The Truth About Keeping Weight Off (No One Talks About This)

Losing weight is one challenge. Keeping it off is another. Research shows that most people regain the weight they've lost within a few years, not because they lack willpower, but because they were never taught what comes after weight loss. In this episode, Dr. Mindy breaks down the science behind weight regain and shares the eight most common reasons people struggle to maintain their results. From metabolic flexibility and hormone balance to muscle, stress, and sleep, she explains why lasting success requires a different approach than simply losing weight. You'll also learn five practical steps to help your body adapt to its new weight, support a healthy metabolism, and build habits that last long after the scale changes. If you've ever lost weight only to gain it back, this episode will help you understand why and show you a different path forward. Key Takeaways Why losing weight and maintaining weight loss require different strategies What "catch-up fat" is and how it influences weight regain How your fat cells develop a "memory" after weight loss How flexible fasting supports maintenance better than chronic fasting The role hormones play in preventing weight regain Five daily habits that support healthy weight maintenance Resources Mentioned Free Nervous System Questionnaire https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/nervous-system-reset?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=nervous_system_resetDr. Mindy's Books https://www.drmindypelz.com/booksReset Academy https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/reset-academy?utm_source=libsyn&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=&utm_content=loc-description&utm_campaign=reset-academyBurn Fat Like a Girl Reset https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/fat-burner-reset?utm_source=libsyn&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=&utm_content=loc-description&utm_campaign=resetFor more resources related to today’s episode, visit the podcast episode page: drmindypelz.com/ep352 https://www.drmindypelz.com/ep352 Connect with Dr. Mindy: Join Reset Academy https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/reset-academy?utm_source=libsyn&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=&utm_content=loc-description&utm_campaign=reset-academyWatch the episodes on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DrMindyPelz?sub_confirmation=1Follow Dr. Mindy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr.mindypelz/Subscribe to Dr. Mindy’s newsletter https://www.drmindypelz.com/ Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, fasting routine, or lifestyle.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mindy Pelz?

  I want to invite you to something that I am crazy excited about. This October 3rd and 4th, I'll be joining an incredible group of speakers at Empower Your Life, a live event at the Alex Theater in Glendale, California. We'll spend two days exploring health, personal growth, mindset, and practical tools to help you create meaningful change in your life. I'll be there alongside speakers like Suzy Orman, Jim Quick, Jamie Kern Lima, Brendan Bouchard, Nancy Levin, and many more. It's going to be an amazing weekend filled with learning, connection, and inspiration.

• 0:44Mindy Pelz?

  I'd love to see you there. I'd also love to give you a big hug. And you can grab your VIP or general admission ticket by visiting hayhouse.com/DrMindy. That's hayhouse.com/DrMindy. I can't wait to see you. Hey, Dr. Mindy here, and welcome to the Live Like a Girl podcast, where I bring you icons, disruptors, educators, scientists, and doctors that show you what can be possible when you love and celebrate the female body you are blessed to live in. Let's dive in.

• 1:27Mindy Pelz?

  There's a number that stops most women in their tracks. People who lose weight, 80% of them, gain that weight back within five years. And the weight loss drugs, I think we're already hearing a lot of DIMM statistics there, but they are showing that people who have been on the weight loss drugs and get off will gain about 2/3 of the weight back within a year.

• 1:58Mindy Pelz?

  I find this really fascinating because I don't actually think we have a weight loss challenge. We have a how do I not regain the weight challenge? And in this video, I'm going to show you eight different reasons why somebody gains the weight back, or why they will actually keep the weight off. And as always, I'm going to give you five action steps that you can apply right now to make sure that you don't fall into these statistics. Are you ready? Let's dive in.

• 2:39Mindy Pelz?

  First, I just want to tell you that your body doesn't want another crash diet. It wants steady habits. Real food, real muscle building, real sleep. It wants balance. The human body thrives in balance. And when we start to gain weight, it's a sign we've gotten out of balance. Maybe we have too much glucose, maybe we have too much cortisol, but there is an out of balance state that the body is in while it's gaining weight. So the goal of weight loss needs to be, how do I bring my body back into balance?

• 3:20Mindy Pelz?

  Starving yourself, not working out, stressing yourself to weight loss, those do not work. So we've got to start to change the way we approach even the weight loss experience. Now, the only reason that they started on a diet, or they started the meds, was to lose weight. They didn't have an after plan. They didn't have what's going to happen to me after I lose the weight. Nobody's ever thinking about that because they think, oh my God, how am I going to lose weight? So we got to come up with an end goal in mind. It's a very different skill to keep the weight off than to actually lose the weight.

• 4:03Mindy Pelz?

