Rethinking Calories In, Calories Out: A Hormone-Friendly Approach to Weight

Ever blamed yourself for not being able to lose weight? In this eye-opening episode, Dr. Orlena dismantles the guilt and shame around weight loss struggles by revealing why it's literally not your fault. 

Living in what experts call an "obesogenic society" stacks the odds against you from the start. Dr. Orlena explains why the conventional "calories in, calories out" approach fails so many women, especially those over 40, and how hormones like insulin and cortisol are the hidden saboteurs of your weight loss efforts.

Instead of deprivation and constant hunger, discover a revolutionary approach focused on properly fueling your body. Learn the specific fiber and protein targets that can transform your metabolism without counting a single calorie, and why timing your meals and workouts can make all the difference.

If you've tried everything and still struggle, this episode offers both the scientific explanation and practical solutions you've been searching for. Stop blaming yourself and start understanding what your body really needs to thrive.

Learn more about Dr Orlena's Eat Smart System Program: https://www.drorlena.com/dr-orlena-eat-smart-system

Podcast Index and Sign up for Weekly Emails: https://www.drorlena.com/blog/index-of-podcasts-and-blog-posts

Looking for support? Book a free call with Dr Orlena: https://bookme.name/drorlena/positively-healthy-chat-with-dr-orlena-fb

Transcript

Dr Orlena (00:01.486)
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena I hope that you are feeling amazing today. Okay, today I want to talk to you about why it's not your fault if you want to lose weight. It is not your fault. And we will talk about this. And tying into this, I want to talk a little bit about calories in and calories out. Now, before we start, just a little bit of catching up with my life.

So last week, I was blown sideways, just totally blindsided by the fact that I had been working with a marketing company who was helping me reach a business goal, and they basically pulled out without any notice. They didn't complete their contract. They didn't offer me my money back, as they promised, really, really, really awful. Why am I telling you this? Two things. Number one,

I used all the tools that I talk about in this podcast to really process that shock. I was in shock for a day. I was absolutely devastated. And even now, a week later on, I can still feel a little bit of disappointment, but really I managed to process it much more quickly. Strangely, I've been in this situation before, but process it far more quickly than in previous times. I hope this isn't going to happen again.

Now, the other thing is, it's really made me sit back and have a look at my business because now I need to do all the things that they were doing. And so I've really had to look at where I'm spending my time and what I'm going to be doing. So what I'm saying is the podcast is going to be fortnightly from now on instead of weekly. But do not panic because there are about 500 episodes.

If you want to listen to the podcast every single week as your weekly inspiration to do healthy things, then feel free to go and listen to those back episodes. There are so many of them. And if you sign up to the email list, which sends out a podcast every Tuesday, I will continue to send out a podcast. I'll pick some of the ones that I think are really good, some of the top ones. So don't panic. You still have access to the podcast and it's still gonna be your weekly inspiration.

Dr Orlena (02:18.32)
to keep going and you might just have to listen to some of the back episodes but some of the back episodes are gold dust and equally in other news remember that there is a Facebook group I know not all of you are on Facebook and I am

thinking about starting another community which is on my own website so that people don't have to be in Facebook, because I totally get why people don't want to be on Facebook. But if you are on Facebook, then come and join that community, because again, in that community, it's really supportive and I do little Facebook lives and things like that, and there's questions. So if you want support, if you want free support, those are a couple of really good things to do.

Okay, so let's dive into it's not your fault. Okay, why am I doing a podcast saying it's not your fault? I've been speaking to a couple of people recently who want to lose weight. Now, obviously that's what I help people do. And people saying, yeah, but you know what? It's my fault. And if I really wanted this so badly, I would have made it happen by now. And I'm like, wait, what? Here's the truth.

about weight in our society right now. We live in what is called an obesogenic society. What does that mean? It basically means if you carry on living in society, in normal society, doing normal societal things, having a job, being busy, having very few hours in the day left to look after yourself, eating in a way that is considered normal, then...

The result is that you are going to put on weight. Most people are going to put on weight, which is why so many people are overweight. Now, obviously, there are a few exceptions to this rule. There are people who are genetically thin. There are people who are lucky. And some of those people might have...

