The #1 Weight Loss Myth We Need to UNALIVE
We’ve been conditioned to think that weight loss is the goal. That if we just see the number on the scale go down, we’ll magically get the lean, toned body we want. But that’s not how it works.
Weight loss and body composition are not the same thing. Losing weight just means losing weight. It doesn’t tell you if that weight is coming from fat or muscle, and it definitely doesn’t guarantee you’ll look or feel the way you want.
So today, I’m breaking down one of the biggest weight loss myths that we need to UNALIVE. Yes, we need this myth to disappear because it is holding you back! So let’s bust these once and for all so you can focus on what actually works and finally build the body you want.
What I discuss:
Fat loss is NOT about eating as little as possible and working out more.
A small, sustainable calorie deficit works better than an extreme cut.
our workouts stay the same—3-5 strength training sessions per week is all you need.
You should NEVER live in fat loss mode. Cycle in and out for long-term results.
Reverse dieting is essential to keep your metabolism strong.
If you loved this episode, you’ll also love: Episode 46: Why You Should Consider a Reverse Diet
If you want more from me, be sure to check out...
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Transcript:
Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something (0:04) super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. (0:08) You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Labrador.(0:12) I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and (0:17) unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. (0:22) Let's get in.Let's go. Hello, and welcome back to another bonus episode on the Embrace (0:35) Your Real podcast. Today, I want to have a real honest conversation about weight loss.(0:39) Why? Because I literally feel like my entire Explore feed on Instagram and my For You page (0:46) on TikTok is filled with women who are just talking about weight loss. They are chasing (0:53) weight loss, and there are so many myths out there that need to be debunked. One of them, (0:59) we have been conditioned to think that weight loss is the goal, that if we just see the number (1:04) on the scale go down, we'll magically get leaned, we'll have this toned body that we want, (1:08) but that is not how it works.Weight loss and body composition, those are not the same thing. (1:13) Losing weight just means losing weight. It doesn't tell you if that weight's coming from fat (1:18) or muscle, and it definitely does not guarantee that you will look or feel a certain way.(1:23) So today, I kind of just want to break down one of the biggest weight loss myths that I (1:28) truly will be so happy if I never see it again. It needs to be ditched immediately, (1:35) and that is that you need to eat less and move more to lose weight. I think there are so many (1:41) different ways people have said this, but that is such a myth.It is such a lie. How many times (1:48) have you heard of this? Just eat less and move more, and the weight will fall off. This advice (1:53) is way, way too simplified, and honestly, it can be so harmful.Yes, eating in a caloric deficit (2:00) is necessary for fat loss, but if you cut your calories too much or if you overexercise too much, (2:06) your body will fight back. I know that the math in your head makes sense. You're thinking, (2:11) okay, if I just eat 1,000 calories less and burn 1,000 extra calories, surely I will lose weight (2:17) faster.But unfortunately, your body does not work like a calculator. It's not a simple equation (2:23) of just eat less and move more to equal fat loss. So why does cutting calories too much backfire? (2:30) Let me kind of discuss this in particular because I think this is one of the biggest (2:34) misconceptions when it comes to weight loss is, oh, I just need to cut calories, and they think (2:41) that the more they cut calories, the better off they'll be, and that just could not be further (2:46) from the truth.Like when you drastically reduce your calories, your metabolism actually slows down (2:51) to match the input of your body. Like your body, our bodies are incredibly smart. If it's not (2:58) getting enough food, it's going to conserve energy to make sure that it has enough to survive, which (3:03) means three things.Number one, your metabolism slows down, so you're actually burning fewer (3:09) calories throughout the day. Number two, your body actually holds on to fat because it thinks that (3:14) food is a scarcity, and so it needs to store energy because it doesn't know when it's going (3:20) to get food or fuel again. And last but not least, number three, you start breaking down muscle.So (3:25) instead of burning fat because your body needs protein to function, it will start to break down (3:31) muscle. And this is why crash diets fail. At first, you might lose weight, but a lot of that weight (3:37) that you're losing, that's muscle, that's water, that's glycogen, that's not fat.And once your (3:43) metabolism starts to slow down, you'll have to eat even less to keep seeing results, which is not (3:49) sustainable. So how do you actually get into fat loss mode without wrecking your metabolism? Do you (3:55) need to work out more? No. Here is the biggest mistake that I see women make when they start a (4:01) fat loss phase.They think that they need to train more to do extra cardio these two days and to (4:06) push themselves even harder. You do not need to work out more to lose fat. In fact, working out (4:12) more, and when I say more, I mean like over-exercising.I mean like doing two a days, (4:18) doing excessive amounts of cardio. You do not need to do