Women’s Weight Loss 101: Is Your Boyfriend’s Diet Failing You? with Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple

CONTEST INFORMATION! Reminder - there is a special keyword embedded in today’s episode where you can win a $500 gift card to Shoppers Drug Mart. Simply text the keyword plus you’re full name to 925-555. Standard message rates apply. Go to www.seekyoursounds.com/contests for contest rules. Also, if you're a PC optimum member, the Super Redemption Event at Shoppers Drug Mart runs from June 27th until July 2nd, 2025 so you can get even more points when you shop in store and online. Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode on Women’s Weight Loss: 3:36 - Kisspeptin Signaling Explained & Its Role in Weight Regulation 6:28 - Is It Easier for Men to Lose Body Fat? The Role of Testosterone & Estrogen 8:57 - Are Men Doing Something Different to Optimize Fat Loss & Muscle Gain? 11:46 - Pilates & Body Composition: Worth It for Muscle Gain and Fat Loss? 14:00 - The Impact of Perimenopause & Menopause on Body Composition 16:30 - Other Factors Behind Weight Gain in the 40s–50s Life Stage 18:13 - Diet & Exercise During Different Phases of the Menstrual Cycle 20:20 - Weight Gain Myths: Hack or Hoax? 24:21 - Intermittent Fasting & Women’s Hormones: How Concerned Should We Be? 26:24 - Best Practices for Women to Improve Body Composition & Lose Fat 28:40 - The Rise of SkinnyTok: Final Words on the “Skinny at Any Cost” Culture 32:00 - Why the Pressure to Be Thin Hits Women Harder: Stigma, Discrimination & Health Risks Check in with today’s amazing guest: Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple Website: drlaurencs.com X: @drlaurencs1 Instagram: @drlaurencs1 References: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10346027/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19165161/ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2008.636 https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/statistics/ Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. Don’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✨ Reach Your Weight & Health Goals — Without Dieting! Pre-order The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, Abbey’s revolutionary additive approach to eating well. Learn how to boost satiety, stabilize blood sugars, reduce disease risk, and improve your relationship with food — all while getting the best nutrient bang for your caloric buck. With 400+ research citations, cheat sheets, evidence-based actionable tips, meal plans, and adaptable recipes, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is the only nutrition bible you’ll ever need. 👉 Pre-order today! 🛒 Where to Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble Amazon Kindle Apple Books Google Play Kobo Apple Books (Audiobook) Audible abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✉️ Subscribe to My Newsletters: Abbey’s Kitchen Newsletter 📘 Check out my FREE E-Books: Hunger Crushing Combo™ E-Book Protein 101 E-Book 👋 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchen TikTok: @abbeyskitchen YouTube: @AbbeysKitchen Blog: abbeyskitchen.com Book: The Mindful Glow Cookbook • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 🎧 Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen — and leave us a review! It really helps support the show ❤️ 💬 If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review — and let me know who you’d love to hear about next! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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• 0:30Abbey Sharp?

  This idea that we would need to adjust things based on menstrual cycle phase is not supported by any data. And importantly, when we look at these diagrams and programs that are saying, "Do this for one week and then this for one week", they all assume this cookie cutter 28-day cycle length. That's not the reality for the vast majority of menstrual cycles.

• 1:00Abbey Sharp?

  Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good.

• 1:14Abbey Sharp?

  Today, we're going to be talking about weight loss specifically for women. Compared to our male counterparts in general, we do have different hormones, body composition, and relationships with food that may influence our weight loss outcomes. And still, it seems that a lot of weight loss management research and best practices have been drawn from male populations. And when women are included in studies, results are not always broken down by sex. Weight loss trials also typically exclude pregnant, lactating, or post-menopausal women, which limits our understanding of weight management strategies across the female lifespan.

• 1:57Abbey Sharp?

  And the ironic thing here is that while the hard science for women may still be a little bit lacking, we are the core target of most of the pseudoscience weight loss tips online.

• 2:10Abbey Sharp?