Dr Orlena (04:09.582)
healthier biome. So you know, your biome is your, all those microorganisms in your gut. And there is research basically saying that some people have a biome that really supports them being thin. Now it might be that people have accidentally done the right things or the things that really are supporting being healthy. Now, obviously there are some people who

do overeat and they acknowledge that they overeat.

But I put it to you that if you were one of those people, if it was so easy to stop, you wouldn't have done it in the first place. So to say it's totally my fault, yes, you could say, okay, stop eating, it's really easy, but it's not that easy. Something else is going on underneath that is driving that behaviour and you do not have the tools to change that. So I put it to you that if you're busy blaming yourself, please stop, it's not your fault. And also,

It isn't helpful. Now, on top of that, weight loss and nutrition is complex. And the reason we know it's complex is because there are so many people telling us different things, conflicting things. If it was so easy, everybody would be saying exactly the same thing and they aren't.

And that means that there is evidence for this thing, there is evidence for that thing. It basically means that we don't 100 % know exactly what the really easy route is. So for example, if you have a bacterial pneumonia, every single doctor is gonna say, let's try antibiotics because that is gonna work.

Dr Orlena (05:57.738)
It's really clear. You've got a bacterial pneumonia, you need antibiotics. If you take something, I don't know, like back pain, let's go with back pain, because back pain's another of those things where it's so complicated. And you could ask loads of different people and you'll get loads of different answers. And that means there isn't one winner in terms of what to do for back pain. Obviously with back pain, it depends on why you have back pain and all of these things. But I hope you take my point. Now.

If we look at what people say, and we're going to be talking about calories in, calories out, that information can be useful to some people. But that does not mean that it is a universal thing and it is going to 100 % work for everybody. And when we look at why does something work, that is as important as, it the thing? Let me explain. If I say to you, okay, look,

ketogenic diet, do the ketogenic diet, and sorry ketogenic diet, I am picking on you a little bit because I don't teach the ketogenic diet and I don't advise the ketogenic diet for most people because I do not believe that you get enough fiber with the ketogenic diet. But here's the thing, if you look at the ketogenic diet then, and think okay, that it may be that well, the ketogenic diet does work in certain circumstances and there is evidence to show that.

But what I see is a lot of people who say they are doing the ketogenic diet, except they are not in ketosis. And the whole point of the ketogenic diet is that you put your body into this metabolic pathway called ketogenesis. And if you're not in that pathway, you're not really doing a ketogenic diet. Now, having said all of that, there are still people who are doing the ketogenic diet and they are losing weight and feeling more healthy. Why? Because they have changed from a diet that is high in processed

foods and refined carbohydrates and then they are eating in a more healthy way and they are really paying more attention to what they eat. So there are things called confounding factors, things that happen incidentally that...

Dr Orlena (08:14.742)
sort of murky, make the waters more murky. Another example of this is if you look at just correlations, for example, you could say there is a correlation between lung cancer and drinking coffee. Why is that? Because people smoke and drink coffee at the same time. So the confounding factor is the coffee. There is a correlation between smoking and lung cancer. The coffee is just not, it's just incidental. It just is that loads of people drink coffee and people who smoke also drink.

coffee. So can you see what I'm saying? It's not always clear to sort of like tease these things out. So going back to all of this...

It can be really difficult for people to understand what it is that they are doing. And so many people say to me, I'm eating healthily, but I'm not losing weight. And there are different reasons why that may be the case. It may be that what you consider to be healthy is not as healthy as you could be, and that your idea of healthy isn't the same as, for example, my idea of healthy. So that could be one thing, or it could be that there are other things that are going on that you are not really taking into this equation.

So, you know, when we look at what is involved in weight loss, nutrition is important. Exercise is important. Sleep is important. And emotional wellness is important, partly the mindset piece to keep you on. But also cortisol levels, your stress hormones, are really, really important, particularly if you are a woman over 40 who is going through those hormonal changes. So cortisol is a hormone, and it is one that becomes more important in this equation because if you've

you've got consistently high cortisol levels as your estrogen levels are going down, yep, hormones, menopause, looking at you, then what happens is...