  Those are two different scenarios. So the first reason is we don't have a long-term plan. We have a get this weight off me plan. We don't have how do you keep it off? So let's start by creating a dual plan for both of those.

• 4:23Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, number two. And this one is, this one's intense. So I'm gonna read you the statistics and the science that I found on this. But there's something that was printed in the reviews in endocrine and metabolic disorders. This came out of a 2025 review. And scientists found something called ketchup fat. That sucks. Ketchup fat? Not like ketchup, like ketchup you put on your fries and your hamburger. But like, I'm, I lost some fat, now I gotta catch it up. And this is what this review said. It's after a big weight loss, you burn fewer calories than expected for your new size.

• 5:08Mindy Pelz?

  And so that idea that your metabolism slows down because you're at a new size? That's part of the reason that the minute you start to eat, especially those of you on the weight loss drugs, you start to eat and all of a sudden your metabolism is at a slower rate. I'm gonna show you how to fix this. And when the rate, when the fat, the weight comes back, fat returns faster than muscle. We're gonna, we're gonna end that problem today, too. Now, we also, there was a study in 2024, study in Nature that said your fat tissue can hold on to changes even after you lose weight, like a memory of being bigger.

• 5:54Mindy Pelz?

  It showed this study, I'll link everything in here, showed that mice, it was done in mice, those cells were primed to regain the weight. It's like, think about this for a minute. It's like, you have all these cells in your body, you lost all the weight, they have a memory of the old you, and they're like, okay, we just wanna go back to the old me. Think about how many times you've tried to change any habit in your life, and then you just fall back into the old place that you were. Well, it turns out that our fat cells have that same kind of memory. So, one of the things that the study said that fascinated me was after you lose weight, your body burns fewer calories than it should for your new size. And that slowdown can stick around for a while. I'll show you how to prevent that.

• 6:39Mindy Pelz?

  And when the weight comes back, it comes back as fat, not muscle. Okay. Number three reason that people regain the weight is they are not metabolically flexible. Everything I teach here is about metabolic flexibility. So remember, you are a sugar burner and a fat burner. And when we just work with manipulating the types of food and the amount of food that we are eating, and we try to diet that way, we've only accessed one metabolic system. But this other metabolic system over here is your fat burner metabolic system.

• 7:20Mindy Pelz?

  And what happens is that you need to learn how to switch from both of these. Very much like day and night. Or the nervous system has relax and revved up. Rest and digest, fight or flight. There is a switch with our metabolism where we're supposed to go in and out. So if I lost weight, because all I did is manipulate the calories coming in, or manipulating the amount of food, or even manipulating the macros, and all I did is stay within that sugar burner system, and I never worked on metabolic flexibility, and I didn't get over into that fat burner system, then I'm going to regain that weight,

• 8:02Mindy Pelz?

  because you need a lubricated metabolic switch. I've been thinking about this a lot for those of you that are on the weight loss drugs. Is like, if you're going to eat, let's put your eating in one little eating window and teach you how to fast. So if you're not hungry while you're on these drugs, let's teach your body how to be metabolically flexible, so it's easier to get off of them. Okay, number four is that we have to start looking at fasting as a tool, not a forever tool. So, the last reason was because nobody fasted.

• 8:41Mindy Pelz?

  The next reason, the fourth reason that people gain the weight back is because they don't customize their fasting. And this is a big thing I'm bringing forward on my videos right now. I'm calling it flex fasting. Knowing when to fast and when not to fast. Knowing when to eat breakfast and when not to eat breakfast. You get to choose. Now, let me give you something very simple to think about. If you've had a hard week or bad sleep, you want to shorten your fasts. You want to focus more on protein and fiber for eating. You don't want to go into longer fasts, even if that longer fast got you the weight result that you're living in right now. Don't keep throwing longer and longer fasts at it.

• 9:26Mindy Pelz?

  If you've hit that place of, "I'm feeling great, I love where I'm at, I don't want to lose more weight," don't keep throwing the longer fasts at it, especially if stress is high. If you've had a calm, well-rested week, then sure, you could go into a little bit of a longer window. Okay, number five is you want to protect your hormones. So, a lot of people are losing weight and they're also hormonally imbalanced, especially those of you here in my community. A lot of you are in your perimenopausal years. And so, maybe your doctor put you on both HRT and maybe put you on Ozempic as well.

• 10:07Mindy Pelz?

