“Lose Weight”. Another Phrase To Retire In 2022.

There’s a conversation going on highlighting words and phrases that we need to lay to rest in 2022.  I have one to add to that list: ”lose weight”.  Seriously!  That 2-word phrase along with any and all variations thereof needs to go.  *Buh-bye.*

It’s not about weight loss for crying out loud. It’s about losing excess body fat.  Not all of our fat so we look emaciated.  That is not healthy.  

I’m talking about abdominal fat.  “Big belly” fat.  Especially the hard belly fat.  The belly that when you touch it, it is hard as a rock, that fat.  And liver fat, the deadliest of all.  These are the types of fat that take up residence behind the abdominal wall and surrounds our vital organs.  

This is also the kind of body fat that you can’t see from just looking at someone.  

There’s a term T.O.F.I.: Thin on the Outside, Fat on the Inside.  It’s often used to describe sarcopenic obesity.  “Sarco-” is muscle tissue, “-penic” is loss.  The loss is in mass (size) and strength.  Sarcopenic obesity is when someone is the same size but what was once muscle is now fat.  

To be clear, the muscle didn’t turn into fat. That’s not how things work.  

What happened is a change in proportion of the muscle and the fat.  This is where the phrase “if you don’t use it, you lose it” comes into play.  Muscles need to be fed, stressed (used) and rested to maintain their size and capabilities.  When we stop looking out for them, they shrink.  And body fat can come in and take up residence resulting in one essentially being the same size.  This phenomenon is in response to elevated insulin levels which lead to insulin resistance and a plethora of chronic diseases.  Look it up, you’ll be amazed this is even a “thing”.  

I saw this phenomenon in the flesh amongst my elder clients when I just started practicing.  Sadly, over my 25 year career the ages got younger and younger.  

Guys would exclaim they still wore the same size jeans as when they were in their 20s. These were comments mainly from men who wore their pants low enough to allow their bellies to “Dun-lop” over the top. Ever heard of ”Dunlop Disease”?  It’s a thing.  (But don’t bother looking that up, I don’t think that’s an official medical term.)  

Now the women rarely ever made that same jeans comment to me.  It was almost always the inverse.  They developed more fat over time.  The whole body usually padded itself with more fat; belly, booty, boobs.  Name the area, it often had more padding with time.  

Now the jiggly belly fat is not as much a concern, but it is often covering over the hard belly fat so there’s that.  And the “junk in the trunk” (booty) kind of fat, that is not nearly as big a concern as that of the belly.  

I do want to add in a caveat. There is always one or two with every topic when it comes to holistic health.  

Though the extra curves are beautiful, and I mean that. Women are beautiful in every shape and size.  And while I’m saying so, I want to go on record with this.  As women, our worth is not tied to our size, nor our gravitational pull.  That is just a fact in my book.

Body shaming anyone, of any size, whether small, medium, or large, that is not okay. Not in the least.  It is us women, we are the ones tearing one another down.  (I don’t partake and I put the kibosh on that right quick when I see it.) And I see it everywhere I turn.  

I love, love, love the women in pop culture who are changing the narrative on loving their bodies in all shapes and sizes; though mostly focusing on the more full-figured, and again b-e-a-utiful!  

I don’t know exactly how to say this.  Since I am a person who speaks love into people, I don’t want to be taken out of context.  Knowing that is possible, I’ll still say this.  

Please love yourself at all sizes.  But do not conflate nor confuse that self-love with healthy.  We can be metabolically healthy in many shapes and sizes…until we are not.  

Body fat (adipose cells) are adding inflammatory chemicals to our biochemical concoction all day, every day.  As well, they contribute to an estrogen-dominant environment.  That brings with it many of the issues women face at any stage in life, seemingly more prominent in midlife and beyond.  

Adipose cells act like signal jammers in the body.  One way in which they jam us up is by interfering with our leptin signaling. 

That’s something for you to think about.  It’s not judgment, it’s biochemistry.

It’s not about “losing weight”.  

We want to keep our muscle weight (better word, “mass”), add to it even. Muscle weighs a lot. A fact I first learned in 6th grade when I was the heaviest kid in my class, not to mention, the sturdiest. The school nurse, who was weighing us in front of our whole class, mind you, said to me as she was sliding that weight thingy allllll the way to the right just before it hit the end. 

She knew how to talk to young women.  Thank God for her.  

While we’re at it, we want to keep our bone mass and weight, we’ll be all kinds of greedy as we hoard and build upon that too!  

I have been coaching people on attaining and maintaining an optimal body composition for over 3 decades.  And I’ve helped them do it with real food…every single time.  I’ve been my own consistent client for longer than that as a competitive (-ish) athlete since middle school.  (I had to put that sturdiness to work somehow!) I’ve also been my own “lab rat” so to speak, when it comes to how to properly fuel the human body and brain. 

Prior to discovering nutritional ketosis 7 years ago, it wasn’t as easy to get the results I see now.  Nutritional ketosis helps reset our metabolism.  It does this by re-sensitizing our cells to insulin. This is the crux of the matter.  In my opinion and vast experience, nutritional ketosis is the metabolic motherland for the vast majority of midlife women I’ve worked with as well as for myself ever since I adopted this way of eating many moons ago.  

How you get your keto on can vary and there’s no one-size-fits-all. Every woman is unique, but there are metabolic commonalities amongst us.  There is no pill, nor potion, no elixir, nor powder to buy.  No patch will do it either. Put the money you spend on those towards groceries and spend it at the farmer’s market or with your favorite regenerative farmer.  

Nothing does the job better than real food and strategic fasting.  

Now before you freak out at the f-word “fasting”…I don’t recommend the faddish fasting or the forced fasting I see all over the internet.  I help you learn how to properly fuel your body and how to tune in to it’s affirmative nod that it is a good time to fast so you can tap into the many benefits of a recycling cycle every now and then.  

If you’ve read the research on nutritional ketosis you know it is a phenomenal built in health optimizing setting.  No question.  

Trouble is, if you’ve read the research you were most likely bored to death and it’s your ghost reading this now.  (So I don’t blame you for not doing your due diligence.  How can I?  You’re a ghost!)

I, on the other hand, find it riveting.  But I am an odd chick.  (Those who know me well would vehemently agree.)

I’ve done the vetting for you and I continue to dig into it on the regular.  I love this stuff!  Along with the research reviews, I love all things personal growth and optimal human performance. 

Mind, body, spirit stuff is totally my jam. 

I can geek out with the brainiacs, and I can sit knee to knee and walk you through what you need to do to make the changes, stick to them, and ultimately see results.  Stay plugged into the conversation here on LinkedIn by following me (@ Dr. Sam Graber) and subscribing to this weekly newsletter.