Just over a year ago I published my most shared blog post to date: I’m Calling for a New Paradigm. My experience during what I now refer to as my ‘Fitness Model Diet’ fundamentally changed my approach to weight loss and fitness. I’d like to share some of the internal shifts I’ve made in the last year, and relate them to the trends I observe in the Fitness Industry.

First a brief review of my Fitness Model Diet. Over the course of 12 weeks, I dropped from a weight of 160 to 148 (at my lowest) and a body fat percentage of 12%. I hovered between 148 and 152 for about 2 months, and began to experience some symptoms of underweight and undereating, in spite of being at a scale weight that qualified as healthy and consuming 2200-2400 calories a day, which most people would consider not only adequate but probably quite indulgent. Perhaps more concerning, I also began to develop symptoms of body dysmorphia, a sign of disordered eating. I recognized what was happening to me and ended my experiment. To read a more in depth account of my experiences, click on the post I linked above, as well as this one, the follow up I wrote a couple months later.

In the months following, I increased my calories to where they’d been before my experiment and regained weight to 160 pounds. My symptoms resolved very quickly and my health and weight have been stable ever since. (More recently I’ve decided to purposely gain more weight in order to add some lean mass and hopefully see strength gains in the gym, I’ll discuss this further down).

My biggest takeaway from this whole experience was a new understanding of body fat; not only it’s role in maintaining metabolic health, but the disordered view our culture has of it. While it’s clear that in great excess body fat can impact health negatively, what is less commonly understood is that a certain amount of body fat is essential for health, particularly in women. Body fat is not an inert substance. In addition to insulating internal organs and storing energy, it plays a role in the production of hormones (including leptin, estrogen and resistin), and regulation of endocrine function. Just as too much body fat can throw hormonal regulation out of balance, so also can too little.

In the last year, I’ve taken a step back from the pursuit of fat loss that had been my primary focus for several years. I’ve begun to evaluate the messages the Fitness Industry sends with a more critical eye. What I see really disturbs me.

Fat Loss at All Costs

A simple Google search of the terms ‘diet’ and ‘fitness’ reveals that fat loss is THE defining goal of virtually every fitness and diet program. Try to find a ‘success story’ that doesn’t hinge on the visible reduction of body fat. Fat loss is, quite simply, THE barometer of success in this world. When fat loss is achieved, the program is deemed successful. Most programs are marketed specifically as fat loss plans. We are, as a culture, myopically obsessed with fat loss.

The human body requires a certain degree of ‘fatness’ for proper endocrine function. Women need more fat than men, and some women need more fat than others. As the body approaches that lower limit of adequate fat reserves, it initiates endocrine adaptations that inhibit further loss (downregulation of metabolism, loss of reproductive function, catabolism of lean mass, etc), such that the leaner a person is, the more extreme the measures they will need to engage in in order to see continued fat loss. The fitness and diet industry are ready with products to sell! Programs that place extreme restrictions on calories and macronutrients, and exercise routines that require extreme degrees of intensity or duration, usually combined. And it works! These extreme diets force the body to drop even more fat, with spectacular aesthetic results that are illustrated in dramatic before and after photos.

A clear message emerges from these dramatic images: Fat loss is good! Weight loss is success! Fat is bad! Weight gain is failure!

The end result is that healthy people at healthy weights internalize the message that they need to lose weight, because they don’t look like the bodies in the after pictures, so clearly they aren’t successfully managing their weight! They engage in increasingly extreme dietary restriction. Enough is never enough. There is always more fat to lose, another diet that promises fat loss success. Smaller and smaller we get.

