Can you suggest some beginner workouts for someone out of shape, but wanting to get IN shape?

A lot depends on what you enjoy doing. I know SO many people who started their fitness routine with the Couch to 5k plan, it is a really wonderful jumping off point and there’s a huge community you can turn to for support as you follow the plan. Once people get in the habit of making time for exercise, and build up a little cardiovascular endurance, they frequently branch out to other forms of exercise. If you’re not interested in running at all, you can do some basic bodyweight exercises, I have a beginner playlist on youtube, to create a basic workout pick 3-5 exercises and perform them in a circuit format. For example, 8 reps of each exercise, 5 times through. Do that a few times a week and you’ll start building some strength, endurance and confidence that you can then use to start adding in more complicated and strenuous exercises.

My question is how much straight cardio does a person really need per week versus strength training. I am 25 pounds overweight but struggle with breaking the straight cardio idea as the only way to take off extra pounds. I know I need to strength train but is there a balance I need to strike?

IMO, most of our cardio needs can be met through strength training and HIIT, so if you don’t want to do dedicated cardio you have my permission not to. Weight loss is all about maintaining a calorie deficit, and cardio’s only role in that regard is burning more calories so you have a larger deficit and/or can eat more. If you really enjoy cardio, do as much as you like but make sure you’re eating enough to support your activity! Keep your calorie deficit between 300 and 1000 calories, anything more than that and your body may start burning muscle. I wrote a little more about cardio here.

I’m going to be working out right after work, but before dinner. Any suggestions as to what I need to eat afterwards?

Just eat a regular balanced meal. If you’re not going to be able to sit down for a meal within an hour, have a small snack post exercise, something with carbs and protein, and around 100-200 calories, to hold you over until you can eat. If I don’t have a meal of real food handy post workout I usually eat a Larabar or a piece of fruit with some nuts.

Thoughts on Mesomorph/Endomorph/Ectomorph body types and the differing diet/exercise combination recommendations for each?

Meh. The body types are an entertaining way of putting us in boxes. I don’t know anyone who fits perfectly into one of those categories. It’s more important to find a form of exercise that you enjoy! My body is perfectly suited for swimming, and it’s true that I excel in the water. My long limbs and torso are a handicap in the weight room, but lifting is what I love. I’ll never be an elite lifter, but my enjoyment of the sport is what keeps me engaged. Find what you love and keep doing it! If your body type is a good match for that activity, all the better, but don’t let a body type/sport mismatch deter you from ANYTHING that you find enjoyable!

What are your thoughts on the frequency of when you should eat?

Eat when works for you. If many small meals works for you, go for it. If you prefer to eat a few large meals, do that. I do both, depending on what my schedule looks like. As long as you’re getting enough calories and meeting all your nutrient requirements, when you eat is pretty irrelevant. The same is true for eating at night. Weight loss/gain is about calories, not timing.

How do you determine your correct caloric intake for weight loss? How do you know if you’re eating to much or not enough when you hit a plateau?
Michi’s Ladder- have you heard of it and what are your thoughts?

I use this calorie calculator to get an approximate calorie target for clients based on their weight, gender, activity and goals. Once we have that approximation, it’s a matter of trial and error to find the sweet spot, which is generally within a few hundred caloreis in either directing of the target the calculator gives us. If you’ve been eating a good, healthy amount of food and hit a plateau, it likely means that you’ve reached the weight that calorie intake supports and you will have to drop your calories a little to continue losing. If you’ve been undereating, you’ll likely experience symptoms like fatigue, depression, compulsive thoughts about food, etc that will clue you in that you need more fuel.

The kinds of calories you choose can be important, for more discussion on that click here.

I have heard of Michi’s Ladder and it sounds like a pretty healthy way to eat. If the structure works for you, go with it!

What do you say to yourself when you absolutely do not want to get off of your butt and workout?

