Could your morning coffee be the hidden culprit in your weight loss battle? Join me, today, as we uncover the subtle dietary traps that can sabotage your menopausal weight loss efforts.
We'll tackle calorie-laden 'health' foods and portion distortion, providing practical advice for food tracking and maintaining a healthy balance. With personal anecdotes and a focus on the importance of sleep, stress management, and hydration, this episode is packed with the insights you need to navigate the tricky terrain of menopausal weight management.
Prepare to have your eyes opened to the everyday choices that could be holding you back from your wellness goals.
As we bid farewell in this episode, remember that menopause is not just a series of hurdles to overcome—it's an opportunity for growth and self-care. Through shared experiences, tips, and ongoing support, we're here to ensure you don't just survive this life stage, but thrive.
Get ready to embrace menopause with a renewed sense of purpose and the tools to manage your weight effectively.
Stay engaged with our community by subscribing and sharing your journey, as we continue to provide content that empowers and uplifts you during this transformative time!
Could your morning coffee be the hidden culprit in your weight loss battle? Join me, today, as we uncover the subtle dietary traps that can sabotage your menopausal weight loss efforts.
We'll tackle calorie-laden 'health' foods and portion distortion, providing practical advice for food tracking and maintaining a healthy balance. With personal anecdotes and a focus on the importance of sleep, stress management, and hydration, this episode is packed with the insights you need to navigate the tricky terrain of menopausal weight management.
Prepare to have your eyes opened to the everyday choices that could be holding you back from your wellness goals.
As we bid farewell in this episode, remember that menopause is not just a series of hurdles to overcome—it's an opportunity for growth and self-care. Through shared experiences, tips, and ongoing support, we're here to ensure you don't just survive this life stage, but thrive.
Get ready to embrace menopause with a renewed sense of purpose and the tools to manage your weight effectively.
Stay engaged with our community by subscribing and sharing your journey, as we continue to provide content that empowers and uplifts you during this transformative time!
Good morning my friends, welcome, welcome, welcome to my channel. Today I'm going to talk to you about the reason why we are not seeing any results, the reasons why we're not losing any belly fat, even though we're doing everything correctly. Sometimes we're just not paying attention to these tips that I'm going to give you today, and I hope you can find one thing that resonates with you and take action, because only action changes things.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to the Thriving Through Menopause podcast. Dr Inaka Yembe, your host, is dedicated to helping you navigate the transformative journey of menopause and perimenopause, particularly focused on achieving menopausal weight loss and reducing belly fat. As a post-menopausal physician herself who has helped thousands of women experiencing the significant life stage, she understands the unique challenges you face. Listen in as we explore a wide range of topics aimed at supporting you in your health and wellness journey. Hopefully, the practical tips and strategies offered potentially help you adopt an empowering approach towards menopausal weight loss and belly fat reduction. And now here's your host, dr Inaka Yembe.
Speaker 1:
One of the biggest reasons why women tell me I'm doing everything possible, I don't even eat and I'm not losing weight is just because we are not paying attention. Lack of awareness we may be doing things automatically.
Speaker 1:
Some of us consume more calories than we truly realize. So, for example, if you wake up in the morning and skip breakfast and just go by the coffee shop and get coffee, most of us feel like we're not eating. However, you just got a cup of coffee. That's about 300 calories, for example, and you did not even take that into consideration. Some of us go for lunch and we just want a salad because we want to be healthy.
Speaker 1:
However, you can load your salad with enough toppings that it can bring you even close to 800, 900, or a thousand calories. You have croutons on there, bacon, ham, some nuts, cheese, meats and even your salad dressing. Some of these salads are just super loaded. So, for example, you had that high calorie coffee. You didn't count that. You had a super, super loaded lunch salad for lunch. You didn't consider that and here you are at supper and you're thinking, wow, I did not even eat all day, not even taking into account the small snacks that we can have.
Speaker 1:
So not bringing things into your awareness of what you're actually and how much you're consuming is one of the biggest reasons why we feel we're not eating but our weight is not shifting. One of the biggest ways to fix it is to track your calories, track everything that you're eating and everything that you're drinking, track everything that you're eating and everything that you're drinking. And when I say tracking, I mean pick up a piece of paper and write it down, or use an app like MyFitnessPal. Get the free one. There's so many apps out there that would help you track. When you're tracking, it brings your awareness to things. It tells you I'm on a journey now.
Speaker 1:
And the second thing. It can actually make you realize how much you're consuming, when you really did not take those things into consideration. The second thing, and again, yes, hello, hello. Tell me where you're watching from and if you're listening to this video when it's uploaded on YouTube or on my podcast, type in the chat where you're watching from and ask me questions. Okay, the second reason is portion control. I had this problem myself. I was eating healthy things, I was eating chicken, I was eating chicken breast, quite a bit of it when I say quite a bit of it.