I’ve experienced this mentality over and over during the last year as my weight has steadily increased. Every time I post on my facebook page about my weight gain, I get advice about how to turn it around. Even when I say specifically that I am gaining weight on purpose, I still get advice about how to lose weight. It’s like my words don’t even register beyond the weight gain. If I’ve gained weight it must be bad, and I must want to change it. The concept of a person, especially a woman, intentionally gaining weight is completely foreign. Even when I say ‘I am gaining weight on purpose’, a few people always seem to hear ‘help me figure out how to lose weight’. It is surreal. One person posted elsewhere that my diet ‘clearly isn’t working for her, since she’s gained 10-15 pounds recently’. See that? Weight gain = failure. End of story.

Obviously there are many people for whom fat loss is a healthy goal. When weight and body fat become a threat to a person’s health, weight and fat loss is important. But there comes a point at which the hyperfocus on fat loss becomes unhealthy. When a person is at a healthy weight, pursuing fat loss is no longer a health-promoting goal, it is at best an aesthetic pursuit, and at worst a risk to long-term health. The body will resist losing those last pounds of essential fat, and forcing the issue can set up a metabolic state that leads to adverse health outcomes and potentially even trigger eating disorders. Fat loss isn’t always good.

So, over the last year I’ve shifted my own goals, and I’ve also reevaluated the approach to weight loss I use with clients. I’ve been eating at a small calorie surplus and am now hovering right around 170 pounds. I have, essentially, gained 20 pounds in the last year. My current weight puts me just over the ‘healthy weight’ cut off on the BMI scale, I am officially overweight. In the last year, the primary focus of my training and diet has been strength and mass gains. I have gained some lean mass, and I’ve also gained some fat. This is not a failure. I am not planning to ‘cut’ after some arbitrarily approved ‘bulking’ period. In fact, as of right now, I have no plans to lose weight or fat, ever again. I do not wish that all my gains had been muscle. There is nothing wrong with gaining some fat. It does not make me inadequate or undesirable or unhealthy. Even having a BMI that qualifies as overweight doesn’t make me any of those things. My weight is just a number. A data point. It is not a value judgement. Do you want to see the body that a year of eating lots of food and focus on GAINS has produced?

Here I am in all my 170 pound, overweight glory. I have no idea what my body fat percentage is here.

For reference, here is the body that restriction and focus on fat loss produced:

148 pounds, 12% body fat.

Neither body is ‘better’. Some people will find my current body more attractive, others will find my leaner body more attractive, others still will find both hideously unattractive. It’s ok. I’m not here to tell you one body type is better than another, or fish for compliments, or try to garner anyone’s approval for the choices I make for my own body.

What I AM here to tell you is that there is another way. That fat loss doesn’t HAVE to be your goal. That all different body types can be healthy and beautiful. That you can be more if you want to. That less isn’t the only acceptable option. That if the endless pursuit of fat loss isn’t making you happy, isn’t improving the quality of your life, isn’t working…you can choose another approach. Choosing another approach isn’t failure. It is simply different, and there is a place in this world for different. We are not all shaped the same.

These days when clients approach me for weight management coaching, the first thing I have them do is really evaluate where they are. Many, many people who believe they need to lose weight are actually, objectively, already at a healthy weight. Trying to force their body to shed more weight, more fat, may not be the most health- and joy-affirming option. Taking an approach of building a stronger foundation may be a more sustainable, and ultimately more enjoyable, choice. Choosing to end the relentless pursuit of fat loss is not an admission of defeat, it is not a failure. It can be a very healthy, very positive statement of self-respect.

I can’t tell you which body you should like better, but I CAN tell you which one eats ice cream, kills workouts and has more sex. The overweight one.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

For more information on some of the topics discussed here:

Body Fat
Minnesota Starvation Experiment
Endocrine Response to Anorexia
Endocrine Response to Typical Dieting

My blog posts on related topics:

Adrenal Fatigue as a Cover for Starvation
Healthy Diet or Disordered Thinking?
Body Composition: That ‘Last Five Pounds’, and How to Deal With ‘Problem Areas’

I ‘met’ Kaleolani about a year ago via my facebook page. She continues to inspire me every day with her positive, life-affirming approach to her life and her health. When confronted with serious medical issues, she took a thoughtful and long-term approach to healing, by paying attention to how her own unique body responded to different treatments. Formerly diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, Kaleolani has made long-term lifestyle changes that support her metabolic health. She’s now off her diabetes medication and has normal metabolic function. Like my last Guest Blogger Jennifer, I find Kaleolani’s story inspiring and hopeful.