that because over-exercising is actually a (4:24) stressor on the body. And when your body is too stressed, it releases cortisol, which is a hormone (4:30) that can lead to three things.Number one, increased water retention, which makes it look (4:34) like you're not losing fat. Number two, increased cravings, making it harder to stick to your macros. (4:39) And number three, slower recovery, meaning that you burn less fat and lose more muscle.So here's (4:44) the deal. Your workouts should not change when you enter a fat loss phase. And that's if you (4:52) are already sticking to this three or five day a week.If you're going from zero workouts, (4:58) absolutely you should do at least three workouts a week. That's what I recommend. That's what I (5:02) find is most sustainable.But sticking to three to five strength training sessions per week, (5:08) there is no need to increase your workouts just because you're in a deficit, right? Your workouts, (5:13) if your workouts are 30 minutes or they're 40 minutes or they're 60 minutes long, you don't (5:19) need to change anything. More is not better. Better is better, right? And you do not need to do extra (5:24) cardio if that's not something that you want to do.Like if you enjoy it, absolutely fine. If you want (5:30) to add one or two cycling sessions in or one or two runs in, you don't have like a strict goal (5:36) or marathon that you're chasing marathon or half marathon or 5k run that you're chasing, (5:41) but you just love to do some cardio, you can absolutely do it. I'm not ever saying to not do (5:46) cardio.I'm just saying that I feel like people go to these extremes. They feel like they are on, (5:51) like they have this weight loss goal and they're like, okay, I need to start doing all these things. (5:55) And they start to try to fix everything all at once.And that is just so not sustainable. And (6:01) it's not the best way to change your body composition, which is what most of us are (6:06) after when we say that we have body goals, right? Just remember that your nutrition is what drives (6:12) fat loss, not the excessive workout. So with all that being said, like, how do you adjust your (6:17) macros for fat loss? So instead of cutting calories randomly, and this is something that I just feel (6:22) needs more education because so many people, they immediately just think, oh, well, I'm going to cut (6:27) out all carbs and cut out all fats.And I'm just going to try to eat really high protein. And it's (6:34) just not sustainable. And so let me kind of give you just a basic plan of what you can do.So (6:39) instead of cutting those calories randomly, you need to calculate your macro strategically. And (6:43) let me kind of walk you through the key steps that you need to follow to do it safely and effectively. (6:48) Step number one is that you have to find your maintenance macro.So before you even think about (6:53) a deficit, you need to know what your maintenance calories are, aka how much food your body needs to (6:58) stay at the same weight. You can calculate this using my free ebook that's linked in the show (7:03) notes. You can go to juliealabetter.com forward slash free dash ebook, or just click the link in (7:09) the show notes.But you can track your intake for a couple of weeks. That's what I would recommend (7:13) is to get your maintenance macros, track that intake for a couple weeks, see how much you're (7:17) naturally eating when your weight stays stable. And that kind of gives you a starting point, (7:22) because if you don't know your maintenance calories, how do you know how much to cut, (7:25) right? And that's where the strategy really does come into play.So the foundation of that is (7:30) knowing what your maintenance macros are. Step number two, this is after a few weeks of just (7:35) kind of knowing where your maintenance calories are. And when you start tracking that, when you (7:39) start tracking like your food intake, I don't want you to be mindful and start cutting things out (7:44) because you're tracking.I genuinely want you to be honest with yourself and say, okay, this is (7:49) honestly what I'm eating on a weekly basis so that you have an honest starting place. (7:55) The step number two is to create a small caloric deficit. So once you know your maintenance (8:00) calories, you can create a small calorie deficit.And this is after a few weeks of counting those (8:05) maintenance macros. So a fat loss phase is just essentially cutting, starting with 300 (8:11) calories per day. That's it.Like really, I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but that alone will (8:17) allow you to burn fat without wrecking your metabolism. But the kicker is you don't want (8:22) to cut it all at once. Like even start by reducing your calories by a hundred calories per week.So (8:29) start with, for example, week number one, start to reduce by a hundred calories and stick with (8:35) that for a week. Week number two, reduce by another hundred calories. Week number three, (8:40) reduce by another hundred calories.And you might not even need to go as high as cutting 500 (8:45) calories because typically a fat loss phase is three to 500 calories. And in fact, I don't (8:50) want you to go straight into like even 300 calories because I want you to do slow and methodical (8:57) because that's, what's going to be the most sustainable. And you don't want to shock your (9:01) body so much because that's likely going to put you into the state of something that is just, (9:06) it's not creating a sustainable lifestyle.And so I have found that even people who are honest (9:13) with themselves at a 300 calorie deficit, that can be enough. If they're honest and they're (9:18) accountable to that and they're tracking their macros at this fat loss phase of 300 calories (9:24) and a 300 calorie deficit, they'll start to see results. And so that's something that is important (9:29) to remember.Also just remember step number three, that we do not live here. And what I mean by that (9:35) is we do not live forever eating in a fat loss phase. And this is where so many women, and this (9:41) was myself included for like a decade before I learned about nutrition, is I would stay in fat (9:46) loss mode forever.But you should not be in fat loss phase for more than nine, 12, sometimes 14, (9:53) sometimes 15, depending, depending on your fat loss phase and how, like what your goals are and (9:59) how consistent you've been. But the majority of people, their fat loss phase, I mean, nine to 12 (10:05) weeks at a time, right? 