It depends! If I’ve been working hard in the gym the last few days, I listen to my body and give it a rest. If I’ve been slacking off and am just suffering from stagnation, I tell myself I only have to do 5 minutes, but I HAVE TO DO IT. Once I get started I almost always get into the groove and get a good workout in.

a) How many meals per day do I need to eat in order to speed up my metabolism? 3, 3 and snacks, 5, every three hours? b) Is it ok to drink coffee/tea right after meal or you have to wait for an hour? c) How soon you should eat after cardio/weightlifting/bootcamp class and what should you eat? d) Can you eat late? If yes, what foods are okay before the bed?

a.) See my answer to the meal frequency question above.
b.) Drinking coffee or tea may block absorption of some nutrients, so use your judgement here. Is the pleasure you get from the beverage worth potentially missing out on some nutrition? It’s ok to say yes.
c.) See my answer to the post workout meal/snack question above.
d.) Yes, you can eat late, as long as it fits into your calorie allotment. I almost always have a bedtime snack, usually either fruit or a spoonful or two of nut butter. If you want to get more hard core about it, you can check your food log for the day and see what nutrients you may be running short on and have a snack that contains those nutrients.

What would be your recommendations regarding spine problems and working out/lifting weights? Esp when having scoliosis.

Go slow, listen to your body, and focus on form. Hiring a reputable trainer to help you with form may be a good idea here. I have several clients with back issues who have been able to incorporate weight lifting into their routines, the key is knowing your specific limitations and working with them. You may not be able to do every lift, but you will definitely be able to do some, and those should be the foundation of your lifting routine. As you build strength and stability, you may even find that you can do things you thought were beyond your capabilities!

Is it necessary to gain fat when trying to gain lean muscle mass? Does it HAVE to be gain weight (muscle and fat), buy new clothes, shed the fat, buy more new clothes? lol Does it have to be that cyclical?

Absolutely not. You can achieve body recomposition without large weight fluctuations. Gaining and losing weight works a little faster, though. I’ve never had to buy a new wardrobe, I usually only gain 5-10 pounds during my ‘bulking’ phase, so my body size doesn’t change dramatically. Some body builders fluctuate much more, but I think there needs to be a balance for those of us who have real lives, KWIM?

What’s your opinion on Heart rate monitors and their accuracy for determining calorie burn?

I’ve never used one or really felt the need, so I can’t give you an educated answer here. I’ve done just fine determining my calorie burn through trial and error.

I would really like to hear your take on intermittent fasting.

My take on intermittent fasting: it’s really a matter of eating a large amount of food, enough to hold you over until you eat again, and then not eating for some arbitrarily determined ‘fasting’ period. I do that pretty frequently, I call it ‘eating enough food to get me through to my next meal’. I have yet to see science that convinces me there’s enough metabolic benefit to warrant the discomfort, and I’m not at all impressed by the science it’s proponents use to support their theories. As for ‘fasted cardio’ (another fad in the same vein): I’ve seen several studies now that convince me pretty definitively that there’s no metabolic benefit to exercising in a fasted state, and in fact was just reading a study that showed that the subjects that ate before a workout burned more calories and fat during the following 24 hours than the subjects who worked out in a fasted state. All that said, if a person enjoys if either of those two techniques, more power to them.

Have you experienced a confidence boost in other areas of your life because of your lifestyle change?

Yes, taking control of my health has improved virtually every aspect of my life, from my marriage to my career to my relationships with my children. It’s been unexpectedly amazing, to tell you the truth.

Any suggestions on low carb veggie protein foods or meals. I would like to stop using powders. Also thoughts on lifting. Do you do the big three?

Getting ample protein on a veg*n diet is more about adding up all the little bits of protein in the foods you eat than it is about eating protein dense foods. There are not a lot of protein dense plant foods, but if you base your diet on foods that have a higher protein to fat or carb ratio, those little bits add up quickly. You can take a look at my sample meal plans to see how I do this. I have a list of vegetables with higher amounts of protein here. Mainly I focus on limiting foods that are super LOW in protein (like oils and caloric sweetners) so that the protein content in the foods I do eat has a chance to add up to something substantial. Lots of legumes, nuts and seeds, and higher protein vegetable options. Yes, I do do the big three, they are the foundation of my lifting routine. I don’t waste time on isolation exercises like bicep curls and crunches. Squat, press, deadlift. FTW!

