Diets and Deadlines: Female Fat Loss Struggles cont..

In our previous blog post, we discussed three main reasons why many women struggle with fat loss:

– Women are more focused on “weight” loss, rather than fat loss.
– Hormones can play a big role in how fast and where the fat loss can occur.
– Women generally have a lower muscle mass than men do.

While we could have certainly ended the conversation there, (solving any one of those issues could result in a shift in fat loss for most ladies), we feel compelled to bring the topic home by pointing out the elephant in the room: The Diet Mentality.  Even if most ladies understand the central theme behind developing a less stressed, “muscle-based” mindset, they still want to go about solving their fat loss issues with extreme diets and unrealistic deadlines.

Diet Preferences

When we choose to diet in a way to lose “weight,” (remember reason #1!) we typically select very extreme methods to do so. (*cough* 1200 calorie diets!)

Whenever you embark on a low calorie diet your body is forced to make less food spread farther, so it often has to make budget cuts to survive (literally).  Because muscle requires more calories to maintain, extreme “budget cuts” can put those precious muscles you’re striving so hard to hold on to, in jeopardy.  When the body is faced with a low calorie (especially low protein) diet – it has to break down muscles in order to “find” the protein it needs to survive (essentially getting rid of those dang “expensive” muscles, so that the budget can spread further!).

Most women (whether on a diet or not) prefer a high carb, high fat diet with very low protein incorporated.  When coupled with little to no resistance training, and repeated bouts of super low calories, many women are living in a perpetual “muscle wasting” lifestyle.  Rejecting the 1200 calorie insanity, and increasing the protein is a great starting point for most ladies seeking fat loss.  Protein not only keeps you fuller longer, it helps to keep the metabolism from burning up the proteins in our muscles, thus making our workouts more effective, and allows the muscles to build up instead of break down.  Once weight lifting is sprinkled in, it’s icing on the cake! (Note: I didn’t say anything about getting rid of cake…)

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Patience!!

Because many of the diets that we tried in the past helped us to lose weight “fast,” it’s honestly tough to NOT lack patience. Thanks to our microwave society, we tend to want alllllllll. the. things. RIGHT. NOW.  We can’t understand why men can lose weight so quickly, or why younger women are dropping pounds faster than us.  The media knows this, and makes sure to taunt/target/tempt us regularly with quick fixes (and we just keep taking the bait- even when we know better). We want things that happen as fast for us as they did in the past – to have the losses we did when we went on our first diet.

We say we’re willing to do “whatever it takes” — but never for “as long as it takes.”

Having patience is about being willing to build/maintain muscle mass and actually stop stressing about it. It means focusing less on weight loss, more on fat loss.  It’s about finally settling in and doing things right by your body.  It’s about reaching your goals in a no-nonsense way that does not backfire in the long run: eating enough food, eating enough protein, getting enough fiber, lifting and doing workouts in a way that are built to maintain the muscle mass you already have, and maybe even encourage more muscle growth along the way.

So there you have it. The five biggest reasons why women tend to struggle with fat loss.  So remember this on your journey to a better and healthier you. Dieting will lead you down a path of never ending gain/lose cycles, constantly frustrated with the lack of progress. The goal of the Diet Mentality is to make you stop enjoying your life to its fullest. A change in your diet focus, throwing the scale away, and taking the time to build your muscle mass back up while living your life now, will all put you down the path to success. The path just winds along the rose gardens, rather than plows right through them.

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