96. Here's Exactly What I'd Do The Next 8 Weeks To Lose Fat Before Summer...

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Welcome to the Mind and My Wellness Podcast, your podcast for all things macros, movement, mindset, and everything in between. I'm your host, Dani Merenberg, an ex yo yo dieting cardio junkie turned sustainable nutrition coach who's helped over 1000 women feel confident in their skin by learning.

How to eat for their goals without.

Sacrificing a life well lived. I created the Mind and My Wellness Podcast to give you simple, effective, and manageable tips you can take away from each episode and implement in your daily life to look and feel like the best version of you. Each week, my guests and I teach you the secrets to mastering your health and owning your power. Nutrition, mindset, movement, and women's health are all topics you'll find here. Think of our time together as your productive little health break from the day. So grab your headphones, fill up your water, and let's dive into today's episode.

Hello. Hello, my lovely ladies. Welcome back to the Mind of my Wellness Podcast. I should actually say men, too, because I know that some of you have your husband's partners, et cetera, listening to this podcast. So I should not only call out the women, but really a lot of this has to do with women's health. So I think we're in, you know, light company here. So today I'm excited because it is getting warmer here in San Diego, where I live. The weather is turning, and for anybody that does not live in, like, warm weather year round, you're probably listening to me like, oh my gosh, you're so soft. And I am. I will fully Admit that I am extremely soft. I grew up in Northern California, which it does get cold up there. I have never lived in snow. I've never lived in snow. I've been to the snow, have never lived in it. But I am very soft. And so when it hits 40 degrees here at night, that is cold for me. And if the days are 60 degrees, whew, that is frigid in my book. So yeah, you can call me soft. And lately the weather has been warming up, the sun is out. I am just feeling this new energy, feeling really good, excited for spring and summer. And that really had me thinking that with somewhere just around the corner, I'm seeing my DMs blow up. I'm seeing people coming into our programs ready to get serious for summer because they want to look good, they want to feel good. And my biggest takeaway from this is that oftentimes we're so used to crash dieting, we're so used to fad diets where you can like lose weight really quickly before summer. And truthfully that's not sustainable. You're not going to see long term fat loss that way. And so I wanted to do a whole episode on this and how to properly go about losing body fat. But if you are listening right now and you're like, okay, but like, I do want to still look and feel better before summer comes around because I have vacation. I want to be in a bathing suit and not feel self conscious, then I got you. I'm going to give you tips and tricks on this episode as well that are going to help. But from a sustainable perspective where you can take these things, these are the oftentimes unsexy things. You know, you'll see the ads, you'll see the supplements that are like, lose weight quickly with this supplement or drink this green tea thing. And the truth is that there's no magic pill when it comes to reducing body fat and actually seeing that fat loss stay off long term, other than the unsexy things that we're going to talk about today. But some of these things might be a little bit more advanced or more fine detailed than what you're used to hearing. So stick around and listen to all the tips I have that can really help you get summer ready and kick off. You can really start at any time. You don't have to start January to like start this new you trend. Right? So last week I hosted three live trainings where I talked all about this two step formula that I use with all of my clients. It's science Based, it literally works for everybody. So if you missed that live training, don't worry, I'll do more in the future. But some of the things we'll talk about in today's episode kind of fall into that two step formula. So first, what I want to really differentiate is this difference between weight loss and fat loss. Because we oftentimes are like, I want to lose weight before summer. Great, you can lose weight, but you could lose weight through water, you could lose weight through muscle, or you could lose weight through fat. And really what a lot of us want is fat loss. So I talk about this on end, I feel like where I really just want to change the vocabulary to focus on I want to reduce body fat, I want to lose fat, I want to focus on fat loss, not necessarily weight loss. Now, with fat loss will come weight loss oftentimes than most times. However, muscle is at play here too. And we want to build muscle or preserve muscle. And when we're building muscle, the scale will go up or it will hold steady if you're in a fat loss phase. So, so that's where weight really should be looked at as one data point and not an end all, be all. And it's really fat loss that we're trying to target. So there's a huge difference between weight loss and fat loss. And I want to help you change that vocabulary. So when you're thinking about how I want to lose