How Friendships Affect Your Weight After 40

By the end of this episode, you're going to understand why not having close girlfriends right now is completely normal and exactly what to do about it. Because here's what most women in our age group, we don't realize, right? Over 40, 50s. Closing this friendship gap is one of the most powerful things that you can do to release weight, and it has nothing to do with what's on your plate. Hey, Luxe Cipher, are you not having a close circle of girlfriends right now? I mean, honestly, that is normal when you get over 40. It's really more common than you think. But here's what no one has connected for you, and this is something that I've seen a lot in my clients and my audience members, is the gap with your friendships is one of the reasons why your weight is not moving. And today in this episode, I'm going to show you exactly what I'm talking about and and what you can do to change it. All right, let's get into this episode. Girl, if you're tired of losing the same 20 pounds over and over and over again, listen up. For years, I thought something was wrong with me. I kept promising this time would be different, only to find myself stress eating at the kitchen counter after a long stressful day. I thought the problem was my body. I thought the problem was the diet I was on or my lack of discipline. But the truth? The real problem wasn't what I was doing. It was who I was being. When I finally stopped trying to fix my weight and started transforming my identity, everything changed. No more starting over on Monday. No more food guilt. No more feeling like I was fighting against myself. And now? That's exactly what I help my clients do. Welcome to Stop Dieting Forever, the podcast that helps you break free from self-sabotage, rewire your mindset, and reinvent yourself into the healthy, confident woman that you crave to be. I'm your host, Jennifer Dent-Brown, certified life and weight loss coach, and I'm here to show you how to finally stop dieting forever. You ready? Let's dive in. When you think of loneliness, what do you think about? Like, most women think loneliness just means sitting alone on a Friday night with no plans except for you, Netflix, and a bottle of Pinot Grigio. But let's be real, that's not your life because you have a full calendar. You have kids' activities, you are mom Ubering, you have work dinners, you have volunteer commitments that you have to plan for and organize on the weekends. You have family obligations. Like, there is never a moment where you are not busy. There is never a moment where you are not alone, but here's the thing. And I want you to see this because I am seeing this a lot reflected in my clients. Busyness, being busy is not the same as connection. And productivity is not the same as community because you can be surrounded by people every single day and still be starving for real authentic friendship. And this is what I'm calling the friendship gap. It is quietly driving you to eat food in ways that you haven't even recognized yet. So let's talk about what this friendship gap is. Okay. The friendship gap is the space between the relationships that you have and the ones that actually feed you emotionally. So you've got the contacts in your phone, right? You got all the colleagues lined up on LinkedIn. You know the people from the school pickup line. You say hello to those. You, you know, fist bump the people in the gym that you see every day. You are in the group text, the group chat. But if you cannot name 3 women that you can call at 10:00 AM, if something in your life fell apart and you know that they would be there for you, you have a gap, that, that emotional space because of your friendships. What happens is you use food to fill that gap. Now, when I explained to you, like, you're like, wait, friendships, food? Like, I don't get it. It's not because you don't know how to connect with people and you don't know how to have relationships. It's because you're human. All right, let's talk about why this gap exists. It is not a character flaw, right? There's nothing wrong with you or your personality or your inability to have friends. That's not it at all. This literally is a life stage pattern, and I have noticed among so many of my clients who are over 40. So if you think about when we were in school, right, in college, graduate school, community was built into the structure of our days. We shared spaces together. We went to the, the cafeteria together. We shared meals together. We shared experiences. We went to the parties. We got drunk together. Like, friendships happened by proximity. In fact, one of my closest friends here in Philly, Rachel, was my neighbor freshman year in college in our dorm. She was from Chicago. I was from Philly. I remember we were in the auditorium for orientation, waiting to get our photos taken for our ID picture. And she came by our row, and she was crying. And I was like, oh my goodness. I was like, she lives in my dorm. I was like, what is wrong? She was homesick, and I just gave her a hug. And we have been friends ever since then. She moved to Philly for her job, and we have been buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy ever since our freshman year of college, that first week of school. But when you think about your life, right, maybe you have some friends that you keep in contact with from college. But then think about, like, life happened. Like, we went We went to professional school, careers happened. We got jobs. We moved to different cities. Some of us got married. A lot of us had kids. And somewhere in between carpooling and climbing the corporate ladder, those deep friendships that we had in college, they got deprioritized. Not intentionally. It was like very quiet because everybody was busy. We didn't have time for the girls' trips anymore. We didn't have time for anything else, but literally a group text saying, hey, happy Mother's Day everybody, or Merry Christmas, right? And here's the part that doesn't get talked about enough, but that annual birthday text and the holiday group chat are not