After I had my second child, I was determined to lose the baby weight and get back to running as fast, yet as healthy as I could.
Not realizing that those two things were counterproductive.
I struggled with feeling like myself after my first child was born, and I had just started to find my way back there when I got pregnant again. So I was mostly rushing to get back to that point I had been at before. But my metabolism needed more time to catch up.
As a dietitian, I knew that fad diets and fancy workouts weren’t the way to go. In school, we are taught that calories are key to weight management. Move more, eat less. Create a calorie deficit. We don’t necessarily touch on meal timing or meal frequency. We don’t learn at all about fitness or activity. We don’t even touch on the role of environment or stress on our health.
When I started my practice, I taught clients with an intuitive eating approach and focused on plant-based eating. No diets. No fads. Just listening to our bodies and eating a variety of foods and nutrients. I still at my core believe this is a great, healthy way to view nutrition. But I’ve found for some, it’s just not enough. Most of us need more than this. Especially after ALL the things that have happened in the last two years alone.
I had numerous clients at the time who were exploring intermittent fasting, and the research I had studied showed that 16:8 fasting was comparable to moderate calorie restricted diets. It wasn’t any better or worse for weight loss. So I figured I would try it out, see what happened. At worst, I thought, it wouldn’t have any benefit, and I would move on to my usual intuitive approach.
I signed up for a popular program that promoted intermittent fasting, carb cycling, and HIIT focused workouts. I started my day early, on little sleep because of a newborn. I ran on an empty stomach, refueled with protein powder in black iced coffee hours later while I entertained my kids. I was on my phone a lot, researching all the parenting questions we all go to Google for. I had a nightly wine and chocolate habit after the kids finally went to sleep, with a side of binge watching Netflix before crawling into bed to do it all over again.
I get frustrated with myself looking back on this time. I went back to school to learn nutrition to help others eat well, and I still didn’t have it right. There is research for every way of eating. There is a dietitian to help you with whichever way of eating you subscribe to. If WE don’t have it all figured out, how is everyone else? I heard on a podcast that 50% of dietetics students have disordered eating. That’s why many get into the field. And we take that disordered eating with us, our health and healing journeys shape us and shape our practice.
What is the most frustrating to me, knowing what I know now, is that this fasting “experiment” that I did not only didn’t help me with my baby weight goal, it further hindered it. At the time, I let it go because it wasn’t serving me well. I learned to accept my body as it was, baby weight and all. I figured this was probably just how my body was going to be now. I went back to a plant-based, intuitive eating pattern, making sure to eat a variety of protein sources, colorful vegetables, and plenty of water. I had seemingly normal postpartum symptoms of hair loss and fatigue that I figured would pass.
What I know now is that ALL the things I was doing were working together to slow down my metabolism even further. I was impairing my thyroid from functioning properly, which further slowed my metabolism down. The weight I was trying to lose was now increasing as my body tried to conserve energy and nutrients where it could. Add in the stress of a pandemic with two small children and no family nearby, limited access to community, learning how to homeschool preschool, and a baby who didn’t sleep through the night, my body was stressed out and exhausted. Everything shut down.
Things I did that were more hurtful than helpful:
- Not eating 30 g protein. I was eating protein and carbs together but not enough.
- Drinking coffee ALL. DAY. LONG.
- Drinking only coffee in the morning, without breakfast.
- Snacking all day instead of eating filling meals and snacks with breaks in between.
- Working out fasted
- Working out early morning on little sleep (because of a newborn)
- Running a lot and not lifting heavy enough weights
- On screens first thing in the morning and numerous times during the day. Computer, phone, TV. Work and “rest.”
- Nightly wine and chocolate
- Lack of community
- Intermittent fasting
- HIIT workouts
- Carb cycling and periods of time-restricting carbs
- Eating in stressed meal environment (because, kids).
These things aren’t necessarily “bad” or should never be done. It was more the combination of things I was doing that contributed to my health status.
I heard a fellow dietitian call it the trifecta for a broken metabolism: fasting + HIIT + coffee. Intense activity fueled by caffeine and no food. No wonder we are all struggling with our health. The things we are told to do to be “healthy,” to follow society’s picture of what healthy looks like, are leading us down a dangerous path. By trying to lose the baby weight I thought I needed to lose, I slowed my metabolism, stressed my adrenal glands, and pushed my thyroid into a hypothyroid state.
Why is this trifecta so harmful? We need to nourish our bodies to reduce the burden that we encounter from everyday stresses. Fasting keeps cortisol in a chronic high state, and without enough nutrients to keep it going, the body runs out eventually, and we crash. Our bodies slow everything down in an effort to conserve life. We may feel good for a while, riding that cortisol high. But I guarantee it isn’t sustainable or beneficial to the rest of your body’s systems.
So what did I do to fix my metabolism, once I realized all of this?
First, I slowed down. I gave my body the rest it needed. Then I added in the nutrients it needed to help my thyroid. I eliminated the habits and products that were toxic to my healing. I reframed my mindset so that I could see how necessary these actions were to my long term health. Losing the baby weight wasn’t the right goal for me. Taking care of my body so that it could serve me well was where I needed to find my healing, and that was honestly the hardest part.
This post on health habits touched on 3 specific things I started doing to help. Drinking water with minerals before coffee. Taking a walk outside every day. Putting the screens down and creating a calming bedtime routine. A complete list can be found in my Habits for Optimal Health checklist, if you haven’t grabbed it already.
The biggest thing I’ve learned along this journey is that we need to trust ourselves and our bodies. The little things matter. Eating well, consistently, will take us far. We need to fuel our bodies, not restrict them to what society tells us is healthy.
