We as a society are obsessed with weight. Roughly two-thirds of our population is overweight or obese, and yet we are inundated with images of and ideas about being thin. Recent research has shown that we have negative feelings toward overweight people, while we are struggling with our own weight issues.
As health and fitness professionals, we play an important role in supporting or sabotaging the body images of the clients with whom we work. Our message to everyone needs to be very clear — we accept them however they look, and we help them begin to reach their goals from where they are.
From a nutrition standpoint, we must make it crystal clear that dieting by restricting calories is not a smart option except in cases where overeating is a serious problem. It is so important to encourage anyone trying to lose fat or otherwise transform his or her body to eat healthfully and adequately.
Depriving your body of fuel is a surefire way to slow it down. Food stimulates energy metabolism needed for digestion in a process called “dietary induced thermogenesis.” When you slash calories, the calories burned by eating are greatly diminished and so is your metabolic rate.
Restricting calories also signals the body that there is no food available, so it tries to conserve stores of carbohydrate and fat by slowing down its metabolism. The best way to keep your metabolism revved is to eat regular meals with snacks, when necessary, to give your body a constant supply of healthy fuel.
In the last week or so, some important studies were released about calories. What we learned is that not all calories are the same and that some foods can actually make you gain or lose weight by their very nature. One explanation for this is that different foods, regardless of whether they have equivalent calories, are digested and metabolized according to their chemical makeup.
This makes perfect sense to me. Isn’t it simple to understand that one hundred calories of broccoli would be processed differently than one hundred calories of candy? This is why some of these pre-packaged snacks make me wonder what we’re thinking, especially when it’s the same people eating them that are complaining that they can’t seem to lose weight.
So maybe that general Law of Thermodynamics was only half-right. Yes, “calories in versus calories out” does help us to understand how important it is to balance our intake with exercise. But it’s not the whole picture. We also must look at what those calories are about and think of how whole foods can have an impact on our bodies.
Be sure that you and your staff are sending the right messages to your members about how and what they eat. It can make a difference as to whether they see results and thus trust your professional judgment.
Judith Samuels, M.A. is a certified nutrition and wellness consultant and master personal trainer at Sport&Health Clubs in the Washington D.C. Metro Area. She can be reached via e-mail at judi@judisamuels.com.
