7 Things Women Should Do ASAP to Lose Weight FAST

Today, we're walking through the seven truths that I wish every woman understood before she started her weight loss journey. These are the things that save you time, frustration, and I think most importantly, emotional energy because they help you work with your body rather than fighting against it. And I think as women, we so often fight against our bodies all the time. At PhD weight loss, I find myself saying, hey, you have to stop beating yourself up. It's time to give yourself a hug. Like, how often do we actually love on our bodies? Most often we are fighting them. So let's dive into it. Hey, really quickly.

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Now, if this is one of the first times you've come across one of my videos or listened to this as a podcast episode, I'm Dr. Ashley. I am a PhD nutritionist and a registered dietitian. I'm the owner and founder of PhD Weight Loss. Today we've served over 11,600 people and have helped them collectively drop more than 480,000 pounds. And my goal with this channel is to give you the information and the motivation, the skill, help you develop the skills to be able to drop weight yourself and just create positive change in your own life. So let's dive into these seven things women should do right away to lose weight and keep it off. Ultimately, my goal for you is not just to drop the weight, but to keep it off long term. So the first one is to understand that the scale is not the best progress marker and it will drive you crazy if you just keep stepping on the scale and expect expect it to go down every single week. Now, I've done an episode where I talk about weight loss patterns and the different patterns that I commonly see in people when it comes to stepping on the scale. If you feel like you're so frustrated and want to understand your specific pattern, then definitely check out this video or this episode. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, come on over to YouTube and just go into the description and click the link to learn about that topic. On weight loss patterns. Now the scale is going to shift based on day to day weight changes that are driven by water, by hormones, digestion, sodium and stress. So if you are around your menstrual cycle, for example, a lot of women will gain significant weight. Like I've seen women at PhD gain 6, 8 pounds in a matter of a few days just from holding on to water. So hormones definitely impact digestion. If you are constipated, you could be holding on to like 6 to 8 pounds of excess weight in your body and you could hop on the scale and be so annoyed and frustrated when really we just need to get your bowels moving. Sodium. If you've had a high salt meal, if you have been dining out, if you have been traveling, some women are much more prone to bloating than others. And you could hold on to fluids. It's just flu fluid, it's not actual fat weight. If you've got high stress levels, you're secreting a lot of cortisol that that's going to impact fluid retention as well. I actually have a lot of clients, both women and men at PhD, who will reduce their blood pressure medication because they no longer need it. And it takes the body a little bit of time to find this new equilibrium without these medications. And they'll hold on to a lot of fluid for a few weeks as their body's finding this new balance. So you just need to recogn what else is going on in your life when you step on the scale and it's not budging or not moving in the direction that you expect it to. Remember that your body composition can improve even when weight holds steady. And that's why I often encourage people to get a body composition scale. Not that they're super accurate, so that you can see trends. And you can see that maybe the scale didn't move this week, but you can see muscle mass start to trend up because you are lifting weights. Did you know that when you're lifting weights and your muscles are sore, you've actually broken down muscle fiber, which is a good thing because the only way to build back stronger is to break down the muscle first. So let's say you've gone and you've listed weights, you're sore the next day, that means you've broken apart some of those muscle fibers. You're repairing them, and as a part of the repair process, you're going to hold onto fluid. So I will see a lot of women and men hold on to fluid the few days after they've worked out, especially if they're sore. So there we could see an improvement in body composition, but the scale is actually going up, and it can be very frustrating. I want to remind you that consistency in habits matter much more than consistency in the number it will ultimately track down. I know it's hard to say this, especially if you haven't had good support or good tools, but if in your heart of hearts, you believe that you're making the best changes in your body and you're listening to your body and you follow through and you have consistency, you will see the outcome over time. You will. You just have to hold the faith. And I believe that a lot of people give up right before, right before the scale is going to drop. So if this is you and you're listening to this and you are frustrated, I'm encouraging you to hold on. Hold on. Have the belief and the confidence and the faith in yourself that you can do this, because you can. I have seen it happen thousands and thousands of times. Hold on, be consistent, and you will see the positive change that you're hoping for. All right. Number two is that muscle will not make you bulky. I think, I believe that we are moving through this myth. Don't you? Let me know if you're watching this on YouTube in the comments below. Do you still believe that muscle will make you bulky? Are you afraid of lifting weights or resistance training or overloading the muscles out of fear that you will become bulky? It is so, so difficult to become bulky as a woman. Women naturally build muscle slowly due to lower testosterone. Strength training increases metabolic rate and stability. It is so important. And if you do bulk up a little bit, like, good for you. You're actually one of the lucky ones, because as we age, we lose muscle. So you're probably going to be one of the healthiest, strongest women out there. You're going to have a much higher chance of having better longevity and quality of life than those who can't bulk. Like, I would be really excited if I had the potential to bulk because I'm one of those women who just can't. And I will lift and lift and lift, and not much happens. So embrace the bulkiness if you've got that. And you're like the 1 percenter, because 