Dr Orlena (10:03.232)
you start to use your muscle as an energy source. And that is exactly the opposite of what we want. We want strong muscles and we want less wobble. We want less fat. And if we do this wrong, we end up getting it the wrong way around. We end up laying down fat and using our muscles in a way that we don't want to. And that's not your fault. That's because...

you don't understand exactly what is going on. And there are different reasons from this. Most people don't have medical degrees. Most people aren't trained in this. And we're seeing more and more information, more and more research coming out, more and more specialist information. And on top of that, there are lots of messages on the internet that say, do this, do this, do this, and it will work. But a lot of those messages are really aimed at men.

or younger men or younger women. And women in their 40s and 50s and beyond are not the same as younger women and we're not the same as men. So understanding all of this is really important. So.

Why do I not teach calories in and calories out? Well, first of all, the whole idea of calories in and calories out is kind of flawed. The human body is more complex than this. And the idea of calories in, calories out is if you eat less than your body uses up, then you're going to lose weight.

Remember, you want to be, you might lose weight, you might lose muscle, but you want to be losing fat and not muscle. Now, on a physics level, it sounds clear, it sounds easy, that yeah, that equation must be true, but the human body is far, far, far more complex than that. And sometimes for some people who count their calories, it is gonna work, but not always. And I think, again, this, our cohort, women in their 40s and 50s, it is particularly confusing.

Dr Orlena (12:07.465)
because people carry on doing this and it is flawed and it doesn't work. So first of all, I'm going to talk a little bit about counting calories.

Now, I tried to count calories. The gentleman that I was working with, my social media managers, told me to do a week of tracking my food and putting out the calories and all of this. And I did it for a week and my goodness, it was awful. It was really difficult. It was really time consuming. It took over my life. I even had to go and order.

some scales because I was like I think this is just incorrect my estimation is incorrect actually it turned out that it wasn't that incorrect but I had to you know check it with the scales it's really inaccurate even if you've got scales it's really really inaccurate because if unless you are eating one

food that you can check, the calories, the protein, the macronutrients. So for example, you could take a banana and then you can look up, okay, this is how, what the macronutrients break down. So you're either eating that or you're eating processed food in a packet, which tells you exactly what it is. Well, we don't want to be eating those foods, so I hope you're not doing that. Or you've cooked something and then you're not just cooking for one person, but in that food, you've got different ingredients and so it suddenly becomes really, really difficult.

to understand exactly what it is that you're eating. So it's a really difficult thing to do. And on top of that...

Dr Orlena (13:41.646)
It affects the way you think about food. So it changed my thinking. I got to the stage where I was like, I cannot be bothered to eat because I don't want to have to weigh it. I don't want to have to check it. And that's actually a really bad place to be. So we want to fuel our bodies and we don't want our bodies really getting to the stage where they're going, oh my goodness, I need some energy. I need to go and use our muscles. And that's what happens to females is that the first thing we basically do

is go and use our muscles rather than our fat. So if you keep yourself ticking over and make sure you've got enough fuel so your brain thinks, it's okay, all relaxed, everything's going according to plan, then that's great. And so one of the things I do is I have a snack in midday and that is good. That is going to help fuel my body in a way that my body needs to be fueled. So, number one.

Actually counting calories is difficult, it's not great. Now this whole idea of calories in, calories out, is more complicated. There are so many factors and I am going to list a few of them. So number one...

Let's think about our basal metabolic rate. What is your basal metabolic rate? Your basal metabolic rate is basically how much energy you need to function, just like the energy that you're using just by...

running your body on 24 hours. So doing all of those functions that we need to do, breathing, our kidneys running, our livers running, all of that stuff. Now here's the thing, the more active you are, the higher your basal metabolic rate is. So if you're very active, you need more energy just for basically sitting and doing nothing. So if you're looking at calories in, calories out, and you don't know your basal metabolic rate, which most people don't, then you don't really know

Dr Orlena (15:37.656)
what your calories out are. You're just guessing your calories out. And you can use sports watches to help do that, but it doesn't really know your basal metabolic rate. So that's one thing. Now, your biome is another thing. So if we think about calories in, calories out, we want to be thinking about,

What we eat is not necessarily what we absorb. And one of the big factors in what we absorb is our biome. So if we think about lentils and legumes, and I'm always going on about lentils and legumes, and legumes are beans, so black beans, white beans, they are really good for us. And they are full of fibre, and they are full of plant protein, and yes, they have some carbohydrates in them, but what I would call healthy carbohydrates. Now...

