Do YOU glorify weight loss?

|Published on: 19 May 2019||

Have you been working hard on being healthy – but despite all the positive changes, the number on your scales hasn’t moved much?

Honestly – you’re not alone! It’s way more common than you might think.  

I see SO many women who’ve made significant healthy changes, with huge benefits

for themselves and those around them. But because the scales aren’t moving enough, they’re ready to throw it all in.

Here’s the truth. 

Weight loss takes time and patience. Lots of it.

(Unless you’re crash dieting, of course – but we both know it’ll all go straight back on & you’ll feel like trash again, the moment you stop!).

 The problem is that we put weight loss on a pedestal. We glorify it. And when we see it as the ONLY measure of progress & success, we miss out on all the other successes we should be celebrating, to keep us moving in the right direction.

The Sickness Bug…

As a former Personal Trainer (and a woman), I have in the past been a glorifier of weight loss myself. Glorifying weight loss at any cost.

I caught a sickness bug this weekend and due to complete inactivity, dehydration and not eating, I lost a few kilos.

Bonus!!!!!!

Is what I would have said in the past. Or when you have teeth out & can’t eat solids for a week. Yes, I know it’s funny. It’s the kind of humor us women bond over. But I don’t think we realise how damaging this kind of reaction is, to the bigger picture of glorifying weight loss at any cost.

I have congratulated myself and others on losing weight on the cabbage soup diet, the lemon & cayenne pepper diet, a juice diet and many other fads.

But as I evolve through the years as a health professional and mother of impressionable children, I see the problem with this approach. And I’m sure the very fact that you are reading this blog (and have got this far) means you see it too?

Don’t get me wrong – losing weight is a huge part of the puzzle for lots of us. I get that. It improves our health in so many ways, helping to reverse things like type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. It can play a huge role in our self-esteem, energy levels and so much more.

But WHY do we celebrate weight loss above anything else?

I’m getting increasingly concerned by societies glorification of weight loss.

 Weight loss can be achieved by:

  • Catching a bug
  • Dehydration
  • Stopping exercising
  • Starvation

And NONE of these things are going to improve our health.

Yes of course, many people lose weight in a healthy way.

BUT…

It is the actions and behaviours that we’ve worked hard on that I think we should really be celebrating.

Things like:

  • Incorporating exercise into our daily routines
  • Learning to listen to our bodies
  • Learning to deal with some discomfort
  • Giving up the ‘all or nothing’ approach to dieting
  • Eating more fruit & veg
  • Eating balanced meals regularly
  • Building habits that serve us (instead of sabotaging us)
  • Finding and practicing ways to manage stress
  • Practicing challenging behaviours, over and over again…

 These are ALL markers of our progress & success, too. These are the things that help us stay healthy, to live a long & contented life with our family. But so often, we completely miss them in our single-minded quest for thinness.

By tuning into them and celebrating them as we notice them, we strengthen our ability to lose weight too.  

So it’s win-win.

The Internal Conflict

Over recent years, I’ve become increasingly conflicted. I like to compliment people when I see they look healthy and have lost weight – mainly because I know they must have put in a lot of work to do that. But sometimes, I know the way they’ve lost that weight is not health promoting.

It’s also often when my 6-year-old twins are with me. And if my children hear me complement people repeatedly on weight loss, this will impact their view & their own relationship with food.

I hate seeing the damage that the diet industry has done to so many of us, for so many years. To my clients, to family members, to other health and fitness professionals – to me, too. It’s unacceptable.

Back in the 80’s…

My family values health. But they also value slim! I’m grew up in the 1980s and I expect lots of our families were the same back then.   

As a child, I learnt to value slim. I was repeatedly told if I ate ‘all that cheese’ I would get fat and given the odd disapproving look for my food choices. This was never done in a malicious way, but in a caring ‘we don’t want you to get fat’ kind of way!

I learnt to value slimness from every angle. The magazines, my friends, tv shows and my family. It has always been the norm so why question it?

Well – it IS time to question it! Because thin should NEVER trump healthy. Ever. And we need to make sure that change starts with us, and with the messages that our children are hearing from us.

The joys that ‘healthy’ brings

For me, the biggest joy I get comes from the things my clients list as benefits from my programs. Things like:

  • Finding food freedom (at last!)
  • Feeling more in control around food
  • Less emotional eating
  • Owning their decisions
  • Being less stressed
  • Making healthy food choices easily and unconsciously
  • Lower blood pressure and cholesterol
  • Coming off medications
  • Having more energy
  • Better self-esteem
  • Mental clarity
  • Better skin
  • A better digestive system
  • Less mood swings

I’m not saying we can’t also want to lose weight and celebrate that too. We 100% can & should. But let’s not hold weight loss on a pedestal and ignore every other amazing benefit of living a healthier lifestyle!

If any of today’s blog resonates with you – do click here to join our (free) Facebook group. It’s a community of over a thousand women like us, on this journey together.

And determined to beat the vicious dieting cycle, once and for all!

Until next time

Fran x