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Something happens as you pass through your thirties and then your forties, with hints that your body is changing. You're gaining weight and fighting cravings. You're no longer bouncing out of bed the way you used to. You notice symptoms like bloating, poor sleep, brain fog, and mood swings. You're feeling old before your time, and just plain off. For the vast majority of us, these changes are agonizing, frustrating-and scary.
I get it. I really do, because of my own experience and my work with countless women like you. You're right to feel this way, and you're far from alone. But take heart. It is never too late to get healthier and regain your looks, health, mental clarity, and energy.
Heather is a good example. When she came to me at age fifty-four, having entered menopause four years prior, she was extremely frustrated. "Nothing ever worked for me," she said, in a low, dejected voice. "I've eaten mini-meals, I've counted calories, I've exercised like a maniac, but the weight just won't come off. I hate how this extra twenty pounds makes me feel so old and tired. Honestly, I've lost hope."
Heather had even resorted to taking a drug called phentermine. It is similar to an amphetamine, or "upper." It stimulates the central nervous system (nerves and brain), which accelerates your heart rate and blood pressure and curbs your appetite. It has a lot of scary side effects, ranging from mild to moderate: insomnia, headaches, dizziness, dangerously high blood pressure, chest pain, and shortness of breath.
This kind of struggle is simply not necessary. As Heather and I talked, I guided her through my philosophy about how best to lose weight and navigate menopause-and do it naturally, without the use of prescription drugs to lose weight. I explained to her that every part of my program is designed to ease her symptoms and get her back to feeling younger and more vibrant again.
Heather perked up and was ready to give the program her all. She adjusted her nutrition, and she slowly started intermittent fasting. Lo and behold, she lost ten pounds in the first eight weeks and kept going-without feeling deprived, hungry, or fatigued. Today, she has more energy and confidence than she ever thought possible at her age.
Like Heather, perhaps you have followed the usual pieces of advice: counting calories, eating small meals throughout the day, and having breakfast-all those lose-weight actions in which we've been schooled. Maybe you managed to drop a few pounds, but then you plateaued, yo-yo dieted, or couldn't keep the weight off.
Or maybe you acquired other worrisome symptoms. You just don't sleep as well, for example, and it takes longer to get going in the morning. Perhaps you have too many aches and pains. Or you can't think as clearly as you once could, or can't remember facts and events. It seems like your body is changing right before your eyes. These are terrible, exasperating predicaments, and it's easy just to give up, even though you want to feel fantastic again.
It never ceases to amaze me how much bad advice, under the guise of "wisdom," women are given about their health and weight loss, such as my personal fave: "Exercise more, eat less." That absolutely did not work for me and had the opposite intended effect. I gained weight, couldn't take it off, and generally felt unhealthy.
Important: Do not beat yourself up. You haven't failed; conventional wisdom has failed you. That "wisdom" centers around the following dogma:
Bad Dogma #1: Calories in, calories out-this is what matters.
If you're endlessly counting calories to drop pounds or manage your weight, you may be worrying about the wrong thing. It's the quality of the protein, carbohydrates, and fat we eat-not counting calories-that is an important key to fat loss, weight control, and health. This involves getting enough of the nutrients you need, including vitamins, minerals, and fiber, from your food choices.
Poor-quality foods-namely processed carbohydrates like candy, chips, soda, and commercially baked goods-contribute to weight gain and other symptoms, but not because they have a lot of calories. It's that they set into motion a series of reactions that make your body store fat. These foods break down rapidly into sugar. In response, your pancreas churns out higher levels of the hormone insulin. Insulin is like fertilizer for your fat cells. It tells your cells to grab calories and convert them into fat.
The other problem is that when we cut calories, the body fights back. Our metabolism slows down in order to keep food and energy around longer, and you begin to feel hungrier. This situation is a no-win for weight control, and it throws our hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin out of whack. (More about these hormones in upcoming chapters.)
Bad Dogma #2: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Wrong! We have been repeatedly told that eating breakfast is a healthy thing to do, based on a series of bad research and breakfast cereal marketing. We've heard that skipping breakfast is a very bad habit and could lead to diabetes, weight gain, and other health problems.
Here's the deal: There's just not much evidence for any of this. In fact, an analytical review of thirteen clinical trials, published between 1990 and 2018, concluded that "the addition of breakfast might not be a good strategy for weight loss, regardless of established breakfast habit. Caution is needed when recommending breakfast for weight loss in adults, as it could have the opposite effect." The study also found that the breakfast skippers weighed less than the breakfast eaters.
Skipping breakfast is okay-and indeed, a good idea, with lots of benefits!
Bad Dogma #3: What we eat is more important than when we eat.
What you eat-healthy, wholesome, non-processed food-is absolutely vital. But it's also when you eat that really makes a difference. The "when" involves syncing your meals with your circadian rhythm-the complex physiological system that regulates your sleep-wake cycle and all the hormonal and metabolic processes involved in it. Intermittent fasting aligns with your circadian rhythm and metabolism to improve many health markers, including insulin sensitivity, cardiac risk factors, brain health, overall disease risks, and, last but not least, overweight and obesity.
A case in point about weight loss: Over a ten-week period, people who were instructed to both delay breakfast for ninety minutes and eat dinner ninety minutes earlier (thus changing the time frame in which they ate) lost twice as much body fat as those who were allowed to eat on their normal schedules, despite being allowed to eat whatever they wanted during feeding hours.
Timing is everything! It's the key to a healthy weight and protection from many diseases.
Bad Dogma #4: Eating small meals throughout the day promotes fat-burning and stabilizes blood-sugar levels.
How many times have you heard this one? Many people believe that eating multiple meals throughout the day bumps up metabolism, causing the body to burn more calories overall and keep hunger in check.
None of this is true. Some proof: Investigators at the University of Ottawa discovered that on a restricted-calorie diet, there was no weight-loss benefit to splitting calories among six meals rather than three.
Another study found that switching from three daily meals to six did not stimulate calorie-burning or fat loss. As for appetite control, there's no evidence that eating six meals a day curbs hunger; however, eating larger, less frequent meals will reduce your overall hunger and make you feel full.
A few years ago, I worked with a fitness competitor named Karen. Like many competitors in this sport, she had been brainwashed to believe that the only way to lose weight and be healthy was to eat six small meals daily. But this wasn't working for Karen. She was constantly preparing meals and became overly fixated on food-which often led to bingeing. I switched her over to my IF:45 plan, and she flourished. Karen told me: "Intermittent fasting changed my entire life and I've learned so much about food intake. My energy is through the roof, my skin is great, my sleep is awesome, and I'm not a prisoner to food anymore."
These antiquated dogmas have contributed to escalating rates of obesity, poor metabolic health, and disease that have reduced the quality of life for an entire generation and their offspring. Now at epidemic proportions, these health crises are affecting women in staggering numbers. According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the prevalence of obesity in women twenty years and older increased from 25.5 percent to 40.7 percent over the past few decades. A 2019 journal article suggested that by 2030, more than 25 percent of the general population in the United States will be defined as severely obese, which will be the most common obesity category for women. And obesity, of course, is linked to many life-crushing illnesses: heart disease, type 2 diabetes, many forms of cancer, and depression, to name just a few.
It is time to acknowledge that we need to do better in terms of solving the related issues of overweight, obesity, and ill health. Intermittent fasting is a huge part of the solution-and a clear path to health and weight freedom.