When you eat them, your biome absorbs and breaks down quite a lot of that. And this is one of the reasons why people who don't normally eat lentils and legumes go, I can't eat lentils and legumes. Why? Because they don't have the biome which is there to help them. Now, the more you eat, the more equipment you get to be able to do that. But the reality is, your biome does a lot of the metabolizing and that is not included in that equation because we can't do that.

we don't know how to see what goes beyond our gut and what actually gets absorbed. Now the other thing is, in this equation, we are assuming that all food that we absorb is being used as energy, and that's not necessarily true. So like, you take protein and it's gonna get built into muscle, it's not being used as energy. Obviously that protein includes energy, but if you're just building it into muscle,

It's not being used as energy. And equally, different foods are absorbed in different ways. So nuts, nuts is a big one. And nuts is one of the reasons why I really have big controversy with calories in, calories out. Because so many people say, I mustn't eat nuts because they're high in calories. Well, there are studies that show that eating nuts...

Dr Orlena (17:41.258)
is fine and you can still lose weight when you're eating nuts. But the thing about nuts is we over-estimate the amount of calories because we're not absorbing all of the calories that are being used. And looking at more research, the big study that really

supports the Mediterranean style diet is called the Predimed study and it was done in I think 2011 and they did it here in Spain and they looked at they put people in three different groups one of them being Mediterranean style diet with olive oil and they didn't actually count calories but what they did do was say to people you need to be eating four tablespoons of olive oil a day and that is quite a lot of calories that adds up to 500 calories yet those people still on average most of those

of people still lost weight. And these people were pre-diabetic people who reversed some of their diabetes and lost weight and became healthy. And I put it to you that if it was all about calories in, calories out, that would not have happened. Now, obviously I can't prove that, but it's just...

thought that I have. Now this brings us on to hormones. So a few of the big hormones that are really play a big role in weight loss are insulin and cortisol and what happens is if your insulin levels are a little bit high basically that is a signal to your body to put on fat, to store fat equally with cortisol, store fat, store fat. So if you've got these hormones that are out of place

your body is still going to be saying, on fat, put on fat, put on fat. Even if you are not getting enough calories, there's still going to be the problem. So what we actually see...

Dr Orlena (19:24.142)
is that if you get into a stage where you are reducing your calories such that you are getting into what's called low energy availability. So this is where your energy expenditure is routinely higher than your intake. And what happens is you do not have enough energy to support the physiological functioning for optimal health. So your body isn't really getting enough.

energy to do the things that it needs to do. And this can be seen in highly active women, and it's got a name. It's called relative energy deficiency in sport, RED-S. And this is not a good place to be. Now, obviously, if you are a younger woman and you are premenopausal, one of the first things that happens is you will see that you stop getting your periods. And...

That is a big indication that your body is not getting enough energy. Now, obviously there are different reasons for not getting your periods, but this is one of them. Now, if you get this, this relative energy deficiency in sport, it can lead to brittle bones, it can lead to a high risk of heart disease. In perimenopausal women, it can also affect your thyroid function. And the consequence of that is,

again, increased body fat, decreased muscle. So your body is storing fat. And this is if you are not getting enough energy. So you can see that this is a really prime example of calories in, calories out does not work. Okay. I think I have been through all my reasons why I...

want to tell you that calories in, calories out is not a good idea. So the big fat one is they're really difficult to measure. The second one is it is flawed. Your body needs fats. And basically when people start looking at calories in, calories out, they cut out all the fats, including the healthy fats, and that is not a good idea. Your body needs fat to function. So what are you to do? Like if you're not gonna count calories,

Dr Orlena (21:40.514)
and we're going to forget about calories in, calories out, what are you going to do? Well, this is really good news. I do appreciate that for some of you, this means really going back and retraining your brain because your brain is on this, like it's all about calories, I have to focus on calories. This is good news because you can forget about calories and really focus on fueling your body. Let me say that again, fueling your body. You want to fuel your body. You want to fuel your body so you can maintain and potentially

put on muscle and use your fat as an energy source because that is the only way you're going to get rid of fat. Well, there's two ways of getting rid of fat, using it as an energy source or going to a surgeon and having it cut out. But those are basically the only two ways of getting rid of fat and you need to allow your body to do that.

and you do not need to deprive yourself to do this. You do not need to feel hungry. You do need to change your mindset so you're really thinking about health and wellness and thinking about what your body needs. So a few tips for you.