What do you think of coffee as a booster? Good or bad for health?

I love coffee. It’s my favorite part of my morning ritual. I’ve seen enough evidence that it has health benefits to totally rationalize my daily 2-3 cups.

What’s your opinion on sugar if you’re an endurance athlete? I’ve heard numerous things from a sports nutritionist even, that sugar is sugar, whether its from fruit, honey, or real cane sugar. Either way, they all are converted into the same thing & beneficial in endurance athletes. So the nutritionist said.

I basically agree. I like sugar, although I get it from whole fruits as opposed to added sweeteners. I think anyone who is getting enough physical activity can and will do fine with natural sugars. Those who have problems with sugar because of inactivity would be better served by increasing their physical activity than by eliminating fruits from their diet.

Kids & Family: how to get the whole family to eat whole real food if they are seemingly entrenched in a SAD?

One day at a time, one meal at a time, one food at a time. Sudden major changes won’t likely go over well, so ease everyone into it. Also, get them to help with shopping and cooking (and maybe gardening!). Being a part of the food prep process can make the finished product more appealing.

What non-meat protein sources do you recommend? I found the pure protein you recommended, any others? I found a few protein bars locally, but couldn’t seem to find a clean one, and the choices online are so overwhelming! I have a tough time getting enough protein from real food without eating until I think I’m going to puke all day lol (maybe my stomach just gets full too fast?). Also – I constantly see people saying “drink at least 3qts”, do I need to up this due to breast feeding? If so, how much should I be drinking?

Lentils and other legumes, nuts and seeds, and higher protein vegetables are a good place to start. There aren’t many protein bars I recommend, although the Vega ones are good in a pinch. I do eat quite a bit, getting ample calories is a good way to ensure you’re getting enough protein! I drink when I’m thirsty, as long as you’re not noticing signs of dehydration it’s totally fine to listen to your body on this one.

Click here for part 2.

There’s a lot of confusion out there, so in the name of clarity, I’ll give you the basics on calorie intake, as simply as possible. A calorie is a unit of energy. Your body uses energy to fuel your daily activity. If you take in more energy than your body uses, it stores the excess, usually as fat, but if you’re lifting heavy and using your muscles it can and will use that excess energy to build muscle too. That’s what we want.

If you’re at a healthy weight and your goal is body recomposition, you need to eat AT LEAST as many calories as your body burns, preferably a little bit more. Your body needs raw materials to build muscle, and if it’s using all the calories you eat to fuel your activity there will not be any left to build muscle with. If you’re undereating at a healthy weight, your body will do whatever it can to burn fewer calories, so will slow down your metabolic processes and start burning muscle for fuel, because muscle requires more calories to maintain than fat. If you’re undereating, that muscle is taking up energy (calories) that your body would rather use to fuel your heartbeat and brain activity.

If you’re obese or overweight, you need to burn more calories than you consume to lose weight. Not too many more, I generally recommend keeping a 500 calorie deficit to keep your metabolism healthy. Alternately, you can use a calorie calculator to figure out how many calories your body will need to maintain your goal weight (including your activity), and eat that many calories. Your body will take care of the rest (that’s how I did it). If you keep your deficit relatively small and lift weights and get regular exercise, your body will tag your muscles as ‘in use’ and preserve them, burning stored fat to make up the deficit in energy in vs energy out. If you’re sedentary, your body will burn lean mass as well as fat to make up for that deficit.

