Often, when I ask women what their fitness goals are, a funny thing happens and for a few seconds they're stumped. "My exercise goals?" they'll say. Then these women tell me what they want to lose: weight, saddlebags, bra bulge, and cellulite. Rarely, though, am I told what they want to gain.
The Problem
Blame it on our
culture. Women as young as high school
teenagers begin so see perceived body flaws.
It is practically an initiation rite into womanhood, yet many of these
perceived body flaws don't even exist.
For example, Carol Kennedy, M.S., now Program Director of
Fitness/Wellness at Indiana University in Bloomington, offered free body fat
screening to students in an attempt to promote weight-control courses she
taught at the university. Shockingly, 70
percent of the women that participated were in the normal range (20-30 percent
body fat) and 56 percent perceived themselves as overweight!
One reason so
many women have negative self-images is that we're surrounded by unrealistic
images of beauty. They want to look like
televisions stars and supermodels, have the waist size they had in high school,
or get six-pack abs. According to James
Loehr, Ed.D., President of LGE Performance Systems in Orlando, Fla., "many
women may hold themselves up to an imagined ideal that their genetics can't
accommodate, and set themselves up for failure.”
Another reason is
that, for most women, their road to a better self-image involves losing
something (like weight or belly fat) in order to look a certain way. “If you went to any street corner in any city
in the country and asked 100 women, 'how do you feel about your body?' how many
women will say 'I love it?'” asks Dan Baker, Ph.D., Program Director of Life
Enhancement at Canyon Ranch in Tuscon, Arizona.
“Our language is deficit-based, and many women live in tyranny of that.”
A number of
celebrities have juicy stories of being 20 pounds “overweight”—just like you or
me—until they whittled their waists through diet and determination until they
fit into size 2 jeans. We think if they
can do it, so can we. The problem is
that most people think that once the weight is gone it will be gone forever and,
as a result, put themselves on diet and exercise regimens they don't
enjoy. As a result, they either don’t
reach their goals or what they lost comes back.
“If you go on a diet that you know you can't sustain for a long time or
an exercise program you don't like, eventually that's going to break you down,”
says Loehr. “The journey to a goal is as
important as anything.”
The Solution
It may seem futile to tell a women who wants to shed pounds
to forget about weight loss, but
ironically it may just be what she needs to succeed. Loehr notes that "Professional athletes approach goals from a
performance angle, focusing on what they need to do. They don't judge effectiveness by standing in
front of a mirror. They set long-term
goals, but also set intermediate goals: what they're going to do by the end of
the month, this week or even today."
For example, you can have a goal of running a 10k but today you just
need to finish a mile. When you do this
weight loss will take care of itself.
During this time,
you will learn to give your body the nutrition it needs to attain your goals (a
skimpy green salad won't do!).
"Health and nutrition are very much connected to performance,"
says Loehr. "If you do anything that jeopardizes your health, the whole
thing comes apart."
Define your
personal exercise and fitness goals, keeping the lessons learned from this
article in mind. Achieving what you want with your body begins with the first
simple act of respecting it.
Physical
Success at a Glance
Here are Body
Effx tips to stay on track toward your fitness goals:
- Change
your mindset. Don't see yourself as a
sitting person, but rather as a moving and active individual. Keep moving.
- Set
small performance goals that are measurable and realistic. It can be something as simple as increasing
the time you spend on a cardio machine.
- Define
success by what you accomplish and can do.
Can you run a mile? Are the
stairs easier to climb?
- Stay
off the scale, especially if you've started weight training. It may lie about your weight.
- Instead
of measuring success by looking in a mirror, go by how your clothes fit.
- Allow
for setbacks; they are inevitable. Remember,
you're in this for the long haul.
2:00 AM
Body Effx Lifestyle
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