Why Fat Loss Feels Hard
Why does fat loss feel hard? Because it is.
When your body fat percentage has been high for a long time, the body becomes efficient at conserving energy. Your basal metabolic rate drops, your thyroid slows, and spontaneous movement decreases. The brain senses stored fuel but still triggers hunger, making it feel like your body is fighting fat loss.
Hormonal Resistance (Insulin + Leptin)
To compound matters, if you are suffering from a metabolic disorder such as high prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance keeps fat locked away and prioritizes sugar (glucose) as fuel. Leptin resistance blunts your body's fullness signals, so you feel hungry even when fat stores are high. Together, they trick your brain into thinking you’re deprived when you’re not.
As a result, you eat more when your body is already overloaded, and your metabolic engine is, in fact, slowing down.
The role of muscle in increasing your metabolism–the rate at which you burn your body’s energy
If you combine hormonal resistance with a sedentary lifestyle, you’ve got a double whammy in regards to your metabolism. Low muscle mass means a lower resting metabolic rate. In other words, the less muscle you have, the less energy your body consumes. The more sedentary you become, the more muscle you lose, and so on and so on. In the end, you end up with a smaller metabolic engine. Muscle tissue is metabolically active — without it, your body burns fewer calories even when at rest.
Inflammation + Stress Block Fat Oxidation
To make matters worse, chronic stress, poor sleep, and inflammatory foods impair mitochondrial function. Your body focuses on repair, not on fat burning, until inflammation improves.
Stopping the vicious cycle of muscle loss, inflammation, and weight gain
How do we stop this vicious cycle of muscle loss, inflammation, and ultimately a slowing metabolism—our metabolic engine, our burn rate, our ability to burn fat and lose weight? We kick-start our metabolism by CONSISTENTLY reducing chronic inflammation, stress, and building lean mass.
And remember, small steps, big impact. Weight gain does not happen over night...jump-starting your metabolism takes time. But you’ve got this!
Here is how to boost your metabolic engine:
• Eat enough protein and lift weights to rebuild lean mass.
• Focus on 7–9 hours of sleep and stress reduction to restore hormonal balance.
• Include 30–40 g fiber daily from vegetables, chia, flax, and lentils, and other fiber sources.
• Do Zone 2 cardio and daily movement to retrain mitochondria to burn fat.
• Cycle calories: alternate mild deficit days with maintenance days to prevent slowdown.
The good news. Your metabolism isn’t broken
Your metabolism isn’t broken — it’s adaptive and it’s waiting for consistency to adapt to another way of being. With the right inputs, it can shift from surviving to thriving. When body fat is high, your body is protecting itself, not sabotaging you. The goal isn’t to “eat less,” but to restore metabolic flexibility — the ability to switch between burning carbs and fat efficiently.