Kaleolani’s Story

When I was asked by Amber to write a piece, I was giddy, and honored and scared to death. Where would I start? What was I going to talk about? So I decided, very simply, to start at the beginning. I was born and raised in Hawai’i (hence my first name). I could say I was a surfing beach bunny, sitting around eating fish and poi, and laying in the sun getting my tan. The fact is, I don’t surf, deep ocean water scares me, I love poi but not so much the fish and I find laying out boring. Somewhere along the way between childhood and today, I also developed an eating disorder. I have compulsive eating disorder or binge eating. When most people think of an eating disorder they think of someone who is starving themselves or binging and purging. An eating disorder doesn’t always fit that mold. For me it was the coping skill I used for my feelings, for my emotional protection, and to make it through my daily life.

I met a wonderful man, we got married and due to his job, I moved away from home. Through other ups and downs of life, I know I suffered a few times from depression, including depression brought on by the C-section I had with my first daughter. It wasn’t what you’d call an ideal pregnancy and her birth was far from the fairy dust sprinkled, birth miracle of your favorite movies or TV show. We moved again. I had a second baby; got sick and things took a down hill turn. We moved again, and I didn’t realize that the bottom was so very far down or that I’d end up sinking down there and hitting rock bottom.

One day I went to the doctor’s for a check up, something I avoided because I was told all of my ills were due to my weight. At this particular visit, my new to me doctor, informed me I was pre-diabetic. No! Only one person in my family had been diabetic. This does not run in my family. We had other diseases, cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, but not diabetes. What was I supposed to do with this? Well the very same thing I did with everything else. I ran the other way and ate to push it down.

My doctor did talk to me about my weight. I am 5’2″ and I had gotten up to about 360 lbs. That’s pretty short and round like. When she approached it, it was not in the same way that others had done before, but she really listened.  She heard me when I said I’d tried every single diet, when I said I always came out of it feeling like I was the biggest failure in the world, when I said I had been listening to a couple of friends talk about compulsive eating and it seemed to fit every thing I was feeling and doing. She listened to me when I said I’d bought a book and cried as I read because it felt like I had written it myself. She then put me in touch with a totally awesome therapist. I was only able to spend 6 months with my therapist until we had to move again.

When we moved I decided it was time to live my best life right now. No more waiting for that magic miracle diet to help me shed all the pounds and make me a perfect size 2. By now I’d have been happy with the perfect size 20. I got a seat belt extender for my car, donated all of my clothes that didn’t fit and threw away the last scale in the house. I also found a new doctor in our new home. I needed help because I was tired all the time and couldn’t drive without falling asleep. I couldn’t stay up for more then 2 hours. I also had my first ambulance ride to the ER one morning, scared to death I was having a heart attack because I couldn’t breath and the pain in my chest was unbearable.

My totally new, totally awesome doctor sent me for blood tests, did a physical and sent me to a pulmonologist for a sleep study. Turns out, I have severe sleep apnea. The blood tests came back and, oh, by the way, I’ve now got full-blown diabetes. No time to panic as I was already panicking thinking I would die while sleeping with my daughters would be the ones to find me dead in the morning. I didn’t know what to do so I dumped all the things that could possibly cause me an issue with my blood sugar. I dumped all grains, all starchy vegetables, all fruits, and nearly all sugar. I got set up with my CPAP machine, took my Metformin and then I set about figuring out what to do with this disease I knew nothing about.