cultivated friendships. They are not. They may have been cultivated friendships decades ago when you were in school together, but in this era that you're in right now, it is no longer a cultivated friendship. They are contacts. They are not community. So networking is not nourishment. I have one client who networks, goes to this business event, this business event. It's part of her, her sales process, right? Is meeting as many people as possible. Networking and having a gazillion contacts in your phone is not nourishment. Having people around you is not the same as being supported. I want you to write that down because that's good. And if I were on Twitter, I would say that's a tweetable right there, but I'm not. We put it on Threads instead. Networking is not nourishment. Having people around you is not the same as being supported. So let's talk about this connection between the friendship gap and food, primary food. So if you listen to last week's episode, I explained to you the difference between primary food and secondary food. Primary food is real connection, real community. It's meaningful work. It is your life having purpose. And when that is deficient, ordinary food or secondary food fills in, right? That's when we're going in the snack cabinet looking for something. Food becomes comfort. It becomes a reward. It is our way to decompress. It is literally your best friend at the end of a long day when there is no one to call and no one to talk to. And the tricky part is you don't identify as lonely. Like, I've never had a client come to me and say, I need to work with a weight loss and life coach because I'm lonely. No, I never heard any of my clients say that. You don't identify as lonely because you're too busy to be lonely. You got too much stuff happening. But the busyness itself is literally a defense mechanism. I have watched women stay in motion, always volunteering, always being the first to say, raise their hand at church to serve on this committee or serve on this ministry, always being available for someone else's needs. And that busyness functions as a protective layer against the stillness where the loneliness lives, right? If I have to jump out of bed early in the morning on Saturday because I've gotta drive the kids, or, you know, I volunteered to carpool the kids to the game, then I don't have time to lay in bed and be— and feel lonely, right? If you're like, oh, I don't know, Jennifer, like, oh, you're kind of maybe hitting home, but I don't know. Here's how you know. I'm gonna give you 3 questions to help you close this, this gap, this friendship gap. And be real, y'all. K-I-R, keep it real. Don't just like glaze past the question. I want you to actually answer it. And be honest with yourself, because in that honesty will be your elevation and another way for you to emotionally release weight. So first question: do you have community or do you have just contacts? Do you have community or do you have just contacts? Community is reciprocal. It is mutual. She shows up for you, you show up for her. Contact means you know each other's names and not much else. You gotta like look in your iPhone contacts or your phone contacts and see, oh, what notes do I have about her? Oh, I met her at this networking event. Oh, right. She was introduced to me by this person. Right. That is not community. That is contact. And I also want to say this about community, right? Cause it is reciprocal. We've all had that one friend who loves to talk about themselves, right? You call them up and say, hey girl, I need to talk to you about something, but somehow 90 seconds into the conversation, she flips it and it ends up talking about herself, and she never actually asks you how you are or how she can help you. That is not community. That is a one-sided friendship. That is a contact. All right, question 2: Have you outgrown relationships without building new ones? And this is where I see this happening so much with my community. Because the woman you were at 22 or at 32 needed different things than the woman you are now. So some friendships served a season, and that is okay. But if you let them go without building new ones, this gap that you're in, it widens, and then you find yourself being even more busy to fill in that gap, right? So you're like, oh yes, I will volunteer to help my daughter with Girl Scouts, And then you end up, on the other hand, eating 2 sleeves of the Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies because they're in the pantry. Because, you know, you were helping out, you bought some boxes, you were helping out. The third question I want you to ask yourself to close this gap, or to even identify the gap, is can you name the woman in your real circle and not your network? Not the people you follow online, not your LinkedIn connections, the woman who would get in their car to drive to you if you called them with a meltdown saying, girl, I need you right now? Who is that person right now? Who is that person in your circle? And if you don't have one, that's what I'm saying. Like, it is okay. Like, this is a, a very common occurrence for women at this stage in their lives. But I want you to stop for a second, and I want you to imagine something. But before we imagine, I'm going to interrupt this episode with a quick commercial. So if you've been loving this podcast and you're like, okay, Jennifer, this is interesting, I— how can I work with you? I get this question a lot, and I love answering this question because it's always evolving. There are a few ways to join the inner circle, right? The Luxe Life circle, and they all come with community built in, which is what we've been talking about in this episode. So the first thing I want to just let y'all know, I'm doing an IRL event, in real life. Yes, it is called Luxe Life Table, and if you are going to be in South Florida, specifically Fort Lauderdale area, on April 12th, I would love to see you. It is a guided brunch experience at Evelyn's, which is the restaurant, which I've been there, it's fantastic, inside the Four Seasons on the beach overlooking the