weight, are you actually wanting to lose muscle, are you wanting to lose water weight or is it primarily fat? And for a large majority of us, it is fat that we're trying to lose. Now, what does sustainable fat loss look like realistically? Fat loss from a sustainable perspective, when you're losing fat in a healthy way while still preserving and optimizing your hormones, which is key for women, this is going to look like anywhere from half a pound to two pounds per week. In my experience, I would say more likely than not, it's a half a pound to about a pound a week. If you're in a much steeper deficit, you might be able to see that £2. Usually that's at the beginning of a fat loss phase and that is oftentimes due to some of that water retention that you're holding on, where you can see quicker weight loss at the beginning of a dieting period than you can in the middle and the end of that dieting period. And that has nothing to do with if it's working or not. That has everything to do with at the beginning. It is easier to lose weight because it's not just fat that you're losing at the beginning. A lot of that is water and that bloating too, at the beginning. So look at your progress over time. Set a timeframe for yourself. I like to say if you have a planned diet, which I recommend everybody focus on nutrition periodization, which is one of the steps in the formula that I talked about in my trainings last week. But this is really where we're focusing on spending proper amounts of time in each of the dieting phases, the cut phase, the reverse diet, maintenance, and if you're trying to build muscle more quickly, the surplus phase. So making sure that you are in a deficit anywhere from you could be in a deficit as short as four weeks if you only have like a little bit that you're trying to just like tone up a bit. But I typically say eight weeks to 16 weeks for most people. And in that timeframe, don't worry too much about the fluctuations. You are going to see your weight drop, hold steady, increase some days, look at a weekly average weight, and then really look at your starting weight to your end weight of that timeframe. Because it's not going to be this perfect downward trajectory. It's going to be this journey to get there. But what you should see is point A is, let's say you know, you're 150 pounds. You, your goal weight, which is arbitrary, right, because weight is so much more than just body fat. But let's say you previously felt really comfortable at your maintenance, which was 140, so that's 10 pounds. So over the course of four months, if you are checking those boxes and working down to 140 from 150, it doesn't really matter the peaks and valleys that get you there. What matters is that you went from A to B, from 150 to 140, and those peaks and valleys are all part of the journey. Now, why don't these fad diets work? Why don't these, like, really quick fixes work? Well, because one, they're putting your body in a state of chronic stress. Anytime you're dieting, even in a very healthy manner, your body's under stress. Because it's not fuel fueling itself appropriately, which is why we need to spend so much time at maintenance to really see proper progress as well as feel our best. Because that's where our hormones are regulated. That's where our body and our metabolism is able to optimize. And so when we are constantly jumping in and out of these crash diets, Fad diets that are marketed to us super well, by the way, they are popping up on my Instagram all the time. And I'm like, dang, this looks really pretty. And this looks like a great idea. But I know the truth of it is that it might work for some for a short period of time, and then for others, it just won't work because they're jumping from diet to diet to diet, and they're thinking, like, this diet's not working for me. This diet's not working for me. But the truth is, is yes, the diet is not working for you. It's not a you problem. It's the diet problem. And it's all about building a custom plan to you, working with your macros and your metabolism. Now, let's jump in to the steps I would take if I wanted to reduce body fat. Remember, fat loss, not weight loss, leading into summer. Now, gosh, I don't even know how many weeks we have till summer. I'm going to say eight weeks. Because here in San Diego. Here in San Diego, sure, most places count, like June as summer. We have June gloom here. Total side note here. But if you ever come to San Diego, if you're planning a trip, I'm gonna advise you not to come in June, because people get really disappointed when they come in June and they're like, what is up with all of this, like, overcastness? We have June gloom, May gray, and June gloom. So I feel like summer here really doesn't start till July, but then we have summer until sometimes December. So I'm a little off on, like, how many weeks we have until summer. But let's say right now you have eight weeks until summer, which is well before 4th of July. Okay? So let's use 4th of July as our little marker here. If you have eight weeks, these are the steps I would recommend taking. First, I would set a baseline. You want to set a baseline. You want to understand where your current caloric intake is. So you know if you're in a deficit, you know if you're eating at maintenance, you know roughly how many calories you're eating. And. And don't