Month: December 2019

Body Image

5 Reasons Some People Won’t Comment About Your Weight Loss:

Kayla Goldwag
  1. They are trying to be kind because they worry you might only hear that you didn’t look as good before you lost the weight and that thinner is better. 
  2. They might be concerned that if they comment about your weight loss it will make you feel that your worth is only based on your body or that they think that.
  3. They are concerned or they know complimenting your body might trigger unhealthy food restriction and preoccupation with body image. They don’t want to contribute to that.
  4. People might be concerned that your weight may have shifted because of disordered eating, a big life change, depression, stress, or sickness and might not be sure how to approach you about that. 
  5. Friends/family/acquaintances might not assume it was intentional or healthy or sustainable. 

It takes about 10 lbs of weight loss, or a dress size for people to notice. When I am working with a client, I know how hard they are training and how often they are training and sometimes I know what they are eating or should be eating. Therefore when I see results that don’t match what protocol I have designed, I’m concerned, very concerned.

The first major reason I am concerned is that if my client isn’t eating enough calories she can be prone to injury during the workout.  She might feel dizzy or nauseous during our workout and pass out and hurt herself. She might be developing or manifesting an unhealthy relationship with her body and with food or with exercise. She might experience more fatigue or injury as a result of the training protocol. She might be losing the gains in muscle we worked so hard to achieve because her body has had to use that muscle for fuel due to caloric restriction. She might get sick from overly stressing her body.

Also, I know from my education and from experience that some clients lose weight rapidly at the beginning of a workout regimen because its water. Others actually gain 2-3 lbs and then it falls off in a chunk 3 weeks in. These aren’t results of the workout or healthy eating as much as they are the body merely trying to regain homeostasis by making some temporary adjustments.

Rapid weight loss can cause health issues- not just because of the boomerang effect of crash dieting where one loses weight rapidly only to regain it all and more from damaging the metabolism but it can also cause rhythm desturbances in the heart. It’s not that I’m against rapid weight loss. The fact is the more weight you have on your body, the more rapidly you will lose it because our bodies don’t want to have all that lying around and just moving a large body results in more caloric expenditure. It is when it happens in ways that don’t add up based on a healthy protocol that alarm bells go off for me. I’m far more impressed with balanced, sustainable results. I want to know how you are feeling and how your energy level is and how your performance is and if anything is going on in your life which might be causing the rapid weight loss.

If you have been doing something consistently which has helped you achieve weightloss in a sustained way that you have worked hard for over time, you probably aren’t fishing for compliments. You have the inner pride knowing you worked hard over the long haul and you likely feel strong and can see your accomplishments in how much you can lift, how long you can perform, how your clothes fit and what level of energy you have.

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Diet, Uncategorized

Maintaining Goals During the Holidays

Kayla Goldwag

For the client who is panicked about the meal itself and how it will affect her goals:
I’d like to take a moment to remind you that the main foods of Thanksgiving: turkey, sweet potato, green beans… on any other day we would call this diet food or clean eating.. LOL. So usually its not the food itself which is so worrisome but it could be.


Are you worried you are going to over eat?
Are you worried that the food will be prepared differently or will be different than the foods you usually eat?
What do you want your food consumption to look like at this meal? 
How do you want to feel during the meal and afterward?
How could you feel good during this meal?
Can you visualize yourself the way you want to feel after the weekend or gathering?
What could you do to prepare in advance to make yourself have that desired result?


The answers to these questions will be different for each client but these questions are some tools for you to begin to eat mindfully. 


If you are going to be away and not in control of the food and how its prepared or served, what you do have control over is eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full and not eating when you aren’t hungry. Allowing yourself time (20 minutes or so) for your body to register fullness. Or finding something else to do when you want to eat for reasons other than physical hunger.


Worst case scenario: you over-eat..and then you will get back on track and not blow it all out because its not about what you do one day or a couple of days. It is about what you do the rest of the year that determines the outcome of your combined choices. Maybe set the goal or intention to make it through the holiday with joy rather than being sick about worries about the food and definitely come back to training regardless of the outcome.


