Exercise Is Great for You—Just Not for Weight Loss

Happy Friday!

Today, we're looking at some truths that might feel a little uncomfortable at first—starting with exercise, which turns out to be one of the best things you can do for your health, but isn’t the weight-loss solution we were sold.

We're also examining how vitamin B deficiency can manifest in unexpected ways, such as tingling feet, and what two major studies revealed about preservatives in everyday convenience foods. Additionally, we explore whether you really need that multivitamin and why financial stress might be affecting your heart health.

As always, we're here to cut through the noise and give you women’s health and wellness news without the hype.

Wishing you good health and happiness!
Nicolle
Editor

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If you grew up in the era of calorie counting, gym punishment, and being told to “just move more,” this may land a little sideways:

Exercise is incredible for your health, but it was never the secret weapon for weight loss we were promised.

Researchers studying thousands of people across dozens of countries—including highly active hunter-gatherer communities—have found that women who move more don’t actually burn dramatically more calories than women who don’t. The body quietly adjusts, conserving energy elsewhere to keep things in balance.

Even more surprising: after weight loss, the body often fights to return to its previous size. Hunger hormones rise. Energy expenditure drops. The brain seems to “remember” a higher weight and treats weight loss as a threat, not a win.

This helps explain a familiar experience many women know too well: doing everything right, losing some weight, then slowly (or quickly) regaining it—often with more effort and less margin for error each time.

This doesn’t mean exercise is pointless, or that change is impossible. Movement helps regulate blood sugar, inflammation, mood, sleep, bone density, and mental health, but weight regulation is driven far more by food environment, hormones, stress, sleep, and ultra-processed foods than by burning calories on a treadmill.

The takeaway isn’t “stop exercising.” But we do need to stop using exercise as a moral test—or as punishment for eating—and start seeing it as metabolic care. When women stop blaming themselves, they often make better, gentler, and more sustainable choices.

Related: Less than two years after stopping obesity drugs, weight and health issues return, study finds

Vitamin B12 has been everywhere lately—energy drinks, supplements, TikTok—but the real story is less hype-y and more quietly important, especially for women.

B12 (also called cobalamin) doesn’t create energy, but it’s essential for letting your body turn food into usable fuel. It supports red blood cell production, protects nerves, helps maintain memory and focus, and keeps the nervous system’s “insulation” (myelin) intact. When levels dip, things can unravel slowly, and often subtly.

One under-recognized early sign? Tingling, numbness, or strange sensations in the feet.

Because B12 is critical for nerve health and oxygen delivery, low levels can show up as pins-and-needles, balance issues, or feeling unsteady—symptoms that are sometimes mistaken for anxiety, circulation problems, or “just getting older.”

Fatigue, brain fog, muscle weakness, and poor wound healing can also creep in over time. And here’s the part many women don’t realize: B12 deficiency isn’t always about your diet.

You may be at higher risk if you:

Blood tests for B12 aren’t routinely checked, and while “normal” is often listed as ~250 pg/mL, many clinicians now aim for levels closer to 450 pg/mL, since symptoms can appear well before classic deficiency.

Most people get enough B12 from food (meat, fish, eggs, dairy, fortified grains). However, if absorption is the issue, oral supplements may not be sufficient; some people require injections.

Picture a normal week. You’re not living on junk—just grabbing what’s easy. A slice of toast. A yogurt. Some crackers while you’re standing at the counter. A deli sandwich between meetings. A glass of wine at night.

Nothing extreme. Nothing reckless.

And yet, two large new studies suggest that the preservatives threaded through many of these everyday foods may have a greater impact than we realized.

Researchers tracking over 100,000 adults for more than a decade found that people with the highest exposure to certain common food preservatives had a substantially higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes—and, in a separate analysis, higher rates of several cancers, including breast cancer. These weren’t niche additives or rare chemicals. They’re ingredients widely used in processed meats, baked goods, sauces, cheeses, packaged snacks, and drinks—the foods many of us rely on when life is full.

The studies don’t establish cause and effect, and the researchers are careful to note that. But the pattern is consistent: higher exposure, higher risk—even after accounting for overall diet quality, exercise, smoking, alcohol use, and other health factors.

These findings add to a growing understanding that how food is made—not just what it contains—can shape long-term health in subtle, cumulative ways.

Choosing fresh or minimally processed foods more often is a way of gently reducing invisible exposures that may add up over time, especially for women, whose metabolic and cancer risks change as we age.

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