What's Missing from the Calories In/Calories Out Equation?

When it comes to losing weight it seems pretty straightforward- calories in need to be less than calories out.

Or this is how most people approach the process.

But when it doesn’t “work”, they try again- hitting the same wall again only this time with more effort- fewer calories, more exercise.

The reason they aren’t as successful as they want often has more to do with their emotional experience (feminine energy) than their mathematics (masculine energy).

Instead of drastically restricting their calories, they need to understand the experience they are creating.

Eating 1200 calories a day while exercising an hour each day is quite jarring to their body and over time can create more distress than is helpful.

This is why it may give initial results but over time, it's simply not enough to allow your body to let go of what it has in storage, especially when your stress response is engaged.

It is like promising your child you’ll be waiting at the bus stop and then not coming to get them.

It may seem small but when you’re trying to create a healthy dynamic with a young person, it’s really important to show up when you say you will.

This creates a sense of trust and calmness that develops into self-sufficiency as they mature instead of an “I’ll do it myself” feeling created out of survival.

The more people go on crash diets, the more often they “forget their kid at the bus stop”, eventually, no matter what you say, that child won’t count on you being there.

Similarly, much of weight loss happens on the inside (on an emotional/mental/experiential level).

This is why I encourage my clients to focus on starting small, because even “small things”, to a child, are creating a foundation of trust, a feeling that they can relax.

And this isn’t just any child I’m talking about, this is your inner child- the young version of yourself (feminine energy).

Most of the time we forget this part of us still needs to be shown up for and more importantly, we are the ones tasked with that role whether we asked for it or not.

When your inside-self (child) can’t trust your outside-self (adult) to show up, it creates an adversarial relationship where you’re always trying to control yourself (in this instance it’s your body) into submission, only to find it “rebelling” even more.

What a woman needs to do if the calories in vs. calories out method hasn’t been working is to practice methods that create calm in her nervous system by engaging her Empowered Masculine Energy.

This is the adult part of your brain that makes rational decisions.

This part of you is always in service of your growth, whether it seems that way or not, but it’s also the missing piece to creating that calm inside yourself.

This can be simple as a good ole’ body scan, sending your attention over your whole body to notice what may need some extra support.

I start clients in a really simple practice of only eating at the dinner table.

I have her clear it off to reduce clutter and to take a few deep breaths.

As she settles into her chair and feels the tension in her body, she becomes more aware of this child energy that may be activated around mealtime… not too different from other kids

This can feel a little scary at first, it’s like meeting someone for the first time.

And as with any relationship, time+consistency= trust.

Her only job with this meal is to practice receiving- receiving the food as she puts it into her mouth, receiving support from the chair, and receiving feedback from her physiological and emotional experience.

She doesn’t have to do anything but receive.

What she does with the insights from there is magic.

Often what I discover as a result of this simple practice is she no longer will feel the need to be part of the Clean Plate Club (clearing her plate).

She will be able to feel when she’s not wanting to keep eating and will naturally push away from the experience and, because she is the “parent”, she has permission to put the leftovers away for later instead of subconsciously wanting to make sure her parent's happy with her.

When we are calm, our logical brain will have more bandwidth.

This is the benefit of healing our relationship with our own masculine energy.

When we are calm and supported from the inside, our outside behaviors naturally fall in line with less resistance because our inner child trusts us to care for “her”.

This is counterintuitive and yet I specialize in helping women navigate the experience of letting go of the weight.

We talk more at length about this dynamic in my program Nourished.

Not only will you meet your inner child and see how “she” has been responding to your masculine energy, but also what your masculine energy can do and say to create that sense of trust.

We discuss the information you need to be gathering from each meal and each experience so you can move forward with your success and what to do when you hit a plateau.

I give the information you need to identify healthy choices when it comes to foods as well as how to eat in a way that honors both your emotions and your body’s needs.

When a woman has strong support from the inside and a clear vision of what she needs, she will naturally let go of the attraction to quick fixes because she trusts herself to continue (like a parent showing up to the bus stop consistently) doing the behaviors that will lead to the body that feels most reflective of her.

The women that create the best results from this are naturally intuitive and creative.

They have often tried many diets and love the idea of “eating what you like” that an intuitive eating pattern offers and yet still feel like there’s something they don’t quite “get” or the scale would be moving the way they want.

She is ready to create a healthy relationship with food more than a lower number on a scale.

She is willing to explore her inner world and has often done some inner healing but hasn’t found a way to translate that to her health and wellbeing.

She is open to learning about and exploring her own masculine and feminine energies in order to create more harmony in her relationship with her body and everything around her.

Nourished includes over 5 hours of recorded content you can watch at your own speed to help you learn the basics of nutrition and psychology to support ongoing weight management. It also includes guided and written exercises to shift your perspective and “rewrite” your story (and your nervous system) around setting weight loss goals, the scale, using tools like tracking, and receiving more support- the most common triggers for women attempting long term weight loss.

It can be completed in a self-study format (click here to learn more/get started) or with 1:1 support to clear out your personal “baggage” around your relationship with food, clarify nutrition-related challenges to deepen the integration of the material (Email me at CSchandNutrition@gmail.com to discuss working together). I’ll ask some questions and if it’s a good fit, I will get you started on the content right away.