NONE of this means that diets that don’t require calorie counting don’t work. It just means that, for some people, those diets help them to naturally and instinctively consume the number of calories that will support their goals. Different people can experience this with different diets. Some people (like me) don’t ever experience it (or at least I haven’t yet, and I’ve tried all the diets) and need to be at least somewhat aware of our energy requirements. And we need to eat enough to fuel our activity and support our goals. Restricting calories below that level is counterproductive and will ultimately lead to failure. For most people, including women over about 100 pounds, that means eating at least 2000 calories a day, much more for most of us (I eat about 3000 most days). Even to lose weight, very few of us will need to drop below that, and if we do we are setting ourselves up for a damaged metabolism and fat storage.

Here are two calorie calculators that I find realistic and helpful, neither of them will give you an unsustainably low calorie target, in fact you will likely be surprised by just how much you need to eat to stay healthy and support your goals.

Calculator 1

Calculator 2

I’ve had a couple people suggest that the negative health effects I experienced when my body fat dropped to 12% might actually be a result of not eating meat. I can totally understand why someone might think that. It’s not an illogical conclusion. Heck, it may even be true. But here are the facts:

-I’ve experienced continual health improvements over the nearly 4 years I’ve been eating a plant based diet, both subjectively and objectively according to my health screenings.
-I was in excellent health when I started the experiment.
-The symptoms I experienced were classic underfat symptoms.
-After upping my calories and gaining a few pounds all those symptoms are resolving themselves, without the inclusion of meat in my diet.

The logical conclusion, then, is that my symptoms were a result of underfat, not of meat deficiency.

Nothing against meat. Or meat eaters! Anyone who’s been following me for a while should know that I eat the way I do because it’s what works FOR ME and that I’m not a vegan evangelist or dogmatist. Just living my life, eating my food, and promoting the important message: eat real food! Move around a lot! Lift heavy things! And be kind to yourself and others.

Actually, it’s not much of a confession. I’m pretty up front about it. I eat, and enjoy, soy foods. For some reason this seems to be a point of major interest/conflict/criticism on my facebook page, so I thought I’d just write this now, so I can direct people to it when they ask/attack/criticize me about it.

I’ve read all of the anti-soy studies that routinely make the rounds of the WAPF-o-sphere and paleo-sphere. I know what you’re thinking: how can I have read all that stuff and still eat soy?

Here’s the thing. I’ve read a lot of other stuff, too.

I’m a rebel like that.

Lets start from square one: I really enjoy tofu and tempeh. Believe it or not, tofu is one of my favorite foods. It has been for many, many years. I know that not many people share that sentiment. I have weird tastes I guess. I never liked pizza or ice cream back in the days I used to eat things like that. And I don’t like yoga, so I’m just all kinds of whacked. So we got that out of the way, I’m weird and have weird tastes.

Now, on to the health considerations. Yep, I’ve read all about the phytates, the lectins, the phytoestrogens. I’ve read the studies that suggest soy consumption may be correlated with endocrine dysfunction, mood change, hormone-dependent cancers, memory impairment, yada yada yada, etcetera, ad nauseum. Yep, I’ve read it. And it made me go hmmm! So I went and looked at the studies themselves. And while I was looking at studies, I decided to look at other studies on soy. Funny thing. Seems there are thousands upon thousands of studies on soy consumption, decades worth of ‘em. Who knew? I haven’t read them all by any stretch of the imagination. I have my ‘soy’ search on the NCBI site bookmarked and when I have some free time one of the things I do to kill it is go browse through soy studies. It’s fun, you should try it some time. Just kidding, it’s pretty dry.

Now, I’m not saying anyone should take my word on anything, in fact when people ask me about soy, the advice I give is to go read the science and make up your own mind. But here’s my take, based on what I’ve read: most of the science I’ve seen so far suggests soy has a protective effect against dozens of diseases, or is at least correlated with a lower incidence of disease. The studies suggesting otherwise are outliers, pretty distant outliers at that, and many of them have credibility or design flaws, or focus on VERY specific populations or even single case studies. The doses of soy used in many of these studies are massive, and frequently isolated components of the soy plant, not the whole food. None of this proves anything of course, and again: don’t take my word on anything. Do your own research and make up your own mind. But based on what I’ve read, I feel very comfortable including 1 or 2 servings of good quality, organic, sprouted or fermented whole soy foods in my daily diet. I consider the tofu I use just that, it’s made with three ingredients: ground sprouted organic US grown non-GMO soybeans, nigari (a coagulant derived from seawater that’s been used for thousands of years) and water. The tempeh I use is made from fermented organic US grown non-gmo soybeans. IMO, that’s food. Food that I enjoy. Food that makes my body happy.