Speaker 1:
It was as in two, three chicken breasts. Some of us are eating a half a chicken. Don't laugh, I've seen it happen. These are healthy things, but the portion is just too large. There are some things, even though they are healthy, that will really pack on your calories quick. The biggest one is nuts. Sometimes we have a bag of nuts, almonds, peanuts You're just eating from the bag. Again, nuts are healthy, they give you healthy fats, but the calories add up so quickly.
Speaker 1:
Nut butters there's another one. You like peanut butter. It's healthy, yes, peanut butter and an apple. But if you didn't measure it and if you didn't weigh it. So the serving says maybe one tablespoon or two tablespoons. If you're like me, my tablespoon is really like two tablespoons. You know what I mean. It is heaped. The calories will pack on quickly.
Speaker 1:
So lack of adequate portion control is another reason why we feel we're doing everything, eating all the right things and we're not losing the weight. Again, one of the biggest things to do is to measure. I had a huge wake-up call one time when I took that tablespoon of peanut butter and actually measured it, because if you look at the nutrition facts, it will give you a tablespoon. Yes, it also gives you the grams. Listen, because if you look at the nutrition facts, it will give you a tablespoon. Yes, it also gives you the grams. Listen, if you want to change things, we need to go a little extra step. Now, if you can Purchase a kitchen scale, that's going to be a game changer for you. If you're not weighing or not measuring your food. Get a kitchen scale and weigh your food. It's going to be a big revelation. You'll be surprised how big your portions truly are, because when we just eyeball it and we estimate the portions with our eyes, studies have shown that most of the time, we are overestimating, and that's going to add up to too many calories. All right.
Speaker 1:
Another reason this is on the opposite spectrum why we may not be seeing any changes is that we're eating too little. You're over-restricting your calories. For too too long I've seen people talking about when I put my recommended meal plans on my Instagram page and I say, hey, this is what I recommend you to eat in a day if you want to lose belly fat. I have so many women come back and tell me that seems like too much food. It's too much food. No, it is not your ideal amount of calories that you should consume if you want to lose weight slowly.
Speaker 1:
Which is the best way is take your ideal weight in pounds on a BMI chart. That's going to be a range. Pick one. Take that ideal body weight, multiply by 12. You're going to get a number and that's how many calories you need to consume per day. There's no reason for you to consume 750 calories in a whole day. There's no reason for you to consume a thousand calories in a whole day. It's just not enough food and it's not sustainable. And if you do that for too, too long, you're going to damage your metabolism. Your body is going to adapt to a lower metabolism and then you're just not going to lose the weight period. You need to eat enough not too much, but enough calories. So you're losing about a half a pound a week. That's sustainable because the changes that we make right now, we want to continue to maintain those changes for a lifetime and that's how the weight stays off, all right.
Speaker 1:
Another reason why we may not be losing the weight is, yes, yes, I say this all the time it is lack of sleep, because when you sleep enough, those satiety and hunger hormones, those are balanced when you're sleeping. All right, I did see the quote. Sleep to lose weight, yes, yes, why? Because not only are those hormones balanced while you are sleeping. Listen to this. This is a fact, common knowledge. If I'm staying awake too too long, chances are I even have more time to go find more food. Okay, so you recommend an amount of hours. The recommended hours that we should sleep daily is seven to nine hours. Is it a perfect situation all the time? No, I don't shoot to be a hundred percent accurate. You should not shoot for perfection. Whatever you do, if you're 80% accurate, you're in good shape, right? We cannot be always a hundred percent perfect. Try today, try tomorrow. I do have a video here on my Instagram page that gives you lots of tips and ideas on how to improve your sleep. Very important, all right.
Speaker 1:
Another reason why we may not be seeing any shifting in our weight is stress. Stress is a big problem. Why? Because it throws off that hormone called cortisol. It makes your cortisol level high. If you have chronic, long-term low-level or high-level stress, that cortisol is a belly fat storage hormone. Okay, I cannot just wake up one day and say, okay, I'm not going to be stressed. No, it doesn't work like that. Stress is one thing that we need to work on. We need to recognize it. We need to look at the things that we can work on, the things that we can change, and actually work on them. Sometimes we need to seek help. I have said this on my Instagram page and in my bootcamp. I say this all the time. When I was in a situation back then I was over 300 pounds, I was stress, eating all kinds of things. I did go on and get counseling. I did not have to take any medicines. Some people do, some people don't. Bottom line if you're too stressed and it's affecting your health seek help.
Speaker 1:
There's nothing wrong with getting help. Some of you can just speak to an elderly person in your family or an elder in church, but sometimes we do need a professional to help us with stress. Stress will affect your weight. Why, it will make you to stress eat. I'm an emotional eater myself. Sometimes we just eat certain things. Most of the time, it's not going to be healthy if you're eating something out of emotions. So now you may not see this on my podcast, but I have this water container here. It goes with me everywhere. Why? Because I have to remember to drink water, because if I just have it with me, then sip, sip, sip all day long. Dehydration even the smallest amount of dehydration can slow down your weight loss. All right. The very next thing that we want to think about is and again, this is another thing that slows down our weight loss because food is the most important thing that will keep you sustainable long-term. Make your food interesting, use seasonings, use spices. Be careful about not using the ones that have added sugars.
