Metabolic and Mental Health
Here’s How Amber Found Her Ideal Weight After She Stopped Counting Calories.
A five-pronged experimental approach with support from others empowered her to maintain optimal weight, health, and fitness.
A Brief Introduction to Amber’s Metabolic Problem
Like other vulnerable people, for many years, I naively believed I would lose fat if I ate less and exercised more.
Unfortunately, that did not prove valid for me. In my years of practical experience, I have realized this is often one of the greatest myths of the century, entertaining or deceiving people.
I tried this approach and temporarily lost weight, but it was not fat that I lost. Most of what I lost was fluid and precious muscles. I firmly believe that fat loss has nothing to do with calorie counting.
Amber, a 47-year-old single mom with two young children in her younger years, also believed in the principles of eating less and exercising more.
But, not surprisingly, she failed and dented her metabolism, causing nutritional deficiencies and hormonal imbalances.
Every fad diet Amber tried failed as they slowed down her metabolism and made fat loss goals more difficult to achieve.
Like me, she also lost valuable muscle, further slowing her metabolism and causing imbalances in her metabolic hormones like insulin and leptin.
However, Amber found the solution when she learned to transition her body from a sugar-burning to a fat-burning mode.
In other words, when her body became fat-adapted, she significantly lost visceral fat and retained her lean muscles.
More importantly, like Eliza, she did not need to eliminate her favorite food like avocadoes, omelets packed with mushrooms, fatty beef, organ meats, butter, olives, nuts, and salmon.
However, she had to give up the fruit and vegetable juices she used to consume excessively, similar to Juliana.
This post introduces Amber’s five approaches to losing visceral fat and keeping lean muscles sustainably. These five steps in her health and fitness transformation also improved her mood contributing to her mental health.
Five Steps Helped Amber Reach Her Ideal Weight
1 — Stopped Restrictive Diets
Some of Amber’s friends gave her numerous diets that they found in weight loss magazines and on the Internet. She religiously counted the calories in the food she ate. Nonetheless, her comfort food cravings were driving her crazy.
Consequently, Amber lost a few kilos after each diet, but she gained them back quickly (in a few weeks). Sometimes she gained even more weight after she stopped the diet.
One day in desperation, she shared her concern with her family doctor. The physician was knowledgeable and caring. He advised Amber to stop dieting and see a dietician who could create a plan for her.
As Amber couldn’t afford to pay a dietician, the physician formally referred her through medicare as an exceptional case as her medical history depicted metabolic syndrome.
By reviewing her medical history and looking at the bloodwork, the dietician created a customized diet for Amber. Almost every food Amber liked was in this diet. Like Eliza, she enjoyed both animal and plant-based nutrition.
Within three months, her hunger pangs disappeared, and she lost a few inches from her waistline. However, she needed a few more pieces to complete her puzzle.
Firstly, the dietician introduced her to skipping a meal for a few weeks. After that, Amber had no difficulty skipping one breakfast or lunch as she was satisfied with her customized diet. Amber also had no problem cutting snacks, as advised by the dietician. Interestingly, she never needed to snack again.
Then, the dietician advised her to start a customized exercise regime with the help of a qualified fitness coach. Amber said she did a lot of exercise at home and would not be able to afford to hire a coach.
But, ironically, the exercise she did at home was one of the culprits for her fat gain.
2 — Reduced Excessive Cardio
When she had her first kid, Amber purchased a treadmill and an elliptical machine with her limited budget as she couldn’t go to the gym and take long walks with her friends.
She used to do hours of cardio on a treadmill while looking after the kids or watching TV for several years. She sweated intensely, hoping to lose fat. Her knees were sore, but she did not lose noticeable fat.
Her waistline always stayed the same and sometimes got bigger even though she slightly lost a few inches from her buttocks. After those intense cardio workouts, her leg muscles shrank, losing strength.
One day, I introduced Amber to Eliza at a Sunday barbeque. This meeting was a serendipitous encounter for her as Eliza shared her experience and referred Amber to her fitness coach, Adrian.
As Amber couldn’t afford personalized training, Adrian volunteered to prepare a fitness plan and coach her occasionally on the phone. The first solution Adrian offered was to reduce cardio as much as possible.
They agreed on a 30-minute sweet spot. After that, she took 10 minutes of cardio two hours after the main meals to make her body more insulin sensitive.
The next solution was to increase resistance training.
