Alright, so, listen up.

You’re eating PHFF like a boss. You stopped snacking all the time and you’ve got your sugar craving monster under control. You REALLY don’t feel like you’re overeating and you’ve implemented a ton of healthy changes to your diet that you’ve read on this blog or seen me talk about on the ‘gram to help boost your metabolism…

But week after week, you step on that scale or put on that pair of jeans you’re dying to fit into again and N-O-T-H-I-N-G. WHY THO?

It’s probably just you, right? You’ve got bad genes. Your metabolism when downhill after 30. You should probably just accept it.

NAH.

That’s not the problem. You’re experiencing a resistance to weight-loss and there is a reason for it. A real, scientific problem that has a solution.

Before you read on, though, I want you to ask yourself two questions.

1. 
   

   Do you have a history of yo-yo dieting?

   
   
2. 
   

   Before switching to a more PHFF lifestyle, were you eating tons of processed, low-fat, low-calorie, chemical-filled foods?

   
   

If you said yes to either of these questions, you may have done some serious damage to your metabolism. And all this means is that it’s going to take more time than you’re probably used to in order to see results. That’s ok –  you are actively repairing your metabolism and you just have to give it some time to start revving up again!

But if you’ve been following PHFF for 6 weeks and you’re STILL not seeing any results, take a look at what else could be causing the resistance.

1. 
   

   Hypothyroidism. Yeah, we’re not f*cking around here. Starting with the HARD HITTERS. Your thyroid. I think most people now understand that an underactive thyroid is a problem for weight loss. I don’t care what you’re doing with your diet, you will not see fat loss if your thyroid isn’t within the optimal range.

   
   

So, ask your doctor to check your thyroid levels and make sure when you do that you are looking at OPTIMAL RANGE (most functional medicine practitioners agree this is around 1.8-3.0), not NORMAL RANGE (0.5-5.0). I see so many women with their thyroids in the normal range but they are still trending high, and this is going to affect your weight loss efforts.

I see Dr. Kristin Oja at Stat Wellness in Atlanta to keep tabs on my own thyroid health. You can find her here if you are in the area or if you’re interested in a virtual consult, shoot them an email here.

Another incredible practitioner who is equally equipped with healing thyroid issues is my friend Robyn who is a functional medicine dietitian. You can find her on the ‘gram @nutritionbyrobyn or check out her website here.

By the way, some common symptoms for hypothyroidism other than inability to lose weight are constipation, low sex drive, feeling cold all the time, fatigue, and dry skin.

2. Chronic Stress – When you experience a lot of stress, your adrenal glands constantly pump out cortisol. Cortisol makes you feel more hungry and causes your body to hang onto fat…especially in the midsection. So even if you don’t feel like you’re overeating, you may be hanging onto extra fat.

3. Less than 7 hours of sleep/night. Our bodies actually make and replenish leptin and ghrelin, our satiety and hunger hormones, while we sleep. So if you’re not getting enough sleep, you’re not producing enough of these hormones that tell you when to start and stop eating!

In addition to this, lack of sleep is extremely stressful on the body. And we just talked about stress does to our fat-loss efforts.

4. A leaky gut. When your gut health is compromised, you can actually “leak out” toxins into your bloodstream that cause an inflammatory response. And when your body is in a state of inflammation, it’s #1 goal is to put out that inflammation fire…not care about what you look like in a bikini!

Also! When you’ve got a lot of bad bacteria overtaking your gut, your gut can actually cause you to absorb more calories from your food and store them as fat. And overgrowth of certain bacterias can trigger carb and sugar cravings which of course can lead to weight gain.

5. Hormonal Imbalances. If your sex hormones are out of whack, it could MOST DEF be causing you to hold onto weight! So, how do you know if your hormones are off?

Well, I’d highly, highly recommend getting blood work to confirm. But here are some symptoms you may be experiencing:

• 
  

  You’re over 40 (ok not a symptom but you get it!!)

  
  
• 
  

  You eat a ton of soy – a hormone-disrupting food

  
  
• 
  

  You have a decreased sex drive

  
  
• 
  

  You’re depressed and can’t figure out why

  
  
• 
  

  Your PMS is out of control

  
  
• 
  

  If you’re female, you’re noticing hair growing in places it probably shouldn’t be growing

  
  

Again, I’d recommend working with a functional medicine practitioner (like Kristin or Robyn) in these cases to make sure you get your hormones back on track.

6. You work out too much. This one is my favorite and comes as a shock to most. But we’re going to refer back to our good friend #2 again – stress.

Exercise is AMAZING…but it’s still a physical stress on the body. If you’re hitting Orange Theory or you’re doing an hour of high-intensity training every day, you are likely putting a lot of stress on your body. Already stressed out? Not sleeping enough? You have *for sure* overflowed your stress bucket.

This can lead to an increase in cortisol release and it can also cause a lot of inflammation. And remember what we said about inflammation? Your body will focus on reducing that first because it wants you to be safe and doesn’t care about your beach vacation lewk. If you like these high-intensity workouts, just make sure you’re taking 2-3 rest days every week and that you’re eating enough. Being in an extreme calorie deficient due to a high-calorie burn is, you guessed it, stressful on your body.

There IS hope, guys. I hope you’ve realized this as you’ve read this post. And if you’re still not sure why you haven’t been able to drop the weight, it could just be that you need more structure and support.

And that’s exactly why I created myDietitian – because nutrition should feel second nature.

xxMegan