I do very well, from a health standpoint, on soy. My body seems to prefer it to animal protein for energy (trial and error, N = 1), and as for hormonal issues all I can say is that my hormonal and endocrine function are far more stable and healthy now with regular soy intake than they ever were when I got most of my protein from animal sources (I used to have cystic breasts and ovaries, irregular periods, hormonally-triggered panic attacks, and several other symptoms of PCOS). This is not to say that soy is responsible for stabilizing my hormonal function, but it certainly hasn’t hindered that stabilization. Nor has it hindered my lean mass gain or fat loss (12% body fat folks. 12% body fat.) And like I said, I like it. In fact, when I get off track and eat crap for a few days, I start to crave two things: raw vegetables and raw tofu. I think raw vegetables are a pretty healthy craving, I don’t think my body would crave something good and something bad simultaneously, especially when it’s trying to get back to a state of homeostasis.

I know that other people have read all the same things I have and have come to different conclusions. I’m OK with that. I put a lot of thought and time into deciding if and how much soy to eat, and have come to a conclusion that I’m very comfortable with. As with all the food I eat, I don’t eat soy that is processed, refined, genetically modified or mixed with strange chemicals. I know that some of my Paleo and WAPF friends think I’m completely nuts, but they keep it to themselves (for the most part) and we get along just fine. I’m not forcing soy down anyone’s throat, I’m not advocating that everyone eat soy, and I don’t go to other people’s facebook pages and insult their food choices, I just live my life and eat my food and sometimes share it on my facebook page but never ‘preach’ it. I like it when people return the favor. Thank you very much!

Angie Gooding had an idea that is taking over the internet. Go a whole month without weighing yourself.

The idea fills me with terror.

The scale has been my constant companion for many years. It is part of my morning ritual, helps me determine how I will behave that day. I don’t hate it. I don’t feel enslaved by it. But I do wonder how my life might be different without it. And so I am joining with Angie in a statement that a person’s worth is not defined by the number on the scale. Over the next 30 days there will BE no number on the scale to influence my day. We’ve joined with several other facebook pages and blogs to create No Weigh In April. Join us in this social experiment, perhaps you will learn something about yourself! And if you have already chucked the scale, join us to support those who are taking on this challenge now! Share your stories, offer and receive support, help us create a new paradigm.

I grew up looking at underweight and yet impossibly perfect models on the pages of magazines. It did a number on me. Made me feel ashamed of my fleshy thighs, my broad shoulders, my small breasts. Sparked an unhealthy, decades long troubled relationship with food and my body.

A few years ago, when super-fit, uber lean models started to become popular, I celebrated! Progress, I thought! Perhaps my daughters wouldn’t have to grow up surrounded by such destructive images! Strength a desirable quality? Sign me up!

And as I began my journey towards health, I kept those images close. I replaced the skinny ideal with the super-fit, super-lean ideal as my goal. I began to hear the phrase ‘Strong is the New Skinny’ and was thrilled. I’ve kept a picture of Dara Torres at her leanest on my fridge for four years as inspiration. Crossfit gained in popularity and with it images of strong women accomplishing incredible feats of strength and fitness. How wonderful! Take that, skinny models and the magazines that pushed them on my impressionable daughters!