Insurance wouldn’t pay for a visit to a nutritionist. I did a better thing. I asked a diabetic friend, well, more like I cried all over my computer and begged my diabetic friend for any help. I can’t begin to tell you what my angel of a friend did for my peace of mind. She gave me wonderful advice and tips. I took them to heart. I wasn’t prescribed a glucometer, but I went out and got one from CVS. The great staff there was so helpful, showed me how to use it, and told me I didn’t need the latest and greatest one with bells and whistles. I needed the simplest one, with the cheapest test strips and off I went. I found myself a chiropractor and an acupuncturist. I wanted all of my bases covered. They were going to help me with all other physical and emotional aspects and most importantly, try to help my body heal my pancreatic function.

I tested everything I ate. I ran through testing strips like they were water. I began to exercise, which was not easy. After 2 C-sections and my illness my back was out of whack. I was in pain all the time and dealing with a second round of plantar fasciitis. My right knee would not bear any weight by itself. I walked, or tried to. I could make it maybe 1 1/2 minutes before I hurt so much I had to stop. I walked a small path behind our condo. It would take me about 20 minutes to walk something that should have taken 3. I saw a video for DDP Yoga and I got the tapes. I did the things my friend told me to do. Her most wonderful advice ever was to walk. She said if I ate something that spiked my blood sugar, which happened a lot at the beginning, to walk. If you move the big muscles in your body, it would move the sugar floating around in there, instead of sitting there making me feel high.

I had been getting horrible headaches before and the Metformin helped with that. I could visually see and physically feel when my blood sugar was going up too high and too fast. My walking was getting better. Finally, after a couple of months, I got rid of the last bit of sugar in my diet. I gave up chocolate. I knew it wouldn’t be a lifetime move, but I had to give it up for the time being to let my body heal.

Two weeks before my 3-month appointment with my doctor, I started to get headaches again when I took the Metformin. I decided to stop taking it. I got another blood test. My blood sugar numbers were dropping. My doctor was looking for my A1C numbers. According to diabetes.org A1C is: “A test that gives you a picture of your average blood glucose control for the past 2-3 months. The results give you a good idea of how well your diabetes plan is working.” She agreed when I told her I didn’t want to take the Metformin and try to control things with diet and exercise. Did I say yet how awesome she is?

I slowly started to add back in some whole starches like potatoes and some black and brown rice. I was sleeping so much better with my CPAP and life was amazingly different already. I found new recipes to help with my cravings as I still was dealing with my eating disorder. There’s a fine line to balance with making sure I’m doing what’s needed for health and balancing it out emotionally. I do not restrict my eating because for me, that is a sure way of creating a need for a binge. Paleo and primal web sites helped me tremendously. I still ate dairy and still had starches but I needed to learn a different way of baking to avoid wheat. I had a NEED for cookies.

I saw my doctor every three months. I got a blood test each time to check my A1C levels and various other things. I kept seeing my chiropractor and acupuncturist. My levels kept going to down closer to the normal range. I kept doing what I was doing.

My physical changes were phenomenal. I thought I wasn’t an outdoors person. I really was. I love walking in nature. I just don’t want to sit in nature or eat in nature (:-) I am not an al fresco diner), but moving through nature, I could do. My daughters and I found some trails to walk and we did as often as we could. I walked a bigger loop near our condo. I noticed, as I was doing my DDP, and standing in a lunge position, my right knee was able to go lower then it had before. I was taking pictures to track progress, and there was a visible difference in how I looked, how my clothes fit. I still didn’t use a scale and had to stop taking measurements. It wasn’t working for me emotionally to do this. I got derailed a bit by a weight loss challenge that I shouldn’t have joined, but it did teach me that restricting or surrounding myself with people who do, does not work for my peace of mind.

I then decided I wanted to try running. After getting the ok from all my medical people, I followed my intuition and got myself a pair of Vibram 5 Finger shoes and started to try to jog. I had read somewhere something about John Bingham and how he said he waddled when he jogged. That so fit. My friend told me she called it wogging. I loved it. I got some new wogging pants, sewed some skirts to wear over the pants and tried to see what I could do. I started very slowly and I’m still slow, but low and behold, the person who thought she hated running, LOVES it. Turns out, I just hated running for PE.