  The bad and the skinny talk of it all. So joining me today to help provide some of that hard science is Dr. Lauren Colenso Semple. Lauren is a PhD muscle physiology, research and science communicator specializing in how female hormones affect exercise-induced adaptations. Today, we'll be covering the sex-specific differences between men and women when it comes to weight loss and body composition and what men may be doing better than us to get an edge. We will also be talking about how our unique hormones affect exercise, diet, and body fat related to menopause and different phases of our life cycle. We will then be discussing the impact of intermittent fasting on women's hormones

• 2:53Abbey Sharp?

  and best practices for women looking to lose body fat and maintain muscle mass. Plus, we will get Lauren's take on these skinny talk movements targeting of women. A quick note that I will be using exclusive woman language, even though we are largely talking about ovarian hormones, which may be, of course, present regardless of gender identity. And as always, I want to remind everyone that this is not a replacement for personalized health advice. So please do speak with a registered dietitian or healthcare provider if you have fat loss or muscle growth goals. Okay, but before we get too far into things, I have a very exciting giveaway to tell you about midway through the show. So you've got to listen super carefully.

• 3:37Abbey Sharp?

  All right, let's get into it.

• 3:46Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, Lauren, thank you so much for coming. It is such a pleasure to have you on.

• 3:51Speaker 05

  Thank you so much.

• 3:52Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, so there's like this like universal meme that I feel like I can picture it now. I've seen it a million times. It's like husband cuts out a beer a week and seemingly like loses 10 pounds. Wife is living off vegetables and boiled chicken and is like gaining two pounds. So like, it just feels like the internet is rife with this assumption that, you know, traditional calories in versus calories out just doesn't work for women the way it does for men. Like, and maybe that's partially from women's own kind of experience, struggling more than their male counterparts to lose weight. But more scientifically, folks tend to kind of quote something called kiss-peptin signaling. Can you kind of explain that and what the research actually says on this?

• 4:33Speaker 05

  Well, what we know about kisspeptin specifically is that it's involved in reproductive function, but the claims around its involvement in nutrient sensitivity or appetite regulation, especially when it comes to sex-based differences, all come from rodent models. So there is a paper in Rodents where they deleted the kisspeptin receptor, which you can do in a rodent model. You can delete a gene, you can overexpress a gene to kind of identify some of the mechanisms behind what might be going on. And they found that by deleting that receptor, the female mice

• 5:15Speaker 05

  gained weight and the male mice did not. Now, we need to be very careful about extrapolating really any rodent data to humans because we have a much more complex and dynamic physiology. And we see time and time again that while rodents provide a great starting point to generate hypotheses, they often don't pan out in the same way in humans. And there are only a couple of papers looking at the role of kisspeptin and appetite regulation in humans, and they didn't really show much at all. So I would say those experts would probably say our

• 5:58Speaker 05

  understanding of kisspeptin is kind of in its infancy, but there isn't any compelling human data to show that it's involved in any of this at all. And so we really shouldn't be looking at that when we're talking about, does a calorie deficit work for women differently than it would work for men?

• 6:16Abbey Sharp?

  And does it work differently for women than it does for men?

• 6:19Speaker 05

  Our starting point might be different because, you know, your average man might have their maintenance calories at a higher point, meaning how much you can eat to kind of maintain your body weight day in and day out. Perhaps that is at a higher point for the man than it is for the woman. And so to your example, oh, he can just cut out a Couple beers and he starts losing weight. Well, he has more wiggle room there. And so you probably might feel the deficit more than he would, if that makes sense.

• 6:57Abbey Sharp?

  That definitely makes sense. And then what about differences in, you know, fat loss? And I just want to clarify because I think some people often don't realize that. But obviously there's a difference between fat loss, which is what most people want to accomplish, and just weight loss, which will also include some proportionally lean mass like muscle. Is it easier for men to lose body fat while maintaining or building muscle mass? Just due to differences with testosterone, estrogen, you know, hormones?

• 7:25Speaker 05

  Well, the average adult man does have more muscle than the average adult woman. And that is due to testosterone increases during puberty. That surge occurs along with an increase in muscle mass. And so if you have two people who've never lifted weights, the man will have more muscle than the woman. It's also true that on average, women tend to store more body fat than men, you know, as a percentage of total weight. So we are, there are these sex-based differences in body composition. But our ability to change those is fairly similar relatively speaking.