99% of U.S. women will not bulk. We will just increase muscle strength and Quality by lifting or overloading the muscles. And that is key. Remember that muscle creates shape and firmness and long term leanness. You want muscle. Muscle is our metabolic currency. It's the marker for longevity. So embrace that and embrace the bulkiness. If you've got it. Now, if you're thinking like, oh my gosh, I need this motivation, I need this inspiration to keep me going. If you feel like you have attempted other weight loss programs or pathways and you keep giving up or you're doing this on your own because you feel like you should be able to, because society for some reason has imprinted that if we ask for help for weight loss and we have failed or we're weak, I want you to know that that's not true. That is a myth as well. It's very, very challenging to drop weight in a healthy way and actually maintain it. So if you feel like you need support, it is okay asking for help. By the way, as women, we often do not ask for help because we think we should be able to do everything on our own because we are so strong and we are so capable. And if you feel like you have reached a point in your life where you'd like things to go a little bit more easier for you, which you deserve, then you should check out PhD Weight Loss, go to my PhD Weight Loss.com or head on over to the description in this YouTube video. Click the link for myPhD Weight Loss.com to learn more on how we can support you. The third thing to understand if you want to lose weight fast is that undereating backfires metabolically. Remember that very low intake slows metabolism and increases cravings. You might think because of what we've been told by the dieting industry, that you just need to continue to eat less and move more. And now there are all these drugs that are allowing us to never be hungry and just eat less and less and less. This is a big issue. It's going to eat away at your muscle. It's going to slow your metabolism. Back in the day, before I got into the field of nutrition and weight weight loss, I was a professional ballet dancer. And I was an extreme expert at not eating and ruining my metabolism. But I've been able to heal it. So I, I, I share that with you so that you have hope. If this is you as well, you are not alone and you can heal it. Cortisol rises when you don't consume enough calories. Sleep suffers and hunger cues become unpredictable. A small, steady calorie deficit is going to be More effective than aggressive restriction. And I actually hate calories altogether. I never count calories. I never ever look at calories for our clients at PhD weight loss. And you will never have a coach talk about calories. We'll talk about macros like carbs and protein and healthy fats. And it will blow your mind as to how we look at food and how you will be able to drop weight so effectively and in such a natural way. So if you are stuck on calories or points and you're counting anything obsessively, then you want to make sure that you get support and that someone can hold your hand through the process of changing that perspective. I was right there with you. I would. When I was dancing, my ultimate goal was to consume 5 grams or less of dietary fat. And now I don't even think about it. And, and I consume a lot of fat and it feels so good. So you can get there too. Now it's really important to understand that everybody is different. Some people will naturally have good portion awareness. Like for me, my hunger cues and my full cues are pretty clear. But it is also because of how I eat. I eat in a way that allows my body to burn fat for fuel. But there are some folks, even when they're eating this way, that just do not have good internal cues. And I share this with you because I have seen this happen in many clients at PhD weight loss. Even though they're eating right for their body, where still their internal cues are just not super clear. So they need additional guidance to be able to manage that in a, in a healthy, strong way. And I also have very good personal experience with this too. Because my husband has no internal hunger cues. Even when he's eating right on target, his body just keeps telling him that, gosh, he's got some hunger in there. And so I want to share with you if this is you. Number one is to create a metabolic change by teaching the body how to burn fat for fuel. And we do that by how we're eating. And that's what we do at Ph.D. d weight loss. But also there can be some cues for you as to how much you should be eating based on just your hand size. So it's important to understand that healthy fats and nutrients, dense snacks are important to consume, but they're also energy dense. We can't just consume all the calories in the world and still drop weight. Like we still have to have this healthy awareness. And I want to share with you today some simple hand based portion guys that can prevent accidental Excess if, like, if you're out and about and you're just learning this or your hunger cues aren't super clear. So when it comes to protein, I want you to consider the palm of your hand without fingers. The palm of your hand for Most people is one serving of protein, which is about 3 to 4 ounces cooked. Most people need one to two palms of protein at every meal. So 3 to 8 ounces total, depending on your body size and your goals. For healthy fats, look at your thumb. And one serving of fat is the size of your thumb, which is about 1 tablespoon of oil or butter or mayo or nut butter or MCT oil. Most meals need one to two thumbs or one to two tablespoons, again, depending upon your body size and goals. So for non starchy veggies, your fist is the good portion guide, and your fist is about one serving of veggies, which is about one cup of raw veggies is your goal. Now, you can cook these veggies, but I'm just helping you measure them in raw form. So most meals include one to two fists full of raw veggies, either eaten raw or cooked. Now, a public service announcement for you is if you tend to have GI distress, cook your veggies. Now, if you're including higher carbohydrate foods, also think about your cupped hand. So get one hand and cup it. That's one serving, which is about a half cup. So this would be like berries or quinoa or sweet potato or any other higher carb food for weight loss. Usually one meal would be like 0 to 1 cupped hand serving size per meal. So basically, if we recap this, 3 to 4 ounces of protein is one palm, one tablespoon of fat is one thumb, one cup of veggies is one fist, and one half cup of higher carb foods only if your plan allows it. And remember, that's one cupped hand. All