Focus on healthy, nutritious food. What does that mean? That means out with processed food because processed food is so bad for you for so many reasons. Chemicals, emulsifiers, bad for your bio, but basically just not good for you. And even flour, sugar, not great. It doesn't mean you can't ever not eat these things, but have them in...

Smaller amounts, and that is another topic for a whole podcast that we will come and discuss. If you're interested, then check out the podcast. Sorry, I can't remember what name it is, what number it is, but it is called The Truth About Carbohydrates and Weight Loss. And I go into explaining why there are different types of carbohydrates, and some of them, plants and vegetables, are better for you than other ones. So, less flour and sugar.

Dr Orlena (23:39.854)
what I call refined carbohydrates. So what are you going to do? You're going to focus on nutritious, healthy foods. You want plants and vegetables, so much evidence to support that plants and vegetables are good for you. A plant-based diet, 30 different types of plants in a week, plant sources, so that can include things like whole grains and oats and lentils and legumes. 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day. And where are you going to get this from?

You are going to get it from plants, from vegetables, from fruit, from whole grains, from lentils, from nuts and seeds. Now, so many people say to me, my goodness, that just feels totally undoable, like not doable. It feels difficult. And I put it to you that it's not. So when I did my...

Looking at my breakfast, my breakfast comes up with 18 grams of fibre and what I have for breakfast is fruit and vegetables, a bit of porridge, nuts and seeds. I have some protein in there, some quark, which is basically like Greek yogurt, but my Greek yogurt doesn't have any very much protein in it.

but it's really the nuts and the seeds that are giving it its fiber. Now I have a really big breakfast. I do an hours exercise and that breakfast fuels my body. And I like to have a big amount of food early in the morning. So.

30 grams, 25 to 30 grams of fiber, and then protein. Protein is important. The two macronutrients you really want to pay attention to are fiber and protein. Now protein can be meat if you want it to. Personally, I prefer to use plant-based protein for various reasons. I use a little bit of meat, but I prefer to have plant-based proteins. What's plant-based proteins are lentils and legumes and nuts and seeds, things like chia.

Dr Orlena (25:35.028)
and hemp seeds and nuts. And I also use a protein powder on the days that I go to the gym. So you're looking at around 30 grams of protein per meal, so three times a day. So let me just recap. 30 different plant-based foods a week, 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day, and 30 grams of protein for each meal. And if you can focus on fiber and protein,

everything else is going to fall into place. Now just a few other things. Really you want to be getting your food earlier in the day. If you can, you want to be doing your exercise earlier in the day because that's going to have an impact on your metabolic rate. Do that earlier in the day and it's going to last the rest of the day. Do it at night time and you're going to sleep. But if you can't exercise in the morning, exercising in the evening is better than not exercising at all. You really want to be eating earlier in the day. You want to be eating

Within half an hour of waking up, we have, women have a cortisol spike, which is not great for us, and we can counterbalance that cortisol spike by having something to eat. It doesn't have to be a huge thing to eat, it could just be a small little thing just to go goodbye cortisol spike. So really shifting your food to earlier in the day. Fueling your workouts as well. You do not want to exercise.

fasted and I used to do this until I realised what I was doing to my body and I have stopped, stopped. And you don't have to have loads of fuel around your exercise. So before you just want something small and then afterwards you want to make sure that you are giving your body the protein that it needs to build the muscle because otherwise there's not very much point. If you don't give it the protein, it can't really do anything.

So thinking about timings as well. Timings are important. So really it is about eating healthy, nourishing foods and forgetting about calories. And once you start doing this, things will fall into place. Now, obviously if you have cravings or a sweet tooth,

Dr Orlena (27:39.384)
They are more complicated, but to be perfectly honest, if you start eating healthy foods, your cravings will reduce. So if you would like some support in this, you would like some help, I have so many different things that I can help. I have my Eat Smart system, which is a program that you can do, which really walks you through creating a system that works for you. And I'll put that link in the show notes if you're interested in that. If you want more support than what I do, what I recommend is booking a call with me. And the call is an hour long, I chat with

with you, understand what's going on for you, and if you're interested, I will tell you about my group coaching program. And if you're not interested, no worries, but you are invited to book a free call and I look forward to chatting with you. Okay, have a fabulous day and I will be back in two weeks time.