• 8:07Speaker 05

  So when we say relative to your starting point, which was perhaps higher or lower, we can increase muscle mass or lose body fat at similar rates. But if you had a different, a substantially different starting point, then that rate of progress and your ability to see it visually might differ. And the other component of that is body fat distribution. So where are we storing the body fat? And are we really focusing on it in one place instead of overall?

• 8:39Abbey Sharp?

  And I mean, is there a difference between men and women in terms of where we are storing our fat? I mean, obviously we have breasts, so there's more breast tissue. But any other differences in terms of, you know, abdominally, hips, thighs?

• 8:51Speaker 05

  So again, on average, most women tend to store more body fat in the hips and thighs, and most men tend to store more body fat in the abdominal region and lower back. But there are definitely exceptions to that in both sexes.

• 9:08Abbey Sharp?

  So I guess that's kind of one of our little wins because, you know, the abdominal fat does carry some, you know, additional health risks when it comes to at least the visceral fat. So yeah, that's one win for us women, I suppose. So if we are physiologically not hugely disadvantaged, are men doing something that women are not doing in their protocols that seem to be helping them to kind of better optimize body composition? Or is this just kind of like our perception of what's happening?

• 9:37Speaker 05

  I think, and this isn't a scientific perspective per se, I would say this is just more my, my general overview, having been a fitness professional, having done work as a scientist in this area. I think you tend to see men start to lift weights earlier and then more often. And we also see men kind of stick to a similar program for an extended period of time. Whereas I see a lot of women tend to switch it up a lot. So, you know, I'm really into this class, and then I'm really into this class. Or I'm doing Pilates today and a cycling class on Wednesday, and maybe I'm doing a

• 10:19Speaker 05

  little bit of, of strength training on Friday. But it's, it's a lot less consistent, and therefore it's less progressive. And so when we think about changing body composition in terms of putting on some muscle and losing some body fat, the things that we need to do for muscle growth are the same for, for men and for women. But sometimes women aren't applying those basics as rigorously and effectively, I think.

• 10:51Abbey Sharp?

  And so what are those basics? Let's just get into it.

• 10:53Speaker 05

  If we want to grow muscle, we need to be lifting weights. That weight needs to be challenging, meaning If I'm doing a set of 10, that those eighth, ninth and 10th repetitions should be difficult. And we want it to be progressive in nature over time, meaning if last week or last month I was doing a set of 10 with 20 pounds, maybe this month I can try to do a set of 12 with 20 pounds, or maybe I can try a set of 10 with 25 pounds, just that kind of progressive in nature. So we're getting a stimulus on the muscle that is the stimulus for growth.

• 11:35Abbey Sharp?

  So you've, you've kind of hit on something that I think, you know, I don't know if we've just been lied to, but it's, you know, you're right, women have gotten into this habit of, you know, like a little sampling of our exercise regimen, like we wanna, we wanna be able to like, you know, have long lean muscles, we wanna be able to like, you know, get your cardio in, there's just like so many different, you know, like you said, classes, genres of exercise, and, and we have kind of been fed this narrative that like, well, more is better, like do them all so that you can like, you know, have all these skills. And so you kind of mentioned like, you know, Pilates is really big right now, and there's this huge trend towards a Pilates body and these long lean muscles. Like, how much is something like Pilates, which, you know, a lot of women are touting

• 12:20Abbey Sharp?

  the benefits of, how much is Pilates gonna like move the needle if the, if the goal is to, you know, to body composition, gain some muscle while losing some fat?

• 12:30Speaker 05

  Whenever we start doing anything, so if we go from nothing to something, we'll see some results in terms of muscle growth. And that's true if you start incline walking or even cycling, really doing anything is a little bit effective at the beginning.

• 12:44Abbey Sharp?

  Hmm.

• 12:45Speaker 05

  But then it no longer becomes an effective stimulus. So that's what we were talking about before, how it needs to be progressive. The other issue with Pilates specifically, when it comes to muscle growth, is that you are often in an unstable position. So, meaning you're trying to balance and then, you know, move a limb or move a limb against resistance. And the instability Decreases the force production that you know, we are able to out to output. And that is what leads to an appropriate muscle stimulation that can then lead to growth. So when we're in a more stable position and we have both feet planted on the ground

• 13:30Speaker 05

  or on the plate of a leg press, we're going to be able to produce much more force than if we are tied to a reformer and we're just trying to move one limb while our other limb is bent.