ocean in Fort Lauderdale. Now, this is not a seminar. This is not a workshop. We are not networking, right? What I'm doing is I'm bringing a small group of women, like-minded women, and we're sitting down together to break bread, to have a little toast, and we're going to talk about the real reason that your plan, whatever that is for you trying to lose weight, it keeps failing. We're going to talk about primary food, we're going to talk about secondary food, we're going to talk about the friendship gap and what it costs for you to keep doing this alone. When you leave this brunch, you're going to leave with clarity, connection, and a seat at the table that was designed exactly for where you are right now. One of the fun things I'm going to do is share with you my social eating success method, which is I give to all of my clients to prepare them to think differently when they go out to eat. Because let's be real, when you go out to eat, in your dieter's brain, it's like, oh my God, you start bargaining with yourself, you start overthinking. Like, if I order this, then I'm gonna have to do this tomorrow. Or, you know, I should really get the salad, but ooh, that lasagna looks really good. Like, all of that. We're gonna— I'm gonna teach you how to avoid all of that. And you can go out to eat in peace. And we're going to do it live at the table during brunch. And one of the— one of the things that I want to share with you is that if you attend and you decide that you're ready to work with me, the full cost of your ticket is applied to your coaching investment because that's how we do it here. So registration closes on April 9th. Seats are limited. I'm keeping it small. I like intimacy. I like to keep it tight. So go to jenniferdent.com/april to get more details and to save your seat at the table. Now, if you're like, that sounds amazing, I'm not in South Florida, I'm nowhere near South Florida, I hear you. I want to bring this experience to your city. So what I want to do is I want to hear from you. I want you to go to the show notes and use the feedback form to tell me where you are, right? And if I have a number of people in the same general vicinity, guess what? Luxe Life Table is coming to your area. Okay. I am paying attention. So go tell me where you want me to come next. There are lots of ways for you to get into the community. So you can go to jenniferdent.com/workwithme to see all the different ways you can work with me and then book a call, book a weight loss consultation with me. We'll talk about what is the next best step for you. All right. Let's get back to the episode. So Well, let's rewind. I wanted you to stop, and we're going to talk about imagining something. And I wanted you to imagine this. I want you to imagine that you have a small circle of women who actually know what's going on in your life. It's your squad, right? They don't know just your highlight reel. Like, they know your real life. They know the hard-ass week that you've had. They know the difficulties you've been having with your boss. They know the thoughts that you are having about leaving your job and finding another, another role somewhere else. They know the frustrations that you're experiencing with your marriage, right? They know the moment that you almost quit on yourself and they get it because they're in the same season, right? That is your squad. That is the circle of women who you want in your life. Now, imagine that the end of a hard day or a long week, Imagine instead of standing in front of the refrigerator looking for something to take the edge off, you pick up your phone instead, or you already have dinner on the calendar with your squad and you can't wait to get there. In fact, you can't wait to get there. You're the first person there because you're like, I can't wait to just spill the beans and talk to my squad, talk to my girls. And you are looking forward to that. When you have that squad in place, when you have that circle in place, the refrigerator stops being where you go to feel better. Because you already feel better because you know you've got your squad around you. And that is what closing the friendship gap does. It doesn't just improve your social life, it literally removes one of the most powerful triggers driving you to food, and you didn't have to change a single thing on your plate to do it. This is what I mean when I say weight loss is an identity problem and not a food problem. I speak from experience. If you follow me on Facebook, you have probably seen I post pictures pretty much every month of my squad, my closest girlfriends. We intentionally get together every single month for a meal. We break bread together because research shows that women need a girls' night every 22 days to protect their mental health. We started doing this in the pandemic because in the pandemic we were all isolated. And one of our friends actually was one of the early people that had COVID. And so we started, we hopped on a Zoom call and we were like, we need to do this again. And we just laughed and we, we drank a little bit of wine and it was just so good to see their faces. We were like, we need to do this again. And so when the pandemic ended, we continued our gathering. We just did it in real life. Social connection releases oxytocin, the hormone that lowers stress and signals safety. And literally, our monthly meetups are like medicine because familiar voices signal safety to your brain. And that is why some conversations can regulate you better than therapy. Women with close friendships report less loneliness, better mental health, and higher life satisfaction. And if I were doing this study, I'd be like, how much do they weigh? Because I would, I would, I would bet that these women probably have lower weights than the ones that don't get together on a regular basis. So this is a reminder to find your squad. Find your squad, because your girls can help you cope with stress. Less stress means a calmer nervous system, and a calmer nervous system makes weight loss possible. Women experience more joy when life is shared. We are