worry if you're like, okay, well, I'm eating 1600 calories, but I don't know if that's a deficit or maintenance. I don't know if that's right for me. We'll talk about that, too. But you want to just track your food for a couple days a week maybe without changing anything. You might realize that some days you're eating More than others. Just notice these trends, notice how many grams of protein, carbs and fat you're eating and then average those out and that'll be your baseline. From there. I always recommend getting a professional macro count done or learning how to do it yourself. I teach both, I provide macro accounts and I also teach you how to do it yourself. So you can always DM me on Instagram. I have a bunch of links down in the show notes that can help you. But when it comes to understanding what your maintenance is, that's like the key here. You want to understand what your maintenance is and then you can use your baseline to compare to that and say, okay, my baseline is under my maintenance, so I've been eating in a calorie deficit. Or my baseline is around my maintenance, so maybe I've been at maintenance or my baseline is actually more than my maintenance. Maybe I don't even have to enter a calorie deficit to see results. Maybe I just need to get a little bit more strict at maintenance and see results. So that is step number one is really identify that baseline and then compare it to your maintenance number. And if you are at maintenance or above in your baseline, that is where I would recommend either honing in at maintenance if you're over, or slightly reducing your calories to enter a calorie deficit while prioritizing your protein and staying there for that eight weeks. Pay attention to your biofeedback. Another tip is make sure that you are adjusting your nutrition according to your biofeedback and you're not just trying to push through any signs that are trying to tell you, hey, you're eating too low or hey, this is not feeling right. Okay, so negative biofeedback can be anything from changes in your sleep patterns, hangriness, moodiness, constant thoughts of food, feeling really fatigued, tired, really noticing a huge shift in your energy and your workouts. All of this can be negative biofeedback plus so much more. So pay attention to your negative biofeedback. And again, this is why I say start small with your calorie deficit, because nine times outta ten we go so hard, so fast into a very steep calorie deficit, thinking that's going to get body fat off faster. And the truth is, is it's not sustainable for most and most people burn out after three, four weeks of that and then the body fat comes right back. So we want to do it in a very sustainable approach. We also then want to hone in more on our nutrition and, and take a very 90, 10 approach. Now, it's not a 100% perfection with your nutrition, but it's 90% perfection with your nutrition. So you are making sure that you're hitting your macros. You're making sure that you are being cognizant of the amount of food that you're eating. If you're not specifically tracking macros, but you have a good understanding of the amount of foods that you're eating as well as the quality of foods that you're eating. So most of the food should be coming from whole food sources. If you can make your foods 90% of the time, I recommend that because foods out, they contain a lot of hidden fats, carbs, things like that that you might not be accounting for. And then if you really want to see progress in these eight weeks, I would track, I would 100% track because that's the only clear cut way of seeing exactly how close you are to your goals or what exactly you are eating. Because sometimes it can be really sneaky where you think. Like me, for example, before I really got into understanding macros, I was like, oh, well, nut butters, they're healthy, they're healthy fats. And I would just eat a ton of nut butter. And I didn't realize just how much fat I was eating throughout the day. And even when I started honing back on it, I didn't realize, wow, you. Even the amount that I'm eating now, trying to be more conscious without tracking is still over the amount that my body needed for that. And I'm not balancing my foods appropriately. So once I could reel that in, you can see results much, much more efficiently and effectively. Then from there, the next thing I would do is I would increase my daily movement. And this can be anything from just increasing your steps 1500 to 2000 steps a day. So this isn't me saying, hey, you need to hit 10,000 steps a day, because for some people that's just not realistic. But what you can do is you can still increase your steps. You can still increase your daily movement. And when I say movement and steps, it's not just walking. This could be anything. This could be getting up and doing like laundry or going grocery shopping instead of ordering your groceries. Like this is just any sort of daily movement that you can get in. If you have a desk tread at your desk, great option there. I honestly, it's what saves me most of the time because I am at my desk a lot. So increasing your steps, because I've shared about this on the podcast before in a series where I break down how our body burns calories. Your daily movement accounts for more calories that you burn per day than your exercise can. So if we can manipulate your daily