losing more in a period and then there's periods where it's not. Now on average, it might look like a pound a week or if people have more to lose more, but this fallacy of like every week my body is just like systematically going to lose the same amount and every single time it's going to be interested, uh, you know, the same and everything's equal. No. I, that's just not how I see it going down. That's a very rare person I would say. I don't know if I lined up a hundred patients and compared them, maybe 10 are following that pattern, maybe 10%. The rest, it's all over the place. They're, they're all still getting to the same place, but it just looks different. Okay. So it is not linear, but knowing that intellectually is not helpful if you're not regulated. So, the thing I really want to stress is if you want to be successful on this journey, the thing you're going to have to get behind is how am I going to stay regulated. That can look different to you. That can be physically you need alone time per day, you're an introvert. That could be that you journal because you need to figure out your thoughts and we've got 40 to 60, 000 thoughts a day ripping around in our mind. Our brain is not a good container of things, it can't hold on to things, it can't reason great sometimes, it's just all over the place. So sometimes journaling, you see what comes out, you get to underline, you could underline what the true facts are, you could see the other stuff, is this true, do I want to believe this, is it loving, true, kind, there's so many ways you can go about that. In a lot of my programs I have a lot of journaling prompts, because it's like, there's just something, there's a power, there's literally a book called The Power of Writing It Down. When you write things down, it changes. It changes. And if you feel that way when you're, when you're typing in a note or things like that, if that works for you, fine. Oftentimes I find it's very different when it's physically coming through writing. One of the main things that happens with writing is that you're massively slowed down. You can't write as fast as you think. You have to a little bit get organized. And so writing things down. So is it journaling? Is it, by the way, journaling does not need to be these beautiful paragraphs. It can be bullet journaling, which is you just write stream of consciousness, anything that's popping out. Then you kind of figure out you, you can organize yourself more later if you so choose. Anything counts, but is it journaling? Is it, is it walking? Is it swimming? Is it a dance class? It is a Pilates recently. I feel like, listen, are Pilates studios on the rise? Every friend I know and every patient is doing Pilates. I know it's Pilates has been around a million years, but I was just like, there have to be more studios because I'm just, everyone's doing Pilates. So anyway, the point is, what is it for you? Is it talking to a friend? I need you to think about what is going to regulate me because when you're regulated, these changes on the scale, these things that are happening, you experiencing some hunger, you literally troubleshooting constipation, whatever it is that's happening, you will be able to calmly with curiosity navigate that situation. I, I'm, I'm gonna say, so for example, let's say you have constipation, so I think, oh gosh, I'm gonna have to stop this med and this is horrible. You're gonna think, you know, what have I done differently? Have I, have I been doing all the things Dr. Antia says? Have I been getting my water? Have I been getting my fiber optimally? Have I been moving? Okay, what about, have I been adding in some magnesium, do I need Miralax, do I need to ask her, right? Like, you're, you're just gonna start to think through the things, stuff's gonna come to you more. You're gonna want to stay more on, on top of things, cause you're like, you know, probably if I'm really being loving to myself, this is not about weight loss anymore, this is just, I wanna feel good, so I'm gonna make sure I get that fiber in. I know it helps me to, You know, if I'm getting it consistently, I'm not going to feel as bloated, I'm going to this, I'm going to that. You start to be kind, you start to have reason, you start to have logic, you have insight, you're curious, you listen. Part of self compassion is that you listen to yourself, right? I feel like we've been, we've been talking a lot about self compassion recently, right? If you listen to the last episode in this one. So, coming back to this weight loss is not linear. This is going to happen in fits and spurts. If I was drawing a little graph for you, it would not be a straight line down. There's going to be little squiggles up and down and all around. And if you can embrace that, if you can embrace that journey, no one wants to, okay? No one wants to embrace the journey, but everyone wants the result. And unfortunately, if you're not going to embrace the journey, that resistance makes it a lot harder. So that pain and suffering, it's coming from a lot of that resistance. And so if we can drop the resistance of it has to look a certain way. And know that not everybody's following what you have magically thought in your mind and what you've been kind of fed on social media. Remember things need to be grossly, grossly, grossly generalized when people make videos and when, even when I'm on the podcast, I'm greatly simplifying things down. I'm not telling you all the little nuances I'm seeing all day long. It's not helpful to you. It's not helpful if I would tell you all the little things. No, you'd, that would be a masterclass by the way. When I tell you, look in this scenario, I see this. And in that scenario I see that, but most of the time, this is why you're actually working with a physician or whatever qualified healthcare professional you're working with because they've seen different things over time. It's called, I come back to, it's called the art of medicine. And one of the arts that I see is if people can wrap their mind around, this is not going to be a linear journey. Yeah. They're a lot more calm. They stick with it. These are the patients that stick with me long term and they're always shocked a year or two in. They think I would have never even thought that this was possible a year or two ago, but here they are. And so for the 900th time, this journey is not linear. But the only way that you can navigate that, given all the diet culture that we live in, given all the messaging that we're receiving daily, there's a lot to overcome. For you to continue to stay on your journey, to stay true to seeing if these things work or not, to really being creative and energetic in solving these problems, you have to regulate your nervous system. And that can be a million different things. If you look up nervous system regulation, you're going to find a million different things. There's deep breathing, there's body work, there's meditation, there's exercise, strength training, walking, journaling, talking to friends. There's a million ways to regulate your nervous system. There's no way possible that I could get into all of it with you, but that is actually one of the keys for you to embrace this nonlinear journey. All right. I hope you all have a great rest of the day. I do want to remind you, we are getting a lot of people on that wait list for the January 30, 30 program. I don't know. I'm going to mention it so much coming up for that reason. So if that's something that you're interested in, we'll make sure in the show notes to have a link to that. Again, we do hope in October to actually register. For January. Why do we do it that early? I know it seems crazy. We do it because we actually weeks ahead of time order the workbook that you get. It potentially can take up to two weeks to come to you. I just had someone that this September round, they had joined. I had told them, and if you're listening, you know who you are. I had told them weeks and weeks and weeks ahead of time. I kept reminding them because they told me that they wanted to do it and they signed up, I don't know, a few days before it started. Unfortunately, they got the workbook two weeks in and you know, that's just because even when we do rush shipping, we do a version where they literally print it when we're asking and ship it to you. I used to actually, we're going to do it. This is for the OGs in the crowd, okay? I, years ago, like five, six, I've had programs for five to six years now, and I used to locally get the books printed out of staples, and I would literally go and ship these books. And so you never really knew how many people were going to register, things used to be slower in the sense that you would need to, ahead of time, print the things, and then, then you need to go ship it. So all this stuff, I didn't like managing the inventory was the point, but And then also with the pandemic, this was interesting, Staples just overnight doubled their prices on printing. And I was like, you know, these things are amazing, but I don't know that they're 60 worth of amazing plus shipping. It was like a hundred dollars just, just to, just to print these things and ship them to people. And I was like, yeah, no. So nowadays we have a much nicer quality, higher quality, colors and, binding to the book and everything like that. So that is why we do things so far ahead of time because we've just started to learn how long it takes to print. Also, we really like to go into programs being calm. We're not kind of sitting there scrambling, things like that. All right, so anyway, we will make sure to have that in the show notes if you're interested in that. I hope you have a great, great, great rest of the day and a great rest of the week. We'll talk soon.