As I got closer to my goal of a lean, fit body though, something started to change. I began to realize how much time I spend thinking about my diet and my workouts. Don’t get me wrong. In our modern food climate, we need to be diligent and mindful about what we eat, and our lifestyles have become so sedentary and easy that we need to make time to get the exercise that was a built-in component of our ancestors lives. But as I got leaner, I needed to become increasingly disciplined about calories and macronutrients. At some point I realized I’d gone beyond simple mindfulness about food, and had ventured into the sort of behavior that some people might consider an eating disorder. Every calorie, every gram of protein, every micronutrient was being tracked. That’s what I needed to do to continue getting leaner. But oh, did I look great!

Do I want my daughters to grow up healthy and strong? Absolutely. Do I want them to feel pressured to be as disciplined about their diets as I am? Absolutely not.

I think most people can reach a healthy weight and body fat percentage by eating real food, keeping loose track of how much they’re eating and getting adequate exercise most days. I did that! I got down to about 165 pounds and 18-20% body fat fairly easily once I started eating well and exercising. But that wasn’t good enough. After all, I had a picture of Dara Torres at about 9% BF on my fridge. I sure didn’t look like that! Nor did I look like the models I saw in fitness magazines, or the women I saw competing in the crossfit games on TV. I had a lot of work still to do if I wanted to be what had clearly become the standard of beauty and desirability in the fitness world.

Last December, I decided enough was enough. This is ridiculous. That lean ideal is as unrealistic for most of us women as the underweight ideal I grew up with. I was maintaining at about 15% body fat and felt great, looked great, was getting stronger and healthier every day, had a husband who adored my body, and yet when I looked in the mirror I still saw the fleshy thighs. What was it going to take to be what I somehow had absorbed as the new standard of beauty?

I decided to find out, and to blog about it.

I set out with a goal to drop down to the level of leanness we women are barraged with in the popular media. 15% wasn’t it, and I suspected it was going to be single digit body fat for me, given my genetics. I did set some limits out of concern for my health, though:

-I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my basic nutrient needs. If I got to the point that I had to drop my calorie, protein, fat or micronutrient intake below that which is essential for health, I would stop.

-If I started to experience negative health effects of underfat (missing periods, bleeding and bruising, fatigue, hair loss, etc) I’d stop.

How’d I do it? I restricted my calories to just a few hundred less than I burn per day. This was so my body wouldn’t perceive a sudden reduction in calorie intake as famine, and start burning lean mass for fuel in an effort to preserve fat mass. I averaged an intake of 2200-2500 calories a day, I typically burn 2600-3000 calories a day. This kept my metabolism from slowing down. (Important for anyone trying to lose weight! Better to lose it slowly and get to the finish line with a healthy metabolism than to drop weight quickly but kill your metabolism in the process!)

Next, I maximized my protein intake to aid in lean mass preservation. When losing weight, some of the weight you lose will be fat and some will be lean mass. This is true no matter how healthfully you lose the weight. Getting enough protein can help limit lean mass losses though. I was aiming for 150+ grams of protein a day (at a body weight of 160 when I started). It’s difficult to get that much protein from food on 2200 calories a day, even for omnivores. Factor in my mostly plant based diet, and protein supplementation was pretty much a necessity.

A typical day (and they all looked much like this, when having to be this strict it’s difficult to have much variety):

Breakfast: green smoothie with 1 fruit, 2 vegetables, algal DHA oil and protein powder
Snack: fruit and a protein shake
Lunch: salad with legumes (frequently tofu or tempeh for it’s high protein) or eggs, roasted root vegetables, kraut and avocado
Snack: a larabar or Vega whole food bar
Dinner: lentils or eggs, cooked vegetables and a protein shake
Snack: a spoonful or two of nut butter or a small piece of dark chocolate

I did enjoy my food, I didn’t eat anything I hate, so there was that. But I had to be strict with portions, and I had to plan my days carefully to make sure I got everything I needed. And I’m not a fan of protein shakes, so trying to dress them up to make them palatable without adding extra calories was tedious and difficult. There wasn’t any room for creativity, and going out to eat was a nightmare! I’m sure I was no fun in that department. No alcohol, teeny tiny portions of chocolate, no impromptu evenings out because I would need to look at the menu beforehand to plan my meal, and the rest of the day around it!