movement, we actually don't have to cut back as far with your calories, which, hallelujah, most of us want to eat as much as possible, right? And we can still see those results. So increasing your daily movement is a great lever to use to create more of a gap in a calorie deficit. Then I'd focus on preserving the muscle that I do have through strength training. So strength training, anywhere from three to five days a week with a progressive overload plan, making sure that you are trying to maintain, or even if you can lift heavier, but try to maintain the weight that you started with throughout the entire calorie deficit. Hydrate, hydrate every single day, making sure that you're getting half your body weight in ounces or even a little bit more. This is really going to help with digestion, which is going to help with fat loss. And if I had access to a sauna, I would do a sauna 20 to 30 minutes, maybe one to two times a week. Obviously consult with your doctor, but that can be a really great tool to help detoxify and get rid of some of the water weight. And the last piece that I want to really close here with is all of these tips that I've shared with you. Notice how none of them are. Let's enter like extreme restriction. Let's enter a super strict calorie deficit. Let's cut your calories by 500 calories, let's eat as little as possible, let's be 100% perfect. Absolutely not. Because again, it's not sustainable. And what I'm teaching you is how to lose body fat, but lose body fat for good. And all of my programs, all of my plans, everything that you will get here, all of my episodes here that are focused around fat loss and macros, they're from a very sustainable approach. What does that even mean? That means that it is sustainable for your lifestyle, meaning it can adapt to anybody's lifestyle. These are habits that you can incorporate that feel good. You don't have to go from zero to a hundred and you don't have to overhaul your whole lifestyle because most of us can't do that. Like, it's just not realistic for us. Maybe for a short time, but long term we burn out. And so that needs to be sustainable. What also needs to be sustainable is your body fat reduction. It has to be sustainable, meaning that we have to Lose weight in a very healthy way for it to actually stay off, because our hormones are at play here, too. So we want to prioritize our hormone health, our gut health, our metabolic health. And to do that, we have to do it in a long term approach, not quick fixes, not jumping from diet to diet, which, hear me out, I used to do that. So if you're like, oh, my gosh, this is what I've been doing, don't worry, we can fix your metabolism, we can rebuild, which will then in turn help your hormones. And I have a whole hormone series from March of this year. Just go back a little bit. In my podcast, we go over a ton of hormones and ways that you can influence them without having to do a ton of testing. It's like simple little things that you can do day in and day out that can help. So those episodes mixed with this episode, mixed with a ton of my other episodes, go ahead and just binge, because a lot of them are going to set you up for success if you do have a goal of feeling more confident in your bathing suit this summer. But I hope that these tips were really helpful and really outlining exactly what to do if you want to hone in and lose body fat before summer, let's say before fourth of July, which will be here before we know it. I cannot believe that. I also cannot believe that today, as I'm recording this, Blakely is seven months old. I feel like I just had her two weeks ago. Crazy. But anyway, I'm very chatty this morning. If you couldn't tell. Again, it's summer, the sun is coming out. Can you tell? I'm getting so much more energized. Anyway, if you have any questions on this, please, please, please shoot me a DM on Instagram @mindedmymacros. I love to chat about this and binge away at the podcast episodes because I have a ton of really helpful episodes to help you really hone in on whatever goal it is that you have and give so, so much free education here. So if you're loving the podcast and you are binging and you are getting a lot out of it, it would mean the world to me if you left a rating and review. Truly, that means more to me than literally anything because I pour so much into this podcast and I just want to know that it's helpful for you guys. And I love getting the DMS from you guys telling me that you love these episodes. So keep them coming because they mean the world to me. And until next week, keep minding your wellness.

Thanks so much for tuning in to today's episode. I love hearing from you, so shoot me a DM over on Instagram at mindandmymacros to keep the convo going. If you've learned anything from this episode or any of my past episodes, I'd really love it if you took a few seconds to leave a quick rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. I love you hearing what you've learned or what you've taken away from any of these episodes. It means so much to me when you do that. And if you have any friends you know that need a little help kicking some old dieting mentalities to the curb and want some simple, effective, and sustainable tips to feel their best, share a link to this episode with them. Thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you next time.