• 13:44Abbey Sharp?

  Ah, okay. This is all making sense to me now. I mean, I just had this flashback memory of like me and my like gym girlies at the gym. And this was years ago, pre-COVID, and we had been going to these classes every single day at Equinox for the past like seven years together. And I just remember one day, we all looked at each other and we're like, you know, we've, our bodies have never changed. Like, they've never changed. They're not getting like worse, but they're also not going anywhere. So maybe, you know, you've just kind of answered that for us.

• 14:28Abbey Sharp?

  Let's hop into kind of some more specific seasons of life. I want to talk about the impact of perimenopause or menopause. Because obviously, there's a lot of hormonal changes going on, the most notable being a decline in estrogen, which plays a role, tons of different roles in the body, including fat redistribution and lean muscle recovery and repair. How does this decline in estrogen affect women's bodies as we age?

• 14:52Speaker 05

  There's a lot we don't fully understand. So it's really important to acknowledge that this is an area that everyone needs and we need more data. It's also really difficult to study because women enter perimenopause at different times. The perimenopausal period lasts for different lengths. And the hormone fluctuations that you experience throughout that period can really, really vary from month to month, from year to year. And from woman to woman. So when we are conducting research, the goal is to try to reduce as many variables as possible. So we can say, all right, this was the intervention and we're sure that the outcome can be attributed to our intervention.

• 15:37Speaker 05

  It becomes very complicated when you have a population that is so unpredictable. And then when you're trying to balance things like, are we on hormone therapy? Or are we taking other kinds of supplements?

• 15:49Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 15:50Speaker 05

  And then is it the effect of that versus the effect of the exercise? So it's tough. That said, there are some kind of mechanistic explanations that have been proposed for why it is due to changes in estrogen levels that we might preferentially start to gain more fat around the midsection than we used to pre-menopause. We see in the data about 60% of women will start to gain weight over the menopause transition. So since it's not everybody, it can't just be estrogen, right? Because everyone's hormones are changing. And the reality is, although we want it to be that simple, it really never is.

• 16:34Speaker 05

  Because one thing changes and then other things change. As I said, like this is a really dynamic system. And so it's so, so rare that we can ever point to one thing and say, it's your fault that we're experiencing this shift. What we know, however, is that even for those women who are experiencing these body composition changes that are experiencing weight gain, a calorie deficit is still effective.

• 17:00Abbey Sharp?

  Right. And are there any other kind of sneaky causes of weight gain during the season life? You mentioned there's, it can't just be estrogen. So like, you know, what are some other explanations that may be at play when we're kind of in those like the 40s, 50s?

• 17:14Speaker 05

  I think often we underestimate the changes that we have made because they happen slowly and perhaps they were inadvertent. And so you used to be a bit more physically active and over time, for a variety of reasons, you no longer are. Or you used to be a bit more dialed in to your nutrition. And slowly over time, maybe not so much. And so we can have this kind of creep up in calories in and this creep down in our overall physical activity.

• 17:50Speaker 05

  And if you're somebody who's experiencing menopause-related symptoms, perhaps you're not sleeping very well. And the downstream effect of lack of sleep on a regular basis can really affect your motivation to exercise consistently and to adhere to a particular diet. So I think it's sort of this perfect storm that sets people up to say, well, I'm doing the same things I always did. But are you?

• 18:19Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 18:19Speaker 05

  Because often, we're not actually keeping track of all of those things. And not to say you need to, but if you're somebody who really honestly believes that you haven't changed anything and you are experiencing these body composition changes, it might be helpful to, for a time, really kind of keep track of all of these components so that you can do a little self-audit of what's going on.

• 18:42Abbey Sharp?

  That's a really good, good point. And now, speaking of hormonal kind of seasons of life, there's a lot of talk about, you know, diet and exercise during different phases of our menstrual cycle. You know, we see, like, I don't know, I always see like male fitness bros online being like, if you're in the luteal phase, like, do not do HIIT training, or like, whatever. Like, is this a hack or a hoax? Like, should we be doing this?