12 weeks is about three months. So you're in an intentional fat loss phase (10:10) for about three, four, maybe five months max, but you should not be in a fat loss phase for the (10:16) entire year.Like that is not something that you should be doing. That's not something that's going (10:21) to be healthy. That's not something that's going to be sustainable.And it's because of three (10:26) different things. So because if you stay in a deficit too long, number one, your metabolism (10:30) will adapt, which makes fat loss harder. Number two, your cravings and your hunger are likely (10:36) going to increase.And number three, your workouts will likely suffer because your body has less (10:41) fuel. And this is why cycling in and out of fat loss mode is important. Like you need periods of (10:46) eating at maintenance to give your body time to rest and reset and keep your metabolism thriving.(10:52) And so that's why I always recommend a reverse diet. If you do not know what that is, that's (10:58) step number four. Like once you've completed the nine to 12 week fat loss phase, don't just go (11:03) back to eating whatever you want, go into a reverse diet.And this is all general advice. (11:09) Like this is all just speaking to the general population. And so of course, if you get a more, (11:14) if you start working one-on-one with a coach, they're going to be able to specifically work (11:18) with you based on where you're at, what your goals are in depth.Or if you even do a go-at-your-own (11:23) pace style program, which is what we offer, we offer a macro counting made simple online academy. (11:29) This is going to still meet you are where you're at. And we're going to take a look (11:33) through an extensive questionnaire form that we'll send you.And then we'll be able to give (11:37) you a more customized approach. And then we will say, Hey, this is your customized approach, but (11:42) you take it by the horns and you go, you follow the plan without having those one-on-one check-ins. (11:49) And the reason we do that approach, the kind of go at your own pace and the you do it yourself (11:55) approach is because we have found that it empowers women because oftentimes what happens, (12:00) and I'm, I think one-on-one coaching can be super beneficial for some people, (12:04) but I also think that people live in this constant state of needing to have a coach every single (12:08) part of their life and they just never learn themselves.And so they just always rely on the (12:14) coach to do it for them instead of empowering them to learn how to do it themselves. And so I (12:20) do have a podcast episode, if you're curious about the reverse diet, because what I just talked about (12:25) once you've completed that nine to 12 week fat loss phase, you should not go back to eating (12:30) whatever you should in fact reverse diet. And if you don't know what that is, I have an episode, (12:34) episode 46, why you should consider a reverse diet.I will link that in the show notes below so that (12:39) you can easily go check that out, but just know that there are so many different approaches that (12:45) you can take and should take. It's not a one size fits all. This is kind of general guidelines.(12:51) Again, there are going to be very type A people that they take it and they say, okay, I'm going (12:56) to read, you know, week one, I'm going to reduce my calories by, or I'm going to reduce by a hundred (13:00) calories and they stick to it because they're very type A. There's some type B people or people that (13:06) are just, you know, they're not as committed and they say, okay, I'm going to reduce by a hundred (13:09) calories. And so they do that for the first two days. And then the next day, three day, four day, (13:14) five, they're eating over calories by six or 700, and then they go back to a hundred calories.So (13:19) my recommendation to you is choose to really try to stick with it, especially if you want to do a (13:26) proper fat loss so that you can go back into a reverse diet and then land at maintenance. (13:33) Because ultimately the goal of a reverse diet, the goal of a successful fat loss phase into a (13:39) reverse diet back to maintenance is that you can actually have a successful cycle that will allow (13:47) you to eat more without actually gaining weight. So for example, I've personally gone through four (13:54) reverse diets in my life, likely after my postpartum, like after I'm done exclusively (14:00) breastfeeding, I will likely go into an intentional fat loss phase.And then I will go back into a (14:05) reverse diet and then I'll land back at maintenance. So I will have gone through five reverse diets (14:10) after that phase in my life. But the goal of that is to be able to get into a place where (14:17) you can eat more calories and still either lose weight or maintain.You're obviously (14:23) at