^^This phrase is something I either say in my talking-to-camera reels on Instagram or put at the end of a caption, and it is the truth. You are capable of more, and you are leaving so much untapped potential on the table.

Today, we are talking about why “I’ve tried everything” usually is not the full story, what it means to truly listen to your body, cycle syncing, and why chasing balance before you have even earned it might be the very thing keeping you stuck.

Harsh Truth Number 1

When someone tells me they have tried everything and nothing worked, my immediate thought is that I do not believe them. The truth is they have tried things, but they either did not stick with it long enough or what they tried was not something they could sustain for life.

Take “I tried tracking macros and it did not work.” This is most likely one of two things. They thought simply tracking macros equated to weight loss, when in reality you have to track macros in a calorie deficit to lose weight. Or they tracked macros in a calorie deficit, lost weight, but then did not track as accurately in maintenance and slowly, or quickly in some cases, put back on the weight they lost.

Harsh Truth Number 2

It is not your hormones. Unless you are strength training at least three to four times per week, tracking your steps, tracking your food on a food scale seven days a week, managing stress, and getting quality sleep, you cannot tell me it is your hormones. It is probably a few of the things on that list that are the barrier to losing weight.

The number one rule for losing weight is to eat in a calorie deficit. If you are not sticking to your calorie deficit on a weekly basis for weeks and weeks and possibly months and months, it is not your hormones. Your maintenance calories are derived from your height, weight, age, gender, and ACTIVITY LEVEL. So if your activity level is decreasing over time, or if you are inconsistent with hitting your step goal and your workout goal, you are not in the calorie deficit that it shows on paper. On paper it may show you are in a 20% deficit, but if your daily step goal is 10,000 steps and you consistently hit 5,000 to 6,000, you are not in that 20% deficit like you think you are.

Now, it absolutely can be your hormones, and I want to be clear about that. I am currently working with a client who is executing across the board but has hypothyroidism and her thyroid is currently acting up, causing her hair to fall out, the scale to stall, and excessive fatigue. She is NAILING everything and the scale still is not moving, which is why she is now getting bloodwork done after executing at a high level for a few months. I have only seen this twice. For most people, the answer is more consistent execution at 90% or higher.

Harsh Truth Number 3

Maybe you should not be telling yourself to “listen to your body.” If you are currently happy with your results and have a healthy relationship with food, exercise, and rest, this message is not for you.

The phrase gets overused, and I see it most often come up when people are simply lacking motivation or did not plan well. You wake up on a Monday tired and instead of exercising before or after work, you listen to your body and take another rest day, even though you had the entire weekend off where you probably vegged out at some point as well. Being tired because you stayed up until midnight watching a new show or spent over an hour mindlessly scrolling in bed is not a signal from your body that it needs rest. In those cases, listening to your body has become a crutch for lack of motivation rather than a prioritization of rest and recovery.

If this has become a default response for you, it is worth getting really honest with yourself about whether it is truly benefiting you. Maybe it is time to peel back a few layers to the why, hold yourself more accountable, and do the workout or prep the meal even when you do not feel like it, because the barrier between you and the results you want might be the crutch of always listening to your body. Our bodies are capable of way more than we even think, and this is not meant to push you toward burnout or overtraining. It is meant to challenge you, because you ARE capable of consistency and the results you are after.

Harsh Truth Number 4

Cycle syncing your workouts is a marketing gimmick from women who want you to constantly feel like the odds are always against you. Science does show that women are stronger and weaker during different phases of their cycle, but so is the case for life outside of the cycle entirely. A bad night of sleep, high stress, or recovering from sickness will all negatively impact your workouts. We already have enough to worry about as women, and this is not something we need to add to that list.

The cycle syncing method suggests taking different approaches to exercise depending on what phase of your cycle you are in, which makes sense if you experience extreme symptoms. Some women experience very mild symptoms, so those women would be adjusting their approach for no real reason. If you combine your period and luteal phase, that could literally account for 75% of your month. Pulling back for 75% of the month and then going as hard as possible during ovulation is not a framework that leads to great results.

My suggestion is the 10-minute rule. Show up and give yourself 10 minutes to ease in. If at 10 minutes you feel terrible, ease up, cut back on weights, walk on the treadmill, stretch, or do some foam rolling. If at 10 minutes you feel great, proceed as normal, regardless of where you are in your cycle. Some months you might find yourself having one of the best workouts you have ever had during a phase where you were told you are supposed to feel weak. No matter what trend comes next, we should always respect how our body feels that day without trends like this becoming a crutch to excuse a lack of effort.

Harsh Truth Number 5

You will not get the body you want by constantly striving for a balanced lifestyle before you have earned it. Balance is the ultimate goal, but if you have not reached your health or physique goals yet, trying to practice balance right out of the gate is going to leave you frustrated because the results come so much slower. Going through a season of absolutely locking the heck in is what earns you seasons of balance.

If you absolutely lock in for your calorie deficit and commit to being 90% or more compliant with your macros for the entirety of your deficit, you would get to your results so much faster. Instead, you fit in regular meals out, take weekends off from tracking, eat the ballpark food at your kids’ tournaments, throw caution to the wind every date night, and have lake weekends with more alcohol. You want what you see as balance, yet you want the results of the person who locked in at 90% compliance, tracked every bite, lick, and taste of food, hit their macros 90% of the time or more, and ate out very little if at all, because all meals out are going to be best guesses and you cannot claim a 90% compliant week if you are relying on estimates. Being THAT locked in is going to feel unbalanced, and it will get you the results you want.

Some people have never told themselves no. They have never forced themselves to abstain from something for any length of time to actually see results worth having, and expecting a balanced lifestyle to deliver significant results when a more disciplined, locked-in approach has never truly been tried is a tough position to be in. If you lock in for that deficit, get those results, and then commit to tracking your macros at 90% or more compliance at MAINTENANCE calories while following a progressive strength plan and hitting your step goal for six to nine months before cutting again, you would be utterly shocked at how much you can transform your body in one year.

The reason this works is that you reduce body fat during the deficit and build muscle during the maintenance phase. Muscle is metabolically expensive, meaning your body burns more calories at rest because it is doing everything it can to preserve that muscle. More muscle means a higher calorie burn throughout the day, which over time gives you more flexibility in your diet, more room for fun foods, and more room for food volume in general. THAT is what gives you the balanced lifestyle you are after. It requires seasons that feel unbalanced to get there, but those seasons are what make everything after them possible.

If one of these truths hit home today, do not ignore it. Pick one thing to work on this week and execute. Consistency changes more than motivation ever will.

I believe in you, and I am rooting for you.

Until next time, keep adding another penny in the jar.