Episode 72: Weight Loss Resistance Explained: Hormones, Stress, and Metabolism

In this episode of the Advanced Women’s Health Podcast, I sit down with two incredible doctors from our Brooklyn clinic, Dr. Samantha Maloney, ND and Dr. Alyssa Louras, ND to talk about one of the most common and frustrating concerns we hear from patients: weight loss resistance.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything right—eating well, exercising, and still not seeing the changes you expect—this conversation is for you.

One of the biggest misconceptions about weight loss is that it simply comes down to calories in versus calories out. But in reality, the body is much more complex than that. Hormones, inflammation, gut health, stress, thyroid function, and metabolic signaling all play a role in how the body uses or stores energy.

In this episode, we each share our perspectives on weight-loss resistance, drawing on our clinical experience and personal journeys. Dr. Samantha talks about how her background in bodybuilding helped her understand how the body can shift between muscle building and fat loss, and why those signals can sometimes go wrong. Dr. Alyssa shares how her training in nutrition led her to see that weight loss is rarely just about food—it’s about the larger systems in the body that influence metabolism.

Throughout the conversation, we unpack some of the biggest drivers of weight-loss resistance, including insulin resistance, chronic stress, inflammation, thyroid function, and the nervous system's impact. We also talk about why testing and understanding your individual physiology are so important when you feel stuck.

Most importantly, we emphasize something I say often in clinic: you didn’t eat your way into weight loss resistance, and you’re not going to eat your way out of it either. Weight is often a reflection of what is happening in the body as a whole. When we address the underlying drivers—hormones, gut health, inflammation, stress response—the body often starts responding again.

This is just the first part of a bigger conversation, and we will be diving even deeper in Part 2.