Speaker 1:
I mean, I bought meat tenderizer the other day and without looking, so, when I came home I looked at the nutrition facts of meat tenderizer and it had sugar. Table salt has sugar. Look at all these things so that you're not inadvertently adding sugar to your food. But, that said, anytime you're trying to lose weight, don't eat bland food. Don't eat food that's not tasty. Why? Because you can't continue doing that for too long. Keep it simple. Get the one ingredient things single macronutrient meals. They'll help you.
Speaker 1:
If my meals are simple and tasty, that means it is easy for me to meal prep. It's easy for me to store them, so I have them on hand. It makes my journey easier. So when I go to meal prep, there's a few things that I do not do. I don't try to look for big old, complicated recipes. Why I have to meal prep twice a week, and that's just me. And so if I'm looking for meal prep ideas and the meals are too complicated with 10, 15, 20 different things, I'm not going to be able to do that for too too long. I get single ingredient macros beef, fish, chicken, turkey. I pick two of them for the next three days. This way I can have a slight variety. I marinate, so season them and prepare them, so we have them.
Speaker 1:
So I don't have to look up a recipe to marinate. Come on, you need a little bit of garlic, pepper, ginger, whatever floats your boat, use it, make it tasty, but make it awfully simple. The same with the vegetables. The same with the carbohydrates, simple carbohydrates. You can even take one pan, one single pan. Lay your chicken and your vegetables, season everything, let it marinate, stick it all in the oven. It's that simple.
Speaker 1:
Get used to making your daily meals very simple. That's going to be so sustainable for you long-term. And yes, once in a while, maybe once a month or twice a month you go out of your way to make something more interesting, but the last thing you want to do is make complicated meals for you to eat Every single day. You're trying to prep something that's too hard. You can't sustain that for too long, so make it really really simple. All right, this is going to be the last one. All right, this is going to be the last one. The very last one Hidden calories.
Speaker 1:
Sometimes the calories are there but we're not realizing it, and there's a list on my Instagram page. Go look for it. There's a list of foods that we think are healthy, but they're really truly not. The biggest ones is yogurt with fruit on the bottom. So once they have fruit and that yogurt is flavored, you can look at the amount of carbohydrates that they have on the bottom. So once they have fruit and that yogurt is flavored, you can look at the amount of carbohydrates that they have on the container. If it's more than six grams of carbohydrate in yogurt, then you know it's just added sugars.
Speaker 1:
The next one is cereal Cereal. I don't care if they call it special K or if they call it all brand or if they call it brand flakes or if they call it Kashi or whatever. All these cereals are ultra, ultra processed. All they do is give you just extra sugar. You won't be careful. Next one is juice. I have a whole post on juice, whether you make it at home, and I'm talking about fruit juice. It's a concentrated amount of just sugar, natural sugar, but still it is sugar. It's too much. These are hidden calories. Again, fruit juice is not that hidden, but it's too much.
Speaker 1:
Some of us don't realize we're juicing and, in addition to that, eating all these things, a belly fat is not going anywhere because we're consuming just too much sugar. The list goes on and on and on your salad dressings, your barbecue sauces, barbecue sauce and tomato ketchup. That's the worst. All of these are just sugars with flavorings. There's a huge list on my Instagram and you can even just Google it. So be careful about inadvertently consuming added sugars, because that's one of the reasons why it gives you just belly fat. That's not shifting. All right, I have one last tip for you, and this is going to be the last one Bonus tip.
Speaker 1:
Some of us just have this idea of losing belly fat or losing weight quickly, quickly. We want to do it so fast that we are doing things too drastically. We're exercising too much. By the way, exercise alone is not going to help you lose weight without adding the correct nutrition to the exercise. But if you go and exercise too much, you're exercising every day for two hours, walking, jogging, trying to get rid of belly fat. It's not sustainable, so don't try to lose weight too fast. Think about incorporating. Your mind does better when you think about adding compared to eliminating. So if you think about adding healthy foods, adding water, adding more sleep, adding stress management, adding self-care, think about adding and not subtracting. All the time it brings a mindset to a point of more relaxation and it's more accepting because where your mind goes, your actions will follow your thoughts and your bodies will fall in place based on the correct actions. All right, my friends, that's it, thank you, thank you and have a fantastic day ahead. Thank you, thank you and have a fantastic day ahead. Thank you, bye.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Thriving Through Menopause. We hope you found valuable insights and practical advice to support your journey. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast, share it and review. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Remember, menopause doesn't have to be a challenge. It can be an opportunity for growth, renewal and self-care. Connect with us on social media, where we share additional resources, tips and advice to help you along your path. Once again, thanks for listening in and we hope you'll join us again on the next episode of Thriving Through Menopause. Until then,