right. Another important thing to understand is that restriction, like severe restriction, leads to rebound eating. Prohibiting food intensifies cravings and emotional eating, especially if you don't have the right support. So I want to clear this up. If you're just like eliminating an entire food group on your own, and you don't understand metabolically why you're doing that and you don't have the right support and you don't have a plan later on in your program to play with adding foods back, it's likely going to be something that's unsustainable. Now, at PhD weight loss, we have specific foods that we incorporate during the weight loss phase and specific foods that we don't for a reason. Because metabolically, it allows our clients to get to a place where they can let go of hunger and cravings, and it makes the process of losing weight much more easier and simple and speedy. It's effective, it's efficient, and it's just the way to go, we find with our protocol. But over time, we're slowly incorporating the foods back in, and our clients have a lot of support and encouragement and accountability. If you're doing this on your own and you're just deciding to remove one food group for no reason, like I did when I was dancing, I would just remove meat or I wouldn't eat cheese because I thought that it would make me gain weight, or I would just eat specific foods. It doesn't really allow for success. So I want to share this with you so that you have a plan of action and you make sure that you have the right support around and the right understanding of why you might be removing foods for specific time periods. Now, there are some folks who really thrive on a carnivore diet, and they're just eating meat and they've removed other food groups. So if this is the case for you, then you probably have a clear understanding as to why you've done this and you're listening to your body. I encourage you to continue to listen to your body and then also understanding that there might be foods that you need to let go of that might not come back into your eating plan because they do not serve your body. Everybody is different. Listen to what your body's telling you. All right, Number six is recovery is a metabolic strategy. Understanding that you need some downtime. And this is personally a hard one for me to understand because I'm always go, go, go. But I understand as I continue to become more mature, that there are good times and reasons to have a pause and to slow down. Specifically, when it comes to your muscles, if you're exercising a lot, you need to have recovery muscles repair and actually strengthen during rest, not during workouts. So that's why we need recovery days. Poor recovery increases soreness, fatigue, and injury risk. It increases cortisol. If you still feel like you really want to move on your rest days, go for that walk. Walking is really important. Or gentle movement, like yoga or stretching. And lastly, it's really important to understand that sustainable weight loss requires time. It takes time. Now, our clients at PhD weight loss, on average, most women drop about two to three pounds per week. And again, some are faster Some are slower. Everyone's different, just the average. And most men drop about three to five pounds per week. They're a bit faster. And I know for us women that's frustrating, but we just look at the positives, right, that everyone is getting healthier through the process, even though we might be a little bit slower. So at PhD weight loss, to determine the actual time it will take for someone to fully collapse that excess fat mass, it really is dictated on the speed of the weight loss and how much weight they have to drop. This dictates the length of the program, but this is not the length of time that it takes for sustainable weight loss. What I mean by this is this is just the weight loss phase, but there is a beyond the scale phase that takes even longer. We've got to practice the habits and behaviors that we've built in during the really, truly short weight loss phase. If you think about how long it takes to fully collapse the fat mass, at least with PhD weight loss, it's not that long. But then we've got to establish this new identity. We've got to establish consistency in the habits and behaviors that we've incorporated during the weight loss phase. It takes time for the body and for the mind to adapt to create this as your new identity. And I find with our clients at PhD weight loss, it usually takes about six to 12 months of focus in the maintenance phase. We call it our lifestyle integration phase, to really integrate what we've been taught during the weight loss phase to keep it off for good. Now with all of these GLP1 drugs, we're finding that most people quit the medication because they don't feel good on it long term, or they don't like the cost of it, or they, yeah, just don't want to be on medication for life. I am of the belief that we shouldn't need to be on weight loss for life when it comes to obesity. I know there are. This is a little bit controversial, but there's some people out there who believe that weight loss should be medicated for life because it's chronic and progressive. It's a chronic and progressive disease. And the majority of diseases that conventional medicine says are chronic and progressive, like type 2 diabetes, actually aren't and they're reversible. And I am of the same belief when it comes to weight loss and what I've seen for all of our clients at PhD weight loss. So anyway, when it comes to these GLP1s, most folks are getting off of these drugs. Maybe they have the same belief and 70% of them are regaining the vast majority of the weight loss within one to two years of quitting the medications. So we understand that maintenance is the key to sustainable success and it takes some time. It takes some time for the body and the mind to equilibriate, right? We also know that slow, consistent habits create metabolic stability and the goal is long term body confidence, not short term drops on the scale. We are doing this for our long term overall health and wellness benefit. I want to hear what you think about these guidelines or if you feel like there are any other roadblocks or things sabotaging your success when it comes to dropping weight sustainably. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Please leave a review if you're listening to this on a podcast platform. If you're watching this on YouTube, please subscribe so you don't miss another video. And remember, you've got to step up to make the change. Lead with your heart, train your mind and do not negotiate with your body. I'll see you next time.