Here are a few more tricks to help you be able to make stick to these goals:

  1. Bulk up on self-care before the event: get enough sleep, fill up on time with people who “get you, “ meditate or take yoga or pray, work out and get those endorphins flowing get your nails done- whatever it takes to help you feel balanced, good enough and pretty enough.
  2. Stay hydrated
  3. Avoid the alcohol- it lowers inhibitions and can lead to poor decision-making and dehydration
  4. Be your own best friend. If you find that you are saying things to yourself which don’t make you feel good, ask yourself if your best friend would talk to you this way. (If she would, it might be time to get a different best friend). Change the internal dialogue into one of affirmation and support. 
[with permission of Trista Eason]
Body Image, Uncategorized

Dealing with Inappropriate or Hurtful Comments About Your Body

Kayla Goldwag

Most data I have read indicates that comments about someone’s weight or size have the opposite effect that the speaker is hoping for-assuming their intentions are good and not about sabotage or intending to demean. The data indicates discussing health is better. (Though something inside me is nagging that this too can be problematic depending on how its done.) Some research says parents should never discuss weight or bodies with their children. This leaves some parents wondering if this is going to leave their children overly coddled and dependent and unable to handle the “real world.” They wonder if they won’t be honest with their children they would be negligent in parenting toward helping their children reach their highest potential.

A few years ago there was an op ed or article that gained widespread popularity that claimed we should never ever talk about bodies except to discuss what bodies can do rather than how they look. The premise was that to do otherwise would be to cause or lead to a disorder.  

I do think laying off the body shaming talk can be helpful. Furthermore, talking about what fit healthy bodies can do is very empowering and not at all dependent upon body size.  In my opinion, making all body talk off limits can be dangerously unhealthy in a different way to some people and extreme discomfort talking about bodies may be symptomatic of trauma or disordered body image. Any time we make certain topics taboo, it raises a red flag for me.  

Remember when cancer was discussed in hushed tones or not at all?..Or abuse? I want my kids to know they can talk to me about anything and that nothing is so shameful that it can’t be discussed at the right time with the right person. I know girls who looked to boys to tell them they were pretty because they didn’t feel like they got that kind of attention at home. Seems to me telling your child or anyone that they look pretty (assuming its done tastefully) shouldn’t be off limits. Only talking about what bodies can do or how they feel can also make someone feel invisible. However we know there are some folks who take body talk and especially body shaming to outrageous lengths and you may encounter some of these folks at your holiday dinner or in the street. 

 

Take for instance a pregnant woman who was told she always carries large in her pregnancies by a casual acquaintance. Maybe it makes you wonder if you are somehow letting yourself go. How about the relative who comments about your pretty face? Maybe this makes you wonder if the rest of you is dumpy. When a relative comments out loud that she shouldn’t be eating that fried item which you also have on your plate, does it mean that you shouldn’t be eating it or that it makes you a bad person if you do. Or the friend who is talking about how she is going on a diet tomorrow or how she went to the gym for 4 hours before coming to the event. Does this make you want to eat a whole pie or become a hamster on a wheel to work off everything?

If these comments evoke strong emotions or a compulsion to act in self-destructive ways, noticing that you are triggered is a fantastic step! Noticing the feeling before acting on it or before the tsunami of emotion takes over and you’re out of control with your response is tremendous.

Once you noticed that this stirred up a strong emotion for you. Ask yourself the question: What are my interpretations, thoughts and assumptions about what this person said.

Test your assumptions. Do they fit the facts?

For instance: The pregnant client who is told she carries large might say.. Ah I notice that I am feeling angry. I am angry because when this woman said this I (I’m making this up) felt shame, I felt worried that I was less than, or it reminded me of a time when….and I felt…. Then she can ask herself if its true. Do I carry large? If so, and her doctor said its fine, then no worries or if she is on pregnancy number 5 and this stranger has only seen other mamas on their first pregnancy maybe she is the one with the unrealistic expectations of what a pregnant body looks like rather than that she is carrying particularly large. Any other possibilities? Perhaps the person who made the comment is concerned about her own body image and is projecting that outwards. There are many possibilities. 

If you are sassy, maybe you can come up with a great comeback on the spot. For instance the lady who took the comment about her pretty face shot back with, “so what you’re saying it the rest of me is kind a piggy right.” Or the woman with the friend who talked about her hours and hours of workouts and dieting shot back with, “Are you saying all this because you’re so afraid of ending up like me.” If that is your style who am I to complain? Sounds like they asked for it. 

Perhaps its more your style to educate the commentator by letting her know size isn’t always an indicator of health or maybe you prefer to remove yourself from the triggering conversation by leaving the room or not going at all.. Maybe you want to be more direct and let the person know that body talk or diet talk isn’t helpful to you in reaching your goals and what would be more helpful is…(and insert what is helpful to you).  I can’t help you decide what is the right response for you but with some preparation and tuning into how you feel in your body might tell you what is.

If you know that you’re going to be with people who trigger you at holiday time, prepare in advance. How many times do we wish we had another 45 seconds to plan out what we’ll say and how we would have had the perfect response if we knew what was coming? If you have one of those kinds of holiday gatherings, you can anticipate in advance what will be said and how you want to feel and how you want to act. You can role play it with a friend or therapist in advance