• 19:07Speaker 05

  Absolutely not. This is another problem that's really targeted towards women that is encouraging constantly switching things up.

• 19:16Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 19:17Speaker 05

  As I said, if you're switching things up all the time, it's going to substantially delay our progress because we need that consistent stimulus or practice for whatever the goal is. If it's improving your yoga practice, if it's getting faster at running, if it's getting stronger and more muscular, whatever the goal is, we need to do it regularly. And this idea that we would need to adjust things based on menstrual cycle phase.

• 19:46Speaker 05

  Is not supported by any data. And importantly, when we look at these diagrams and programs that are saying, do this for one week and then this for one week. They all assume this cookie cutter 28 day cycle length with four phases in there and two equal length phases. And that's not the reality for the vast majority of menstrual cycles anyway.

• 20:14Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 20:14Speaker 05

  And so not only are we doing something that really isn't evidence based, we're also then applying it in a way that really can't be individualized.

• 20:23Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, that is, that is a really great, great point there. I know it just adds an extra layer of something we need to like obsess over and think about. Oh, oh no, I gotta switch it like I gotta put myself do this kind of exercise and book this kind of class this week. And you know, you freak out if you accidentally book yoga instead of your like, you know, Barry's Boot Camp on the wrong week of your cycle. So yeah, that's really helpful to, to keep in mind. And okay, speaking of hoaxes, I, I love to do this kind of like quickfire myth versus fact thing. So I've got some questions here and maybe you can try to answer as succinctly as possible. But the first one is lifting weights makes women bulky. True or false?

• 21:01Speaker 05

  False. Nobody ever got huge without trying really, really hard and often also getting a bit of pharmacological assistance along the way.

• 21:11Abbey Sharp?

  Fair.

• 21:11Speaker 05

  So though when women progressively lift weights consistently, they always love the results, you're not going to put on massive amounts of muscle.

• 21:20Abbey Sharp?

  Yep, yep, I know, I love that. Okay, so if you want to lose fat, you should only do HIIT cardio, no low impact cardio. Yes or no?

• 21:28Speaker 05

  No. The unfortunate reality is that all cardio is sort of suboptimal for fat loss. And so when we want to lose fat, we really need to be looking at the diet. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons to overall physical activity important and whether you want to do higher or lower intensity cardio, that should be driven by preference because whatever you will do consistently is what you should do. And then of course, if you have any performance related goals, there might be a reason to mix up the zones and the intensity.

• 22:00Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, that's really helpful. Okay. Walking with a weighted vest helps you boost fat loss.

• 22:06Speaker 05

  No. We, this has been studied, not even in people wearing a weighted vest for a walk, but they were actually wearing weighted vests for eight to 10 hours per day, and both groups were in a calorie deficit. And the group wearing the vest lost the same amount of weight as the group who did not wear the vest. So not a good fat loss hack.

• 22:28Abbey Sharp?

  What? Okay. And so then you just give yourself like a bad back or a shoulder cramp and for no reason? Is there any benefit?

• 22:37Speaker 05

  Not to mention the sweating that goes along with the, yeah. So Pete, this is promoted for bone density, for muscle growth. It's really not effective for those things either. The only reason that you would want to potentially wear a weighted vest is if you have some grip strength issues and you'd like to do some squats or lunges, wearing the vest? Cool, I'm on board for that. But the walking is just not enough of a stimulus for muscle, for bone growth, and it certainly, as I said, doesn't help with fat loss.

• 23:08Abbey Sharp?

  Got it. Okay. Working out fasted will increase fat burning.

• 23:12Speaker 05

  This is true acutely, meaning we're using more fat as fuel in the fasted state. However, this doesn't translate to more fat loss over time. So when we look at people who train fasted for 12 weeks compared to women who train fed for 12 weeks, fat loss is similar.

• 23:32Abbey Sharp?

  Okay. And the last one is menopause is specifically making your metabolism slow down.

• 23:40Speaker 05

  No. We realize that metabolism starts to slow as a function of aging in both men and women. But that doesn't seem to happen until early 60s. And if there was something specific about the menopause transition, we would see a shift around, you know, 49, 50, 51, and we don't. It seems quite stable there.