3 — Increased Resistance Workouts
Unfortunately, Amber did not have the time and money to go to the gym. She also had no resistance training equipment at home. But Eliza helped her by lending two of her dumbbell sets, including five and ten kilos.
Amber started with five kilos, as advised by Adrian. In addition, Adrian introduced her to planking, push-ups, sit-ups, lunge walk, squats, shoulder presses, triceps kickbacks, lateral raises, and bicep curls with five-kilo dumbbells.
After noticing a significant improvement in her muscle tone, strength, flexibility, and agility within three months, Adrian advised Amber to do the same workouts with ten-kilo dumbells.
Amber practiced these workouts for another three months. Her weight did not change much, but she noticed a few inches shrinking in her belly. Adrian confirmed that Amber was gaining muscles; therefore, the scale did not show much change.
Her metabolism increased, but she felt stressed about not losing noticeable belly fat. Adrian knew the situation. The cause was Amber’s sleep deprivation. Thus, he suggested Amber see a social worker funded by the government for unemployed single mothers who create improvement plans for them.
4 — Improved Sleep Quality
Being a mum and a dad to two young kids ruined Amber’s sleep patterns. She used to feel awful after sleepless nights. Then, one day she had an appointment with a social worker who informed, guided and inspired Amber.
This professional provided two practical solutions.
The first solution was to request help from others.
But unfortunately, Amber was shy and never asked for help from her parents and friends. Her parents loved the grandchildren, but Amber never allowed her children to stay with them.
With encouragement from the social worker, Amber requested help from her parents. Her parents loved the idea. Sometimes they stayed in Amber’s home, looking after the kids in another room, allowing her to sleep restfully. Sometimes they took the kids to their home, giving her more space.
The second solution from the social worker was to create sleep hygiene for Amber, referring her to a sleep specialist.
The solution significantly improved her sleep. After fixing her sleep problems, within a few months, Amber lost significant fat without losing any muscle. Her mood and motivation improved.
5 — Learned to Meditate for a Lifetime
Meditation was the last piece of the complex puzzle in Amber’s health and fitness transformation.
Yet, it significantly impacted sustainably maintaining a trimmed, compact, and defined body.
After noticing Amber’s stress, Eliza asked her whether she had tried meditation. Surprisingly, Amber said she was not a Buddhist or Hindu, perceiving meditation was only for certain religions.
Eliza explained the benefits of meditation from her experienced and confirmed that anyone could perform meditation. Then, she taught her breathing, attention, and focusing techniques while sitting still quietly.
Initially, Amber found it challenging to concentrate, but she could sit still for at least ten minutes in a few weeks. After workout sessions, she loved doing meditation.
These sessions significantly reduced her stress and improved her sleep after she learned to perform a 20-minute meditation.
Meditation balanced her hormones considerably, reducing elevated cortisol after cardio and resistance training. As a result, her hunger even decreased.
Amber did not feel any emotional hunger or food craving.
In addition, like Maggie (another single mum), her mood improved. She became a more creative and productive person allowing her to find her dream job after the children became teenagers.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Amber lost significant visceral fat and maintained her lean muscles using this five-step holistic approach. She did not need to count calories with fad diets and excessive cardio workouts.
She needed a customized diet and exercise regimen with a good stress management approach.
By following the advice from her friends, parents, social worker, dietician, and volunteering fitness coach, she reached her ideal weight within two years.
Her family doctor was thrilled when Amber defeated metabolic syndrome. Amber now understands that being shy does not help in achieving our goals.
From my experience, I am convinced that fat loss has nothing to do with calories. Hormones determine the outcome. Unless we maintain hormonal balance, fat loss might be highly challenging.
Fat loss is not too complicated, but we overcomplicate and make it mysterious due to myths, misinformation, ignorance, and negligence.
Understanding how metabolism works and taking corrective actions as lifestyle choices is the secret people look for in the wrong places, like expensive supplements and weight loss programs in magazines.
The key takeaway points from Amber’s health and fitness transformation included the following five points.
1 — Consider stopping fad diets and counting calories.
2 — Consider a customized diet organized by a dietitian or a nutritionist.
3 — Reduce excessive cardio and replace it with resistance training.
4 — Improve sleep quality with good hygiene, asking for help if required.
5 — Consider mindfulness practices like meditation to reduce stress.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
Here is a glimpse of my fat loss journey reflecting issues with cutting calories too much.
I shared my perspectives on hormones, which I have been studying for many years.
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I write about various hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, glutamate, and histamine.
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