Have you ever felt like you're doing everything right for weight loss, but your body just won't cooperate?
Do you ever look at someone else who can seemingly eat whatever they want and not gain weight while you're eating next to nothing and still struggling with managing your weight?
You're not alone.
Most of us have been told the same vague "medical advice": just eat less and move more.
Or, "you need more will power and self-discipline."
Weight management is more complex than that.
Weight is often also stigmatized ... by pretty much everyone, including medical professionals.
As I discuss with physician and metabolic strategist, Dr. Ashley White, on an episode of my new podcast, Phase to Phase: The Hormone Health Show, this kind of advice is not only oversimplified but can even be harmful.
Your weight is a complex interplay of biology, genetics, hormones, access to resources, your previous attempts to lose weight, your appetite, metabolism, and the environment (current and past!).
Dr. White says that when people try to lose weight, they're often trying to eat the least amount possible. Trying to "hack" your body with a large caloric deficit will cause it to backfire, particularly right before your period. Not only that, if you restrict yourself to eating super small amounts only, then your body down-regulates its burn rate, which is not sustainable and will make it harder to lose weight and easier to gain it back--as fat!
Your body is a dynamic system of systems, and the work is about figuring out how to work with it.
So, what's a better way to approach weight and health? Dr. Ashley White provides a framework that she calls the M.A.P:
Weight loss can have immense benefits on health, especially if there's significant fat around our abdominal organs, but this doesn't mean you need to be whatever version of "thin" is being sold to us in celebrity culture and media.
We see clinical benefits in osteoarthritis of the knee, pregnancy rates, liver disease, blood pressure, and cholesterol with 5-15% of weight loss. This is from wherever you're starting. This means that if you're 200lb, then 10-20lb improves your health!
You've been gaslit by diet culture for too long. We constantly get messages to shrink everything about ourselves. In our conversation, Dr. White and I provide you with practical tools to become your own expert, including how to actually advocate for yourself, what kind of things you need to work on, and how to shift the needle on your weight loss journey.
This conversation is a must-listen for anyone ready to find a more compassionate and sustainable path to health.
Listen or watch the full episode of Phase to Phase wherever you get your podcasts.
More about Dr. Ashley White: Dr. Ashley White is a metabolic strategist and physician innovator who's reimagining women's health care. Through her practice at Clarity Health Burlington and her online platform The Shift System™, she helps patients design sophisticated strategies for metabolic resilience that evolve with their lives.
Drawing on her background in emergency medicine, obesity medicine, and public health, Dr. White brings a unique systems-thinking approach to complex health challenges. She works particularly with accomplished women navigating the intersection of professional success and personal health challenges, helping them see the connections between seemingly unrelated health issues.
As Director of Women's Health for https://www.doou.ca/, she's also at the forefront of creating innovative healthcare delivery models. Dr. White holds a Doctor of Medicine from McMaster University, a Master's in Public Health, and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine.