maintenance, you're not trying to lose weight, but your baseline calories will likely be higher (14:29) than it was before. Like that is the whole goal of a reverse diet. And if this all is very confusing, (14:34) I get it.Like, trust me, it took a while for me to fully understand it. And honestly, it wasn't (14:39) until like my second and third reverse diet that I really started to nail it down and realize like, (14:44) oh my gosh, the benefit of this, because the cool thing about our bodies is that they're so (14:48) adaptable. Like God made our bodies so adaptable and that can go in a positive way or a negative (14:54) way.And the positive way is that if you do a proper reverse diet, your body's adaptable. So (15:00) it will adapt to a higher number of calories and you won't gain weight because your body has created (15:06) a new baseline. In the negative way, your body is adaptable, meaning that if you reduce your (15:11) calories so low, your body's going to go into that starvation mode and going to conserve as much as (15:16) it can because it doesn't know when it's going to eat less or it doesn't know when it's going to (15:20) eat again.And so as a result, you are starting to burn your muscle and you're starting to actually (15:26) store more fat. And so again, your body is adaptable. It's which way do you want your (15:32) body to be adaptable? Obviously, we want our body to be adaptable in the way that's going to (15:36) optimize our health, be able to optimize the amount of calories that we're eating so that we (15:41) can eat a higher number of calories and maintain.All that to say, I go super deep into reverse (15:47) dieting in episode 46. So I'll go ahead and link that in the show notes below. And if you have (15:51) questions, we are happy to answer them.We have so many podcast episodes on all different like (15:56) macro counting, all different phases of macro counting, like the role of carbs, the role of (16:01) fats, the role of protein, all of that. So you can just kind of browse through all of my episodes. (16:07) I mean, we have over 500 of them, and I will tell you, you will likely learn so much just from (16:13) listening to the podcast episodes.But if you want kind of a more guided approach that is not one on (16:18) one, so it's a lower price point, but it's not one on one, but it is 100% customized to you. (16:25) You can go to macrocountingmadesimple.com. Again, that's macrocountingmadesimple.com. (16:29) I will go ahead and link that in the show notes below. But let me quickly recap what we talked (16:33) about in today's episode.Number one, just remember that fat loss is not about eating as (16:36) little as possible and working out more. Number two, a small sustainable calorie deficit is better (16:42) than an extreme cut. Number three, if you are working out already three to five times per week, (16:48) there is no need for you to up your sessions.That's genuinely all that you need. You can (16:54) see great results at three workouts a week, four workouts a week, five workouts a week. (16:59) Number four, you should never live in fat loss mode.It's important for you to cycle in and out (17:04) for long-term results. And last but not least, number five, reverse dieting. Again, episode 46, (17:09) why you should consider a reverse diet.That is essential for keeping your metabolism strong. (17:14) So I will link both the episode of the reverse diet in the show notes, as well as my free ebook, (17:21) which will give you your maintenance macros, if that's kind of where you want to start. So (17:25) I will link those as well as the Macro Accounting Made Simple Online Academy.And that's going to be (17:30) the completely custom guided approach to us being able to share with you kind of your fat loss (17:36) macros and just kind of a game plan for you. So I will link all those things in the show notes (17:41) below. But that is all that I have for today's episode.I hope that this was helpful for you. (17:47) I hope that you gained something from it. And if it's very confusing, trust me, you're not alone.(17:53) I get it. Like when you first dive into the world of macros and feeling your body optimally, (17:58) it can feel very overwhelming. And so that's why we did create the Macro Accounting Made Simple (18:02) Online Academy was to kind of simplify something that can be otherwise complex.So if you want to (18:08) learn more about that, again, that's in the show notes below. But that is all that I have for (18:12) today's episode. If you have a sister or friend or someone you feel like would really benefit from (18:16) this episode, I just ask that you share it out with them.You can copy the link, send it to them (18:19) in a text message. You can also screenshot this and post it up on your Instagram story. We love, (18:24) love, love connecting with you.But that is all that I have for today. I love you so dang much. (18:27) I mean it.I'll talk to you in the next one. (18:40) All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do.(18:46) First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so. Julie A. (18:51) Ledbetter. Yes, it's with an A in the middle for that daily post-workout real talk, (18:56) healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check.The second (19:01) thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple podcast to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for (19:08) joining me. It means the absolute world.And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. (19:12) The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident (19:18) and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than (19:25) the surface.So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.