  That is what we call a pharmaceutical hormonal change. It's not a physiological hormonal change. So, we want to make sure that we're still doing a lifestyle that helps to balance these hormones. So, for estrogen, for example, estrogen likes glucose to be low. So, that works well if you've gotten your hemoglobin A1C somewhere around 5 and you're able to fast a little longer without Going completely crazy. You know you're metabolically flexible. That's awesome. Estrogen also loves fiber. So make sure that you're eating plenty of fiber. So you can break that estrogen down.

• 10:49Mindy Pelz?

  Um, so that you are still working on a lifestyle that balances estrogen. If you don't know what that lifestyle is, I've written a few books for you. The easiest one, Eat Like a Girl, has charts on what does it look like to eat for estrogen? It has recipes as well. We also have cortisol to contend with. So when you hit that moment where you don't want to regain it. One of the reasons you'll regain it despite eating anything or not eating anything is because your cortisol levels go up. When cortisol goes up, what ends up happening is your body starts to hold on to weight, specifically in the belly.

• 11:32Mindy Pelz?

  So you want to make sure I'm at a plateau, then I want to, or at my foundation, I want to look around and go, okay, what, what, how are my hormones? How's my stress level? Am I eating for estrogen? Is everything good here? Because estrogen is not just a reproductive hormone. It is a fundamental hormone that shapes how a woman's body regulates itself. For some of you, going on hormone replacement is great. For others of you, hormone replacement hasn't been really good. But we want to make sure we're always looking at the hormonal lens because you may have calorie counted and got your weight down, but you didn't realize you needed to balance your hormones too.

• 12:15Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, number six reason that people either gain it back or don't gain it back is they don't focus on muscle. The best way I can think about muscle for you all is it's a pantry for glucose. The more muscle you have, the more glucose can get in to a muscle and be used for energy. This is why strength training is such an important metabolic tool. Because if you've gotten to your ideal weight, I'm going to really encourage you to keep working on those lifting the heavy weight so you can get plenty of muscle so that there's places for insulin to put glucose.

• 12:59Mindy Pelz?

  Muscle is probably the single most important thing you can do for keeping weight off. The challenge we have is that sometimes you add muscle on and then your clothes feel a little tight, but it's a different type of tightness, it's coming from muscle. There was a 21 meta-analysis in the Journal of Sports Medicine that showed when researchers pulled dozens of studies, so it was a meta-analysis where they looked at many studies together, they found that strength training alone, this is without diet, alone lowered body fat, including that deep belly fat.

• 13:40Mindy Pelz?

  And unlike cardio, cardio doesn't burn, remember we used to think cardio was the thing that burned fat, turns out weightlifting is because cardio doesn't build muscle necessarily. And so we want to make sure that you are building muscle with strength training so you can protect your metabolism. Okay, I have something I've got to say that I really think a lot of women need to hear. If you've ever followed a health program and it didn't work, check this out. This is not your fault. I promise you, let me explain. Most fitness programs, most fasting protocols, most dietary advice, it was researched on men, it was designed for men, and then handed to women with a shrug and a here you go, hope

• 14:25Mindy Pelz?

  this works for you. But here's the thing, you operate on a 28-day hormonal cycle. The foods you eat, the length of your fasts, even the intensity of your workouts, all of it needs to be timed to where you are in that cycle to actually get a result. This is the science I teach inside my Reset Academy. This is the science that I have researched for over a decade. And inside my academy, every month, I walk you through it in a very practical and actionable

• 14:57Mindy Pelz?

  And way, and it's actually built for your body, for a feminine body. So it's gonna work. I promise you, I see it over and over again. This is a moment to get back into relationship with this beautiful body that you are so blessed to live in. So if you're ready to finally understand this incredible body of yours and work with it, instead of constantly fighting against it, come find me over in the Reset Academy. That's resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. I'll see you there. Okay, number seven. A lot of people lose weight through restriction. But in order to keep the weight off, we need to move from restriction to nourishment.

• 15:41Mindy Pelz?

  So keeping weight off isn't about how little you eat. It may have been to get you there, but it now the goal is how well can you nourish yourself? So this means fiber. This means protein. This means healthy fats. This means nature's carbs. This means whole foods. We want to go back to a way of eating that is is not counting macros. It's not counting calories, that we are looking at things like, are we eating the rainbow? That's still a phenomenal idea. Are we eating the rainbow? Eat as many different colored fruits and vegetables.

• 16:24Mindy Pelz?

  Are you getting a good dose of healthy fats like olive oil? Are we looking at things like clean proteins? And getting enough protein, 30 grams of protein per meal is still considered one of the best ways. So I think we got in the keto world, the fasting world, the biohacking world, we got really obsessed with macros. Once you get to, and calories even, once you get to that steady spot, I want you to focus on nourishment and give up the counting. Okay. Number eight, this one is fascinating to me is I want you to understand the body changes. It doesn't stay the same.

