Women, Weight, and Patience
WOMEN, WEIGHT, AND PATIENCE
Peach Friedman
In a culture where women are bombarded with quick-fix opportunities for weight loss, the idea of patience is not always welcomed. The truth is, a quick-fix isn’t a solution—it’s an impossibility.
It is well documented that diets don’t work. If you’ve ever dieted yourself, you are probably familiar with the‘yo-yo’ syndrome: rapid weight loss on a restricted intake followed by even faster weight gain when the hardship of eliminating entire food groups or restricting calories becomes too painful to endure.
As a Personal Fitness Trainer, I educate my clients on sustainability. I ask them, “Could you maintain your current exercise routine and your eating habits every day for the rest of your life?” If the answer is no, then it’s a diet, not a sustainable lifestyle habit. I encourage my overweight and obese clients to lose weight by developing habits that are truly sustainable, even if this means that the weight loss takes longer than they had initially hoped.
Think about it: to change your body, to really change your body, takes time. If you’re an adult, you’ve spent years building habits that have formed the body you have now. In order to change that for good, you have to be in it for the long haul.
My clients sometimes come to me frustrated after the first month or two of working out. They’re concerned that they’ve only lost five or ten pounds, and they’re disappointed because they had a goal to lose X amount by a certain date (often an upcoming reunion, or holiday with family, or a wedding). I offer in return a reality check.
I recommend, for most of my clients, anywhere between three and six days of exercise a week, depending on many individual factors, such as my client’s medical history, current state of health, goals, age, etc. Say I’ve got a client working out, consistently, four days a week, and she’s been doing this for eight weeks so far. First of all, that’s excellent! Especially if she was coming to me not exercising at all. But if you compare that to a woman who has been working out for four days a week, consistently, for five years, then you will see a drastic difference.
The woman who has been exercising regularly for five years is going to have a body that’s sufficiently conditioned. Her muscles, bones, and organs have all adjusted to regular exercise. So long as she’s also been eating nutritiously and fueling herself appropriately, her metabolism will have regulated to the needs of a truly consistent exerciser with healthy eating habits.
After two months of regular exercise, the body is still adjusting. Likely some excess weight will have been shed, so long as the client is eating healthfully and listening to her hunger signals. But it’s unrealistic to expect an altered body in this amount of time. The good news is, if this woman continues to stay dedicated to leading a healthy life, she will slowly see muscle definition increase, fat deposits decrease, and, if she was overweight to begin with, total weight decrease. The upshot of slow change is real change.
For some people, sticking with an exercise program and learning to adopt a healthy, sustainable relationship with food is difficult when they don’t see immediate weight loss results. I remind my clients of the plentitude of other benefits they’re experiencing, such as increased energy, healthy skin, decreased blood pressure, better sleep, and less stress. All of these positive effects of exercise can show up well before a client reaches her goal weight. It took most women several years to gain the weight that they now want to lose. In order to healthfully and permanently reach their goal weight, it can take many months.
Women often identify themselves with their weight, their size, their appearance. They define themselves by how thin they are, how tall they are, what color their hair is. With this much pressure on appearance, it’s no wonder so many people struggle with becoming their “perfect” self. I encourage my clients to develop an identity based in who they are rather than what they look like. When a person can feel accepting of themselves for who they truly are, all the pressure to weigh a certain number begins to fall away. At this point, often, finding that healthy weight becomes much easier.
Peach Friedman is a Certified Personal Trainer and spokesperson for NEDA, the National Eating Disorders Association. She lives and works in Palo Alto, CA.
Peach Friedman
In a culture where women are bombarded with quick-fix opportunities for weight loss, the idea of patience is not always welcomed. The truth is, a quick-fix isn’t a solution—it’s an impossibility.
It is well documented that diets don’t work. If you’ve ever dieted yourself, you are probably familiar with the‘yo-yo’ syndrome: rapid weight loss on a restricted intake followed by even faster weight gain when the hardship of eliminating entire food groups or restricting calories becomes too painful to endure.
As a Personal Fitness Trainer, I educate my clients on sustainability. I ask them, “Could you maintain your current exercise routine and your eating habits every day for the rest of your life?” If the answer is no, then it’s a diet, not a sustainable lifestyle habit. I encourage my overweight and obese clients to lose weight by developing habits that are truly sustainable, even if this means that the weight loss takes longer than they had initially hoped.
Think about it: to change your body, to really change your body, takes time. If you’re an adult, you’ve spent years building habits that have formed the body you have now. In order to change that for good, you have to be in it for the long haul.
My clients sometimes come to me frustrated after the first month or two of working out. They’re concerned that they’ve only lost five or ten pounds, and they’re disappointed because they had a goal to lose X amount by a certain date (often an upcoming reunion, or holiday with family, or a wedding). I offer in return a reality check.
I recommend, for most of my clients, anywhere between three and six days of exercise a week, depending on many individual factors, such as my client’s medical history, current state of health, goals, age, etc. Say I’ve got a client working out, consistently, four days a week, and she’s been doing this for eight weeks so far. First of all, that’s excellent! Especially if she was coming to me not exercising at all. But if you compare that to a woman who has been working out for four days a week, consistently, for five years, then you will see a drastic difference.
The woman who has been exercising regularly for five years is going to have a body that’s sufficiently conditioned. Her muscles, bones, and organs have all adjusted to regular exercise. So long as she’s also been eating nutritiously and fueling herself appropriately, her metabolism will have regulated to the needs of a truly consistent exerciser with healthy eating habits.
After two months of regular exercise, the body is still adjusting. Likely some excess weight will have been shed, so long as the client is eating healthfully and listening to her hunger signals. But it’s unrealistic to expect an altered body in this amount of time. The good news is, if this woman continues to stay dedicated to leading a healthy life, she will slowly see muscle definition increase, fat deposits decrease, and, if she was overweight to begin with, total weight decrease. The upshot of slow change is real change.
For some people, sticking with an exercise program and learning to adopt a healthy, sustainable relationship with food is difficult when they don’t see immediate weight loss results. I remind my clients of the plentitude of other benefits they’re experiencing, such as increased energy, healthy skin, decreased blood pressure, better sleep, and less stress. All of these positive effects of exercise can show up well before a client reaches her goal weight. It took most women several years to gain the weight that they now want to lose. In order to healthfully and permanently reach their goal weight, it can take many months.
Women often identify themselves with their weight, their size, their appearance. They define themselves by how thin they are, how tall they are, what color their hair is. With this much pressure on appearance, it’s no wonder so many people struggle with becoming their “perfect” self. I encourage my clients to develop an identity based in who they are rather than what they look like. When a person can feel accepting of themselves for who they truly are, all the pressure to weigh a certain number begins to fall away. At this point, often, finding that healthy weight becomes much easier.
Peach Friedman is a Certified Personal Trainer and spokesperson for NEDA, the National Eating Disorders Association. She lives and works in Palo Alto, CA.
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