not meant to be alone. And alone with our thoughts all the time. And yes, shopping counts. You can say, hey girl, you want to run a Costco with me? Have a Costco date. That counts because joy equals regulation, and regulation is sustainable. Get out of the group chat, schedule the date. Your weight and your wellness depend on it. Because wellness isn't just another thing that you do, it's how you live and who you live it with. The woman who keeps off the weight is not the woman with the perfect meal plan and the perfect macros and the perfect gym schedule. No, she is the woman whose primary food is full, right? She's got community. She has connection. She has somewhere to put the hard stuff besides a bowl of pudding or ice cream or something that she doesn't actually want to eat. That woman is available to you right now, and she is not that far away. So I want to tell you about one of my clients. Most recently. So we talked about primary food versus secondary food in one of our Identity Upgrade calls, and here's what she said. She told us she relocated across the country for her career a couple years ago, built a whole new life in a new city, gave everything to her job, her family, her responsibilities. And somewhere in that transition, her close friendships became long distance. She had a lot of people around her. She had kids, she had a husband, she had people at work, but she couldn't meet anyone for a quick coffee. Right. She couldn't just show up at a girlfriend's house and, you know, take the dogs walking together. That in-person piece was gone because when she left her old community, she never took the time to establish new friendships in her new city. And she said, yeah, I have girlfriends. They're just not here. And in the meantime, because she didn't have anybody to connect with in real life, food was filling that gap, that friendship gap, without her even recognizing what was happening. So, when we started doing the identity work together, as my client, she saw the connection clearly. And she took one step. She was like, you know what? I'm going to reach out to one local woman and just ask her if she wants to do lunch, just us. She said she knew her because their kids were friends and they do stuff with their families together, but she wanted to reach out and say, hey, no kids, just us. Like, let's do lunch. One-on-one. And that was it. Just one step, right? And as she's doing this work and discovering things like the friendship gap and discovering and having new awarenesses about her identity, and her identity is shifting, she's down 18 pounds in 3 months at the age of 54, menopausal, during the holidays, right? She, she started working with me in December. This all isn't just working because all of a sudden she's like, oh, I found the perfect meal plan. No. One of the things that she started to do, she's shifting her identity. And part of that identity shift is her closing this friendship gap. So she stopped asking food to do a job that it was never designed, designed to do. So that is the work, y'all, and that is the work that you're not going to find in any cookie-cutter traditional weight loss program. I have another client who is in my group program, Learn and Lose. She grew up in another country, and community was built into her, her lifestyle and her habits and the way that she related. So we were having this whole discussion and she was like, I don't have this problem. She was like, my community is my entire family. Like I can call anybody in my family and know that they will be there, but that is a different mindset. So this is not her work. She's got other work, identity shifting work, but the friendship gap is not her work. And this is a beautiful thing. About working inside of my containers is that there is the one-on-one aspect. And so you work on the areas where your identity needs to shift, and that may be different from someone else. Okay. So here's your homework, my friend. Answer those 3 questions that I gave you honestly today. Do you have community or do you have contacts? Keep it real. Have you outgrown relationships without building new ones? And who are the women who would get in their car for you and drive to you immediately? Sit with those answers. Don't rush past them, okay? Because when you close the friendship gap, uh, when your primary food is full, everything else gets easier. The weight starts to move, not because you've changed your eating so much, but because you've changed what you're feeding. Did you get that? So if you want support doing this work inside a community that built for exactly this— women in the same season doing the same work, showing up for each other. You know where to find me, my home on the internet, jenniferdent.com. Or if you're interested in the Luxe Life Table, go to jenniferdent.com/april. Registration closes on April 9th. All right, y'all, live luxe. Oh, and if you want me to bring Luxe Life Table to your area, go ahead and let me know in the feedback form in the show notes for the podcast. All right, here we go. Live lux, y'all. I appreciate you. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for sharing this episode with your squad, and I will see you in the next episode. Did you love today's episode? Are you loving this podcast? Then you're going to love Forever Well, which is my exclusive newsletter where I break down how to stop self-sabotaging your weight loss, and reinvent yourself into the healthy, grown-ass, confident woman you know you want to be. Girl, each week I'm going to send you bold insights, real talk, because you know I like to keep it real, and strategies that you can actually use to start your diet-free lifestyle straight to your inbox. Subscribe now at jenniferdent.com/emailclub or find the link link in the show notes and start your reinvention today. Oh, and if you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review because it helps more women just like you find this life-changing work. All right, y'all, head on over to jenniferdent.com/emailclub to get Forever Well. All right, live luxe, and I'll see you in the next episode.