• 24:00Abbey Sharp?

  Great. All right, folks, as promised, huge giveaway here. Bite Back is giving away $500 gift cards to Shopper's Drug Mart. Each week I give you a different keyword, and this week's keyword is butter. So text butter and your name to 925555 to enter for your chance to win. Again, text butter, that's B-U-T-T-E-R, and your name to 925555 for your chance to win a $500 gift card to Shopper's Drug Mart. Standard data and message rates apply. See contest rules linked in the description of this episode for details.

• 24:50Abbey Sharp?

  Now, I want to quickly talk about diet for a moment because, yeah, you did mention, which, which is something that I've talked about often, is that exercise is not necessarily, you know, going to be the ticket when it comes to fat loss. Diet does play a much more substantial role. So there are so many different opinions about which diet is best, which is worse. And, you know, like you said, women tends to kind of switch it up, do carnivore one week and some, you know, calorie counting the next and intermittent fasting the next after that. And intermittent fasting specifically, we've heard a lot of chatter about. And so, you know, a lot of people have suggested that intermittent fasting is not good for women at all in any kind of stage or state because it will mess with our hormones.

• 25:34Abbey Sharp?

  How worried should women be?

• 25:37Speaker 05

  If you're using it in the way most people do, which might mean you don't start eating until noon, something like that, and then you have a shorter feeding window. So let's say it's noon to eight. That's a typical implementation of fasting or time restricted feeding. And that's perfectly fine for men, for women, pre-menopause, post-menopause. It's just a tool that might help you restrict your calories because we're shortening that feeding window. And if you try it and you like it, then go for it. There's nothing magical about it. It's just a way to shorten. The feeding window. But we don't see influences on hormone levels with that sort of restriction.

• 26:20Speaker 05

  When we get into things like low energy availability and wreaking havoc on hormones or losing your menstrual cycle, we're talking about extremes.

• 26:29Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 26:29Speaker 05

  That are not going to be accomplished by not eating breakfast.

• 26:34Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, yeah, no, 100%.

• 26:36Speaker 05

  We know that severe caloric restriction is problematic whether you undereat throughout the day or whether you undereat in a shorter window.

• 26:43Abbey Sharp?

  Right, totally. So as you kind of mentioned, intermittent fasting can be done safely, as can, you know, most diets, assuming you're meeting your nutrient needs, you're not undercutting so severely. What are best practices for women who are looking to improve body composition while losing fat? Do we take a really slow approach to a calorie deficit? How much protein should we be talking about? Any kind of tips you can share would be great.

• 27:08Speaker 05

  I like to suggest a minimum of 1.2 grams per kilogram of protein. If you want to eat more than that, that's perfectly fine. Some women say they prefer higher protein because it is more satiating, and so then that can be helpful for fat loss. Other women really struggle with kind of hitting these numbers. And so I think just as a, as a starting point, if you're having a good portion of protein with each meal, and then if you want to add in a shake on top of that, then that's a pretty good place to start, especially if you're not someone who really wants to track your protein down to the gram.

• 27:49Speaker 05

  And we also want to focus on just overall nutrient density, food volume, if that, if you're trying to lose fat.

• 27:59Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 28:00Speaker 05

  Rate of weight loss, that depends. Some people prefer to be a bit more aggressive so that they can see results more quickly. Others prefer to take it a bit slower so it doesn't feel so jarring. Importantly, whatever we do needs to be sustainable enough that we don't end up kind of going off the rails and undoing our progress. And taking some kind of breaks and maintaining body weight along the way, especially if you're someone who has a lot of weight to lose, can be really valuable as well.

• 28:37Abbey Sharp?