I kept up with my lifting 3-5 days a week and intended to do more cardio, but in reality that sort of went out the window, mostly because, as I’ll discuss later, I just didn’t have the energy.

I lost 10 pounds over the course of 12 weeks, which is exactly what I would have expected given my 300-500 calories/day deficit. (It IS calories in vs out, people, don’t believe the hype).

My weight loss stalled out at 147 pounds. This is because my weight ‘caught up’ to the number of calories I was consuming. To lose more I would have to reduce my calories or increase my burn through activity. This is where things got really uncomfortable. See, I wasn’t willing to reduce my calories further, because I’d have to sacrifice nutrition. And increasing my activity? Well, by that time I was experiencing unrelenting, low level fatigue, and I simply didn’t have the fuel to do more exercise. I have been bouncing around 148-150 for almost a month now, and it’s one of the reasons I decided to end the experiment when I did. I simply hit a wall that I couldn’t get over without risking my health, and that had been my limit going into this.

I scheduled a hydrostatic body fat test and maintained my weight until the test. That was a few-week wait. During that time I began to see some symptoms of ‘underfat’. There was the fatigue, for starters. And I was constantly impatient and irritable with my family. My husband, bless his heart, really stepped up and ran a lot of interference between my kids and I so they didn’t have to deal with my short temper. I’ve been spacey and forgetful. My libido has completely vanished. Most worrisome, my period didn’t show up when it was supposed to. As I write this, it’s 17 days late. I’ve been like clockwork since I’ve been at a healthy weight.

It’s difficult to find scientific info on the health impact of underfat. Most of it there is is specifically about women who are underweight as well as underfat, and even now at 12% body fat my weight is still a very healthy 150 pounds, making my BMI 22.1, smack dab in the middle of the ‘healthy’ range on the weight charts. I have over 20 pounds worth of ‘cushion’ before I drop into the ‘underweight’ category. Given my declining health, though, it’s clear I can’t spare that weight without risking serious complications.

Here is my before and after photo, the difference in color is due to the natural lighting at the time of day the pictures were taken, I’m standing in front of the same wall in both pics. On the left, November 2011 at 160 pounds and roughly 15-16% body fat. On the right 150 pounds and 12% body fat. I look great, don’t I? Aside from some fluff on my knees, I’d look right at home on a fitness magazine cover. And that fluff can be photoshopped out, no problem! But according to the American Council of Sports Medicine, a body fat composition of less than 12 to 14 percent is considered too low and a health risk. Other sources suggest falling below 15 percent is a concern. According to this site, having too little body fat increases the risk of brittle bones, loss of menstrual periods, infertility, dry skin, poor concentration, low mood, feeling cold, constant thoughts about food and low sex drive. Body fat protects the internal organs and aids in proper nerve function, I’ve discovered very unpleasantly, as I’ve recently started experiencing sciatic pain for the first time in my life. Maintaining too little body fat for any length of time can weaken your bones and contribute to osteoporosis. Too little body fat can effect not just your moods, but your neurological function, triggering full-blown eating disorders in people who’ve previously had a healthy relationship with food.

I like this picture because while it highlights how lean I am, the look on my face is a great illustration of how I feel. Spacey, out of it, low energy. You’ll also note my complete absence of breast tissue. This is pretty standard when a woman’s body fat gets this low. There are a few lucky women who maintain some semblance of breasts, but most of us, when this lean, will have the chests of teenage boys. Hence all the surgically enhanced boobs in the fitness industry.

They don’t tell you this stuff when they bombard you with images of impossibly cut and defined women, do they? They also don’t tell you that the models in those pictures take diuretics (check out the last tip at the end of the article) and restrict water intake, to dehydrate themselves and make their muscles appear more defined. Or that every image you see in the media has been photoshopped and altered to better fit the standard image of beauty. And don’t even get me started on the fake tans, the strategic posing, the surgical enhancements, the flattering lighting, and the drugs some of these women take.