• 17:08Mindy Pelz?

  Your body in maintenance isn't fixed to a weight, a specific weight. You are going to go two to four pounds up and down. That is pretty normal. So I don't want you to get on the scale. If you're a scale watcher, go up four pounds and be like, ah, I'm gaining it back. It's normal for most people to go two to four pounds. So don't freak out. This is why I'm not a fan of watching the scale. I'd rather you put a blood sugar reader on, a continuous glucose reader, and think about how your clothes are fitting.

• 17:49Mindy Pelz?

  Those are better measurements than that scale because you are going to fluctuate. And keeping weight off is not a straight line. And anybody who promises you is that it is a straight line is selling you something. The body's going to go up and down and up and down. So let's not freak out when there's a two to four pound swing. Let's keep our focus on those whole foods. Let's make sure we're metabolically flexible. Let's make sure we're balancing our hormones, everything that I've mentioned here. And you won't go back to the old person that you were. And you will retrain those fat cells with enough time.

• 18:29Mindy Pelz?

  90 days is typically what it takes for a body to settle into a new state. So take, once you lose that weight, no, it's not a 90 day period in there where you gotta stay the course, not the restriction course, the nourishment course. And don't get obsessed by what that scale says two to four pounds is normal. Here are your five action steps. And I've done them easiest to the hardest. So first, I want you to redefine the finish line. So those of you who have lost weight, if you've come to this video and you're like, what do I do now? I want you to not look at the weight loss as the finish line.

• 19:14Mindy Pelz?

  The finish line is when you can go an extended period of time without regaining it. If you were on the weight loss drugs, you have outperformed the most people's experience. If you were going a year without gaining it back. If you are statistically on other diets, five years. So dieting isn't about a temporary result. It's about changing a lifestyle so you live in a body you love. So let's redefine the finish line. Okay, number two, you're going to anchor every single meal with protein. I'm even going to throw in protein and fiber because my new obsession is fiber. But I want you to think at every meal, protein.

• 19:59Mindy Pelz?

  Where's my protein? I want 30 grams of protein with some fiber. Drizzle a little fat if you want over that. But become fiber and protein obsessed. Don't always go after your taste buds and what they want. Let's look at how we keep it in a place where we're giving your body the nutrients it needs to keep the weight off. Okay, number three, flex fasting. Remember, sometimes we fast, sometimes we don't. Know where your nervous system is at. If it's been a rough week, we're going to go down into a lower fast. If the week's been great, you can do a little bit of a higher fast. Number four, we're going straight training, two to three times a week, heavy as you can.

• 20:43Mindy Pelz?

  We want to break these muscles down so they build them back up stronger. So they can be an incredible pantry for your glucose to go into and to be used. If the pantry is small or the pantry is locked, then that extra glucose is going to fat. So muscle, muscle, muscle. And number five is make sleep and stress management a non-negotiable.

• 21:11Mindy Pelz?

  Now, stress management is tricky, right? Like, we're all trying to manage stress differently. I've done a lot of videos on if you have stress, a stressful moment, go for a walk so you can utilize that cortisol. So there's a lot of tips here on my channel for stress management. Sleep, the way you master sleep is by prioritizing it. And if you're really struggling with sleep, and you're a woman over 40, check out Age Like a Girl. I put a whole chapter in here on sleep that's phenomenal. There's many different ways to get yourself to sleep. I also have a few videos on sleep that give you a whole checklist. But we have to start to prioritize this. Now, if this is overwhelming for you, come join me in my Reset Academy.

• 21:57Mindy Pelz?

  On July 13th, we start a new two-week program called Burn Fat Like a Girl, where I'll walk you through all the principles I teach here on my YouTube to not only lose weight, but to keep weight off. So if you're struggling, know that's available to you. Okay, I want you to think about this very clearly. Lasting weight loss is not about shrinking yourself. It's about energy. It's about strength. It's about health. It's not about deprivation. So please know that you may have used deprivation to get here, but I don't want you to use deprivation to continue going forward. I want you to change that relationship with food. Understand food is your friend, it's not your enemy.

• 22:42Mindy Pelz?

  I want you to get used to these fasting lengths because your metabolic flexibility is key for keeping the weight off. I want you to experiment with different ways to manage stress that might be different than what you've ever done. I want you to prioritize sleep. I want you to eat protein. There's so many things you can do. So I want you to build a toolbox for the next phase of weight loss, which is keeping it off. And most importantly, don't give up on yourself. You did it. You got to this point. Now, let's get you to the next level of weight loss, which is maintenance. As always, I hope that helps.