5 Weightloss Barriers You Need To Know About

Oestrogen Dependant Cancers
Losing excess weight that you cannot shift is not just about how you look (although we do understand the feeling of fitting comfortably into your favourite clothes and feeling great in your own skin!). Those extra kilos can actually have detrimental effects to your health. For instance, excess fat can actually increase oestrogen, which is the number one risk factor for oestrogen-dependent cancers such as ovarian and breast cancer. Keeping the weight low can positively impact your risk to this.

Fatty Liver
Excess weight, especially visceral around the belly, can infringe on internal organs leading to health complaints such as fatty liver, blocked arteries and fatty deposits around the heart.

Body Fat and Toxins
Body fat also holds onto toxins and cannot be excreted. This can cause quite a dramatic increase in weight gain and is a red flag for toxicity.

Joints and sore knees
Extra weight may also be causing havoc with your body biology and  result in achy joints such as sore knees, swollen ankles, breathlessness, varicose veins and elevated triglycerides.

Excess Weight and Leptin Resistance 
Those extra kilos also play a part in how hormones are secreted. The more body fat you have, the more likely you will be resistant to leptin, causing more cravings for carbs and sugar and the need to snack. Ghrelin, an important hormone for satiety and weight regulation, will also decrease and will lead to more excess body fat. This will also trigger the desire to eat. Some people are in a constant hunger state due to their bodies not being in balance.

Get Our 5 Tips To Combat Common Weight Loss Barriers
In the video below, Brenda Janschek, Health and Lifestyle coach, and I share 5 of the most common weight loss barriers we see in our work. Knowing these 5 things are so important for your health and weight loss journey. If you don’t act on these, and only focus on calorie counting, then you will likely continue on the weight loss treadmill for life, which is not really a happy place to be, and totally unnecessary! Once you know these tips you can put a plan in place to lose that unwanted weight and start to feel healthy and fantastic… for life!

Naomi: Hi Everyone!

Brenda: Hello Everyone! I’m Brenda Janschek. I’m a Qualified Health Coach. I’m extremely passionate about supporting and guiding moms to nourish themselves and their families through positive nutrition and lifestyle.

Naomi: Hi. My name is Naomi Judge. I’m a Naturopath and Clinical Nutritionist. And I work with women to help balance hormones, to help them feel fantastic, reach their optimal health and weight-loss goals.

Brenda: And we’re here today to talk to you about the five most common barriers to weight-loss that we’ve seen. And, Naomi, hormones is a big one.

Naomi: Hormones is a huge one. And the one I wanted to talk about today is leptin. And I want to give you a really good tip today because not many people know about leptin. And leptin really, if our leptin is out, we feel hungry all the time. We don’t feel satisfied with food. So the one big tip is actually to do a cleanse. Just doing a cleanse for seven days and taking out all refined sugars and even taking out fruits for seven days, just retain a little bit of fruit, actually helps reset leptin, get it back to where it should be and then enable you to lose that weight you’ve been trying to lose for a long time.

Brenda: Because you’re not in need to snack on sugary, carby things and all that give you energy “(exchange of agreements)”. Fantastic tip. Thank you.

Naomi: Exactly. Yes. You don’t feel like it.

Brenda: And another one is food intolerances. A lot of us day by day exist with a lot of symptoms of food intolerance. And one of those you probably have noticed is your weight. It can cause a barrier to our weight. So the main one food that I would suggest that everybody maybe removed for three weeks, it’s a good amount of time: soy, eggs, peanuts, dairy, sugar, gluta. And then you can start to introduce some slowly, one at a time after that three week period and really notice how you react to them. And then, you’ll be really giving some insights into whether you have some food intolerances. And if you do, you will discover that you wouldn’t lose weight.

Naomi: In that (sic) three weeks, you can lose weight taking all those foods out. That’s fantastic. My next tip to actually help with your weight-loss journey is actually to help control stress. Stress can be good but too much stress really can cause this weight especially around the tummy. When people don’t realise how much stress really impacts, because it does affect our sleep. So my biggest tip that, and everyone knows this but I don’t know people do it, when it comes to weight-loss and just general optimal health, my biggest tip is to remove caffeine and also alcohol. And that helps to reset the cortisol levels in our body. And then, it just causes weight-loss to be a little bit easier.

Brenda: Okay. Another tip that I wanted share is diet. Particularly, we’re talking about our macronutrient ratios on our plates. So, macronutrients are fats, are proteins and are carbs. And they make up every meal that we eat, hopefully. So, often those proportions are out of balance. And this, in itself, can actually be a barrier to weight-loss. So, that, individually, ah, they need to be tweaked. We find just a good tip to start with is making fifty percent of your plate with non-starchy vegetables. Okay. So things like leafy greens, capsicum, cucumbers. And just seeing how that works for you, seeing if there’s any shift in your weight even trying to do that for a week, fifty percent of your plate, you might need to tweak that. You might only need forty percent of non-starchy vegetables on your plate. But just give that a go. ‘Cause at least you are getting…

Naomi: That’s a great guide.

Brenda: Great guide. Great goodness. Great fibre. Get things moving. So yeah.

Naomi: That’s a fantastic tip. Thank you.

Brenda: With pleasure.

Naomi: And the last tip which I think is one of the most important tips because people forget about this. And it’s nutrition intuition.

Brenda: Yeah. People have lost touch with how much food they need to eat and why they are eating. I think is, ah, because so many women have been on diets, who are all accustomed for all their lives, bombarded by messages about what to eat and how to eat. And I think that a really good way in trying to get back in touch with you and what you need is maybe just start to listen to your hunger cues a little bit more. Just become really mindful and understand “Okay I feel a little bit hungry. I’m not ravenous or I am ravenous”. And, ahm, then you start to eat and notice when you to start to feel satisfied, full or notice if you have actually overeaten.

Naomi: Exactly. And people don’t realise that you should be going from breakfast, lunch to dinner. But you shouldn’t be having any of those negative symptoms of low blood sugar, moodiness, agitation, lightheadedness, nauseate. You just eat and just feel normal, feel good.

Brenda: And feeling a little bit hungry is also normal.

Naomi: Hungry here (pointing to tummy), but not here (pointing to the mind).

Brenda: That’s right. So, hopefully these steps are something that you can start to think about and implement at least one at a time.

Naomi: Yes, definitely. Just implementing one of those will get you on; get you to your optimal health and your goals.

Brenda: Whichever one rings true for you, give that one a go!

Naomi: So look out for a video. It’s actually going to be a lady called Joan talking about her journey on what she did to reach optimal health and lose weight.

Brenda: Yeah. And she’s feeling fantastic.

Naomi: Feeling good.

Brenda: Yeah. Thank you.

Naomi: Thanks for listening.

Brenda: Good luck.

Both: Bye!