I know I’m going to get lots of comments from people who can maintain an uber-lean physique without experiencing health effects. That’s great! You are very fortunate that your body type has been declared ‘Good and Desirable’ by our culture. There are people who are able to maintain weights and body fat levels that classify them as obese and remain healthy, too. Do we glorify them and suggest that all women should aspire to that ideal? Of course not. Because most of us wouldn’t be healthy if we tried to maintain that physique. Just as most of us wouldn’t be healthy at the body fat levels that are being pushed on us by the media and each other.

I no longer appreciate the ‘Strong is the New Skinny’ meme, mostly because it is generally accompanied by images that are unrealistic and unhealthy for most of us. I believe in the original intention, the celebration of strength. Being strong is great, but you don’t need to be shredded to be strong. And you don’t need to be, or look, strong to be healthy. The original message has been co-opted, twisted and turned into a marketing tool to sell us a new mythology. I’m calling for all of us, even the fitness models and figure competitors, to reject the cultural mythology that there is one standard of beauty and health. Stop buying in! Stop buying the magazines and the products advertised in them, stop sharing and glorifying the pictures on facebook, stop looking at yourself in the mirror and focusing on the ways you don’t look like what you see in the media. Not even the models in those pictures look that way in real life. Health first. If you end up looking ripped because you’ve adopted a healthy lifestyle, great! And if when you are healthy you don’t end up ripped, join the club. It won’t be easy to change the way we think. I admit, I really like the way I look now! There’s a part of me that wants to say ‘screw my health!’ and stay here, or even lose a little more! We are so brainwashed that even when confronted with evidence that what we’re doing is dangerous, we still are tempted to keep doing it because of the positive reinforcement we get from society. I hate it, and want better for my daughters. I want better for myself. I want better for all of you! We all deserve better than this, and to be loved just the way we are.

Addendum 7/12/12
Wanted to address some of the feedback I’ve gotten since originally posting this. I heard a lot of ‘Well obviously her REAL problem is that she wasn’t eating MEAT’. I responded to that train of thought here. I also want to post another picture taken around the same time, I didn’t use it in the original post because it was just a phone camera pic I took in the mirror. But it’s under different lighting and conditions, and I think it better illustrates just how lean I was getting there at the end. Some people have questioned the results of my hydrostatic body fat test. I’m not making up the results (12%) and it was done by a reputable testing facility. I will note that in the pictures in the original post I was well hydrated, hadn’t done and ‘pumping’ pre-photo shoot, and hadn’t done any carb or nutrient cycling to enhance muscle definition. So I may not look like the 12% people are used to seeing in professional photos and on stage at figure competitions, but 12% is the reading my hydrostatic test produced.

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You all probably get tired of hearing me say ‘Be Patient’. It’s hard! We want to see the results of our hard work! We need to know we’re on the right path, and sometimes waiting for what seems like forever to see those results can be discouraging. I’ve been there. I cried real tears many times in the beginning when I felt like all my hard work was getting me exactly nowhere. But somehow I found the motivation to stick with it (mostly by focusing on things other than the scale and my appearance), and now I can look back at pictures and see the dramatic changes unfold. Take a look. (You can see pics of how I looked before I changed my lifestyle here).

6-8 months in, 170 pounds:

1 year in, 160 pounds:

18 months in, 152 pounds:

2 years in, 155 pounds:

3 years in, 160 pounds:

Notice how little my weight changes from one picture to the next. If the scale had been my focus, I would have given up long ago. As you can see, once I lost the weight, I regained some over the course of a year, but it was good healthy lean mass, not fat. I look better at 160 pounds 3 years in than I did at 152 18 months in. Don’t focus on the scale! It is not the be all and end all. And keep going, even when it feels like your progress has stalled. Chances are that when you look back a year from now, you will see loud and clear that you were making progress all along.

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