  Very, very helpful. So I think what I've really taken away from this, which I think is important for all women listening, is that maintaining muscle mass is so important. So, you know, we don't want to cut calories so low that we are going to be losing an excess amount of muscle mass. We want to make sure that we are engaging in that strength training, that progressive load. We want to make sure we're getting enough protein to support those workouts to be able to maintain, especially if we are in a calorie deficit. And so I don't know if you've managed to escape some of this online, but there is this huge push, this trend towards something called skinny talk, where all these like young girls and grown women are recommending that you just eat as little as possible to get as small

• 29:21Abbey Sharp?

  as you can as quickly as you can. So longevity, muscle mass, like none of that matters. It's out of the discussion. It's just about as few calories as possible. What would be your parting words to women listening who are feeling swayed by this trend of like skinny at all costs, kind of that mentality?

• 29:42Speaker 05

  It's really disappointing that this is coming back because I feel like this was some of the messaging that I got when I was growing up and that it really sticks with you. It's very hard to escape once it's been planted in your mind that thinness is this something to strive for. I think it's really important that we encourage activities that empower us. And that's why I love lifting weights because being able to watch yourself get stronger and see that you are more capable and also changing your physique along the

• 30:22Speaker 05

  way is really, really, really beneficial. And it's beneficial not only for how you look and how you feel, but for your long-term physical function. We need to understand that if we prioritize weight loss throughout our whole adult lives, we are going to end up in a position where we're not able to be functionally

• 30:47Speaker 05

  Independent in our, in our older age. And so the last 20, maybe 30 years of your life will look really, really different. I know if you're 20, you're probably not thinking about what life looks like when you're 75. But if you're somebody who is 40 and has always prioritized fat loss and is swayed to just try to be as thin as possible and worried about, you know, muscle is going to make me look like a larger person, try to shift that mindset because it really matters in terms of your metabolic health, in terms of your strength, your posture, your ability to move and perform all of those activities of daily living. Having muscle matters.

• 31:33Speaker 05

  Protecting your bone matters. Lifting weights is also important for that. And you will look like a healthier human if you age with more muscle.

• 31:45Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, I'm so glad that you said that. And, and you know, even though the 20 year olds may not be able to imagine themselves at 75, I really do urge them to do that now because it's so much easier to be able to, to build that muscle now than if you were kind of, you're hitting 50, you're like, oh shit, I'm in menopause and now things are, you know, it's harder now. So, you know, getting an early start is so important. So I'm really glad that we were, we're trying to undo a lot of the messaging that this, this skinny talk movement is putting out there. So thank you so much, so much for coming. It's just, you know, so insightful, Lauren. And of course I'm going to be leaving links in the show notes to where people can find you.

• 32:27Speaker 05

  Thank you so much.

• 32:31Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, that was an incredibly helpful and insightful conversation, but I feel like this discussion feels almost incomplete without at least an acknowledgement of the disproportionate pressure that women feel to be thin and the dangerous messages that we are constantly bombarded with about how to accomplish it.

• 32:53Abbey Sharp?

  Research suggests that women are exposed to as much as 10 times more body and diet-related media messages than men. They're also significantly more likely to act on nutrition advice from unregulated and uneducated sources, making way for problematic communities like skinny talk to take hold and do real harm. They're also significantly more likely to act on nutrition advice from unregulated and uneducated sources. Yes, men have their own seedy corners of diet culture to contend with, but the stakes to conform to societal body norms are typically much higher for women. Research suggests that compared to men, women are significantly more at risk of weight stigma

• 33:38Abbey Sharp?

  and discrimination in everything from relationships to healthcare to employment. In fact, unlike men, women are up to three times more likely to be passed up for jobs they're qualified for than their thin peers. And while under-eating as a result of hyper-restrictive diet advice is of course dangerous for anyone, women have twice the risk of an eating disorder compared to men and are at far greater risk of bone density loss, infertility, and reds. This is all to say that where you get your weight loss advice really matters. And best case, you're working one-on-one with a dietitian or doctor who specializes in

• 34:19Abbey Sharp?

  weight loss, and you're looking towards actual healthcare providers and nutrition scientists online for more general insights. So this is your cue to go follow Lauren ASAP. She really is so incredible at what she does, and I'm so grateful that she took the time to chat. And a quick reminder that this is the last week of our giveaway, so make sure you text that keyword ASAP for a chance to win a $500 gift card from Shopper's Drug Mart. But that's all that I have for you guys today, so signing off with Science and SAS, I'm Abbey Sharp, thanks for listening.

• 35:02Speaker 06

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.