Today, I had my 1-year check up. My A1C numbers have me in the normal range. Not diabetic, not pre-diabetic but the normal range. I eat sprouted wheat bread when I want, I have some maple syrup on sprouted wheat pancakes, I have some sugar, and I still have my rice, my potatoes and everything else, including my chocolate. I have lost about 60 lbs. In the process I finally was able to lose my fear of what the food would do to my body. I still deal with my eating disorder one day at a time. I am living every day, and eating the chocolate, and wogging because I love it. I can walk a flight of stairs, I can run a few sprints, I can do actual squats without holding onto anything. I still have a ways to go physically, emotionally and mentally, but it’s no longer a race against a disease but a way to a better life. It’s always been about putting one foot in front of the other and finding a solution to the problem at hand. Now though, I look forward to seeing what new thing I’ll be able to do tomorrow, living my best life now.

Aloha,
Kaleolani Garcia
Homeschooling, stay at home mom of 2 and Coast Guard spouse.

Popular culture and the fitness industry have distilled physical fitness down to two very superficial motivations: achieving a desired physique aesthetic, and burning calories. For many people, these motivations are enough to get them into the gym, but there are many, many people out there who aren’t motivated by these goals. Perhaps they are happy with their physique, or comfortable with their weight, or simply more concerned with other aspects of living. There is nothing wrong with this at all, and in fact I think being less concerned with one’s appearance than other important aspect of life is probably very healthy (please note that I am not suggesting that being concerned with appearance is therefore unhealthy; these are simply different approaches to living that are both perfectly acceptable).

For people for whom aesthetics and calorie burning aren’t major goals, exercise as it is framed in our culture may seem irrelevant. Today I’d like to talk about the less acknowledged, but probably more important, reasons for staying active.

Metabolic Health

I discuss Metabolic Health a great deal on my blog. It is a concept that is a little foreign to our reductionist society. Just as we tend to reduce food to a collection of nutrients, we reduce our bodies to a collection of organs and processes, imagining that each works in isolation. Our bodies are more complex than that. The body is actually an intricate system, all the processes of which affect and are effected by all the other processes. The function of this system is what we call metabolism. Popular culture has reduced ‘metabolism’ to ‘the number of calories the body burns’, but metabolism is far more than that. ‘Metabolism’ is actually every single chemical process of every single cell in your body. When one of those processes goes awry, it effects other processes and so begins a cascade of dysfunction.

Exercise is, in my opinion, one of the fundamental processes of metabolism. Exercise effects the body on a cellular level. Exercise helps regulate the ability of our cells to metabolize glucose and produce energy. Improved energy production has far reaching effects on all aspects of our health. This effect on the way our very cells function, our Metabolic Health, is, in my opinion, the reason exercise has been shown to be so powerful an intervention in the treatment and prevention of myriad health conditions.

Exercise has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity and mitigate symptoms of Diabetes. Exercise also improves the symptoms of PCOS and even lead to increased fertility. Higher levels of activity are inversely associated with risk factors for Metabolic Syndrome.

Exercise can reduce the risk and symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Exercise can mitigate the pain and dysfunction of arthritis, both Osteo and Rheumatoid.

Exercise increases bone density.

Exercise is associated with a reduced risk of cancer and heart disease.

Exercise also has numerous, less quantifiable quality of life benefits, such as increased confidence, higher libido and improved energy levels.

Ultimately, the kind of exercise one does is far less important than simply being physically active on a regular basis. Although there is a perception that we can only derive benefits from high intensity, vigorous activity, the truth is that simply walking more will produce improvements in health and well being. If walking more leads to other fitness goals, great! If not, walking is enough! As I say to my clients, you do not need to puke, pass out or die in order to get fit. Just moving enough to physically challenge yourself most days of the week is totally adequate to gain health benefits.

