I think it’s pretty common that we misconstrue being leaner with being healthier.  That’s the message that has been seared into our brains.

Bigger = Unhealthy

Smaller = Healthy

And I want to be very clear and careful to note here that while, yes, I got healthier when I lost some weight, not everyone who is considered not at their “ideal weight” is experiencing any ill effects because of it.  My particular collection of health issues was impacted by the excess weight I carried and that combined with the fact that the best way of managing said health issues also happened to result in some weight change, meant that an indicator of success for me was losing weight.

Over the past nearly three years I have gone through specific phases of actively trying to lose weight, but for the majority of that time I was just trying to figure out what made me feel the best and how my body best operated. I VERY SLOWLY lost weight fairly consistently during the periods between active attempts at weight loss because what made me feel the best, also happened to be effective for sustainable weight loss.  The time difference between the two photos here is 14 months and the weight difference is 43 lbs.  But what I gained in that time, far surpasses anything that was lost.

Most of my life though, when I went to take control of my health I immediately went to what I thought was the low hanging fruit; weight.  Not healthy?  Lose weight.  So that meant go buy low cal or low fat snacks and portion packaged frozen meals or giving up carbs or fat, or just “fasting” (starving) – you know because being thin is ALWAYS better than being overweight no matter how you get there right?

Right?

WRONG.

So wrong.

Losing weight and eating healthy are not necessarily the same thing. 

If I have a client who has been told by some arbitrary height-to-weight metric they should lose 20 lbs but they have no health problems, have a lot of energy, their mood is good, they sleep well and are fairly happy with how they look and they are eating whole food and working out then I am hard press to find a reason they NEED to lose any weight or change how they eat.  And even if I did find a reason, they aren’t likely to be motivated to.  But if I work with them and we keep at it in the gym then maybe in time they will find a reason to be motivated to make further healthy changes…and it won’t be that hard for them because then it’s more about portions than it is “changing” how they eat.

But if I have a client who doesn’t have weight to lose, but always feels crummy and weak and doesn’t sleep, doesn’t like how they look and they’re lethargic, who lives on pop tarts and diet pop, and is inconsistent in their workouts…well they are the ones I’m going to feel needs to make bigger changes and are more likely to end up with health problems.  But they are also likely to be pretty reluctant and have a tougher time…because I may not tell them to give up pop tarts entirely, but I’m certainly going to want them to include a whole lot more produce and chances are that is going to be pretty tough for them.

Human bodies can vary wildly.  Some women my height could look great at 115 lbs, but when I was that weight I looked sickly.  I have wide hips and a wider ribcage, but very small shoulders and a small chest.  My wrists and ankles are pretty tiny but my calves and thighs and booty have always been…rounder. 😉 no matter how little I’ve weighed the ratio on those hasn’t really changed.  That is how my body is built…I have to work with it.

Similarly, some people are stockier.  They may APPEAR as though they have weight to lose when they are solid muscle or their bone structure is just wider.  It’s deceptive and why we should never make assumptions about another person’s health based on their weight – or what we perceive their weight to be.

When I was OBSESSED with the idea that I should be 115 lbs, I was never motivated to actually do much about it.  I’d have giant bursts of energy for a day or a week to starve or workout or eliminate food groups but the goal just wasn’t motivating.  And when I was that weight (achieved through a serious medical condition) I couldn’t make myself stay there.  It’s not like I got there and had abs and suddenly loved the way I looked.  I THOUGHT that 115 lbs would have me looking like a swimsuit model…but without resistance training, losing weight doesn’t “lift” anything so I got there and then it still wasn’t enough. And if being that magical number wasn’t good enough…well then why am I going to give up beer to stay there?

I have been at the weight I am now multiple times in my life and I can tell you that every single time I’ve been here the clothes that fit the last time, fit differently.  My body has changed as I’ve gotten older (not necessarily in a bad way, just different) and how I lost the weight each time was different – there are just a lot of variables, so when weight is the goal I can’t even visualize what success will look like. And trust me, if you can’t picture it, as clear as if it was right in front of you, it is A LOT harder to achieve it.

When I stopped doing things to be “skinny” and started focusing on being strong and healthy several things shifted…I could picture what it would be like to be able to deadlift 100 lbs.  I could picture what it would be like to go months longer without a cyst rupture or how only 2 days on the couch instead of a week would feel.  I could imagine clearly feeling happier and more energetic.  I could get a lot clearer on the steps to get there…and I could make it about what I was gaining, instead of what I was losing.

When you want to get skinny the goal is all about losing – you’re losing fat, you’re restricting calories, you’re giving up foods.

When you’re trying to get strong and healthy – you’re gaining muscle, you’re eating food to fuel you, you’re focusing on eating ENOUGH to support the goal.  Sure you might want to lose some fat, but again, that’s not our #1 goal here – that’s a side benefit.

When you’re trying to lose weight you’re desperate to get to the finish – only to get there and discover it isn’t over.  You probably aren’t going to be 100% satisfied, it might not look just how you wanted or expected, and, spoiler alert, you still have to maintain it and if you got there eating things you hate then it’s going to be REAL hard to maintain once you start eating food you love again.

When you’re focused on getting strong and healthy, you accept from the get go that it’s a lifestyle.  You are embracing that this is how you’re going to live.  This is not a punishment and there is no destination – this is who you are.  You can have some goals along the way, but none of them is the finish line because there isn’t one.  Learn to eat the things you love and make it fit.  You’re making space in your life.

And for me, that way, the healthy and strong way, just seemed like a much nicer way to live.

I’m not always motivated.  I haven’t always been happy when the pace was slow.  But I wouldn’t go back to the quest for skinny if you paid me.  Telling my body it isn’t good enough because it takes up too much space in the world is just not for me.

That isn’t to say I don’t have physique goals.  It is absolutely ok to want to improve your physique as well!  I would out and out be lying to you if I said I was not hoping all this hard work didn’t result in some booty gains and visible abs.  I’m not a robot.  I work my ass off in workouts six days a week most weeks, if you think I can do that and not have a few areas I want to see tone up, purely for vanity, then you’re crazy.  But it’s secondary.  Never once in the two years I have been religiously weight training has “alright, gotta go workout to tone those arms” ever been the thing that got me to go do a workout.  Not. Once.  Now, “damn gotta make sure I get that workout in or I’m gonna lose that extra five pounds I was able to bench press last week”?  That has 100% made me go do a workout I otherwise was considering skipping.

If you can’t find a reason to want to lose weight – stop trying to lose weight.

If you hate kale and rice cakes – then stop choking them down (or more likely, stop buying them and letting them go bad.)

If you don’t enjoy running – then don’t run.

Stop spending your precious time on this earth doing things you hate to make your amazing body fit into a tiny three digit number.  Of course I knew I needed to exercise but I do it for my health – because I love myself and am grateful to my body and want to feel good and happy for a long time.  Of course I knew I needed to eat healthy, whole food, but I do it because it makes me feel great and because I ENJOY the foods I choose!

I know none of us are getting out of this alive – and I want to be present in each moment and feel good in my skin for as much of this journey as possible.  When I’m no longer on this earth, no one is going to fondly remember how awesome I was at losing weight the fastest or my ability to suffer the most in the name of the scale…but they might remember that I had a lot of fun being active, and that I smiled a lot, or that I was strong and helped others to be strong too.  And, to me, that’s worth taking up a little more space for.