Our bodies evolved to move, and when we don’t move enough our bodies don’t function optimally. This has nothing to do with aesthetics or calories or weight. Is has to do with the health of our very cells, and the ways the systems of our body work together to support whole-body health. You try to eat a wide variety of foods to provide your body with the nutrients it needs to stay healthy, remember that your body needs movement to stay healthy as well. Find an activity you like, so that you will stay engaged, and then enjoy the health benefits it brings!

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*Note: this offer applies to payloadz downloads only, not the Kindle versions.

Taking Up Space: My Guide to Eating to Support a Healthy Weight

From the Amazon description:

“Can I get an “AMEN!”?! This is so simple, and makes so much sense! If you have to white-knuckle your way down to a weight and struggle miserably to maintain it, how is that “ideal”? About a month ago I found Go Kaleo, started tracking my food, upped my protein and calorie intake, and I’ve lost weight AND inches! All that weight training I’ve been doing is finally noticeable! But the miracle is that I’m not obsessed with food every day, I’m not fighting cravings and feeling hopeless, like if I lost my focus for one minute I’d blow it. I’m not afraid of food anymore! I feel like Go Kaleo has let me in on the “secret” to being healthy… You are changing lives.” ~Denise

In a weight loss world where grueling 1200-calorie diets are the mainstream standard for weight loss, accompanied with long lists of evil foods to avoid, Amber Rogers, aka “Go Kaleo” is the voice of reason.

Being healthy and finding your healthy weight simply doesn’t work when it’s hard. It works best when it’s easy. Go Kaleo puts practicality and sustainability first – two concepts often completely eliminated from popular diets in pursuit of quick, albeit impermanent results.

While most recommend eating as little food as possible and doing as much exercise as one can bear, Taking Up Space advocates finding the MAXIMUM amount of calories and minimum number of paranoid restrictions that still gets results.

In the book, Go Kaleo talks about her incredible 80-pounds of slow, effortless, hunger and craving-free weight loss that never came back – all on a steady diet of 2800 calories a day with a few good workouts a week. No big cravings for carbs, meat, fat, or sweets – as these were things that she was eating in ample abundance every day.

After reaching a healthy goal, what did she do? She increased calories even more only to find that this allowed her to build toned muscle and shed more fat than ever before.

Taking Up Space also contains some passionate and important discourse on getting past the illusions created by fake tans and Photoshop, and realizing that what everyone is increasingly thinking are “flaws” are actually quite normal aspects of human physiology.

This book sets a new standard in approaching weight loss in a lasting way. It is the future of how better health and better bodies will be attained once the rest of the world realizes how counterproductive extreme approaches really are.
“…You can get better, you can get stronger, you can get healthier, you can be MORE. You can’t restrict, reduce, eliminate your way to any of these things. Yes, you can lose weight, but there is a healthier, saner, more sustainable way to do it.” ~Go Kaleo

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll recognize many of the themes I cover in this book. I’ve tied several of my more important posts together to create a more cohesive guide that will give you the basics on energy balance, maintenance of a healthy weight, self respect and self care, and a path forward out of the diet maze.

First 100 Days Beginners Program

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe

One of the questions I get asked frequently is how to get into shape when you’re an absolute beginner. If you’ve been sedentary for years, don’t have a history of athleticism, don’t know your way around a gym, are deconditioned or simply don’t know where to begin, this program is for you.

What can you expect? We’ll start slowly, with basic exercises and simple routines. Early on, the workouts can be done without any equipment, and as you progress through them you’ll build on skills you learned in earlier workouts and add in equipment and intensity. The ‘goal’ of this program is to build functional strength, familiarize you with traditional exercises, and improve cardiovascular endurance. If you have more specific goals, such as running a 5k or working toward an aesthetic goal, this probably isn’t the right program for you. This program contains a lot of variety. I wrote it this way for three reasons: to keep you from getting bored, to build a broad base of skills and generalized fitness, and to allow you to try out different exercise styles so you can start to identify things you enjoy. At the end of these 100 days you’ll be stronger and fitter than you are now, you’ll have more confidence in yourself, and you’ll have an idea of where you want to go from here.

Basic Lifting Routine

My Basic Lifting Routine is a simple, straightforward, progressive resistance program that can be useful for people of any fitness level. It includes 6 short but intense full body workouts, each incorporating compound multijoint exercises that improve strength, functionality, flexibility and cardiovascular endurance. We focus on the basics here (hence the name): squats, deadlifts, presses, rows and an array of bodyweight exercises that will be both doable for the beginner, and challenging for more experienced exercisers. When you complete the 6th workout, you start over, adding weight, reps and/or intensity each subsequent workout, so this routine can be used indefinitely: you will continue to get stronger and faster.

• ______ Feeling like it’s a contest to see who can eat the least is somehow socially acceptable- but suddenly when people start voiceing how much they are eating suddenly feathers get ruffled. Everyone is here because they are EXTREMELY smart, educated and knowledge about diet and nutrition- so much so they dieted their way into a fear of not being able to eat. EAT- the most basic human function. A baby 1 minute old knows how to eat- and most of us here have lost that ability. I think everyone here, being so smart about nutrition is smart enough to “police” themselves and check themselves if they are eating to the other “extreme”- only they would know that.
• 

  Amber Evangeline Rogers Good point, if we were comparing how strict and restrictive our diets were there’d be much less ‘concern’. THAT is socially acceptable. THANK you for voicing this. You are right, and I hadn’t even seen it.
• 

  Amber Evangeline Rogers And on that same note, when men joke around about being able to put away large amounts of food, even less ‘optimal’ food, no one bats an eyelash.
• ________ Diets are the foot binding of our culture.
• ________ It’s sort of a badge of honor, among the bros, who can out-eat everyone else.
• ________ Exactly, Amber Evangeline Rogers! Ever since I joined this group, I’ve been thinking a lot of the backlash Amber has experienced on her blog and other places on the internet is not so much because she advocates moderation (although that is part of it) but because she empowers women to take back their own bodies.

  Amber Evangeline Rogers It is. My friend posted a video of himself eating an entire cheesecake and got high fives (it WAS awesome. And oh, dudebro is ripped). Not a single ‘oh I’m concerned about the message you might be sending’ or ‘as long as you’re not doing it every day’ or whatever.

  _____________________________________________________________________

  The above conversation just happened on facebook. I edited out the names to respect people’s privacy, but I wanted others to read this.

As if it weren’t bad enough that we are shamed from every direction for having normal, healthy human bodies, as soon as we decide to take back the power over our health and well being, and begin the process of learning to nourish ourselves properly to support our activity, so begins the calorie shaming.

What am I talking about? I cover several main themes on my facebook page, and the last week or so I’ve been focusing on eating enough calories. Here are a few of the comments people have left on my posts just in the last day, these are directed at me and my food choices:

“Ask yourself why you must defend your need to have [sugar]?” (left in response to my post about sugar being an awesome fuel for my workouts)

“Uh, hello? 3000 calories a day is not normal or healthy intake! Unless you are running a marathon every day.” (in response to my post that 3000 calories a day is not unreasonable for an active healthy adult – it’s about how much I eat. Not everyone needs quite that much, but many do.)

“3000 calories is a large amount of food if you are a healthy eater. Fresh fruits and veggies and lean proteins do not have many calories. What to you do? Eat a cheese burger on a big bun and than go running and call yourself healthy?” (same post as above)

The message here is that eating this much food is undesirable, unhealthy, bad.

How someone can look at my pictures and then criticize my eating philosophy as unhealthy and ineffective is beyond me. Well, I’ll take that back, we’ve seen very clearly that people who don’t want to hear the truth can make up some pretty amazing stories to rationalize away my success and ease their cognitive dissonance. These comments make me shake my head. Some have said to just ignore them, but I think it’s really important to highlight them and TALK about them. Disordered thinking is so deeply ingrained in or culture, I think that a lot of people reading comments like these won’t recognize the disorder, and will internalize it. That’s how our culture has conditioned us.

The good news is that the vast majority of responses my posts about this topic get are positive. Comment after comment from people who’ve increased their calorie intake to a more sustainable level and seen fitness, body composition and even weight loss progress where before they were frustrated. But these negative comments can be powerfully subversive, and have the potential to derail a person just beginning the recovery process. So I am talking about it. As you begin to emerge from the dark of the diet maze, you will be subjected to calorie shaming. It will come from all directions: the media, your friends, your SELF. Recognize it for what it is. It is not healthy.

You deserve a healthy strong body, and you can not starve yourself healthy and strong.

From the Amazon description:

“Can I get an “AMEN!”?! This is so simple, and makes so much sense! If you have to white-knuckle your way down to a weight and struggle miserably to maintain it, how is that “ideal”? About a month ago I found Go Kaleo, started tracking my food, upped my protein and calorie intake, and I’ve lost weight AND inches! All that weight training I’ve been doing is finally noticeable! But the miracle is that I’m not obsessed with food every day, I’m not fighting cravings and feeling hopeless, like if I lost my focus for one minute I’d blow it. I’m not afraid of food anymore! I feel like Go Kaleo has let me in on the “secret” to being healthy… You are changing lives.” ~Denise

In a weight loss world where grueling 1200-calorie diets are the mainstream standard for weight loss, accompanied with long lists of evil foods to avoid, Amber Rogers, aka “Go Kaleo” is the voice of reason.

Being healthy and finding your healthy weight simply doesn’t work when it’s hard. It works best when it’s easy. Go Kaleo puts practicality and sustainability first – two concepts often completely eliminated from popular diets in pursuit of quick, albeit impermanent results.

While most recommend eating as little food as possible and doing as much exercise as one can bear, Taking Up Space advocates finding the MAXIMUM amount of calories and minimum number of paranoid restrictions that still gets results.

In the book, Go Kaleo talks about her incredible 80-pounds of slow, effortless, hunger and craving-free weight loss that never came back – all on a steady diet of 2800 calories a day with a few good workouts a week. No big cravings for carbs, meat, fat, or sweets – as these were things that she was eating in ample abundance every day.

After reaching a healthy goal, what did she do? She increased calories even more only to find that this allowed her to build toned muscle and shed more fat than ever before.

Taking Up Space also contains some passionate and important discourse on getting past the illusions created by fake tans and Photoshop, and realizing that what everyone is increasingly thinking are “flaws” are actually quite normal aspects of human physiology.

This book sets a new standard in approaching weight loss in a lasting way. It is the future of how better health and better bodies will be attained once the rest of the world realizes how counterproductive extreme approaches really are.
“…You can get better, you can get stronger, you can get healthier, you can be MORE. You can’t restrict, reduce, eliminate your way to any of these things. Yes, you can lose weight, but there is a healthier, saner, more sustainable way to do it.” ~Go Kaleo

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll recognize many of the themes I cover in this book. I’ve tied several of my more important posts together to create a more cohesive guide that will give you the basics on energy balance, maintenance of a healthy weight, self respect and self care, and a path forward out of the diet maze.

Be sure to check out my facebook page and the Eating the Food facebook group for support in putting the concepts in this book into practice.

To purchase Taking Up Space as a downloadable pdf:

To purchase Taking Up Space for Kindle:

Visible abs are not an indicator of optimal health. They are nothing more than an indicator of low body fat. Low body fat isn’t always optimally healthy, especially for women. I’m tired of images of visible abs being used as a marketing tool for Fad Diets.

I have visible abs. Want to know my secret? It’s not my diet or workout routine, and I can’t sell it to you.