Hi! My name is Mitch and you don’t have to lose weight.
I know what your doctor tells you.
I know what social media tells you.
I know that Dr. Oz told you about that new wonder supplement. (Wasn’t that the 13,982 wonder supplement he’s told us about?)
I know that so many messages about “health” talk about losing weight.
I know all that but I’m here to tell you something different.
I NEVER write anything without thinking it through and this is no exception. I’ve trained hundreds of people over the past 12 years and I don’t think I’ve ever had a client who “needed” to lose weight.
Are there exceptions to this? Sure. There are exceptions to everything, but unless you’re a weight-class athlete or you have a rare medical condition, you are likely NOT the exception. Exceptions are rare, after all. That’s why they’re called exceptions.
I don’t know how you feel after reading that, but you may be confused. Don’t worry, I’ll clear it up for you.
1) Losing weight has nothing to do with health.
You heard me.
Yes, I know that flies in the face of so much of what you hear all around you every day, but it’s true. To understand why, you have to realize that “losing weight” and “getting healthier” are two different things.
One involves:
Improving your stamina
Improving your strength
Decreasing chronic pain
Getting off medication
Improving your blood work
Improving your mobility
Functioning better in your daily life
Being able to play with your kids and/or grandkids
Decreasing your stress levels
and a ton more
The other involves:
Changing a number on an appliance
Let’s go a little further
2) It’s bad for your mental health.
Here’s a scenario I’ve witnessed time and again.
Someone’s been coming to the gym for a few months and they’ve made great progress. They’re:
Moving better
Experiencing less chronic pain
Getting more mobile
Getting stronger
Feeling more energetic
But the scale hasn’t moved.
So every morning they stand on the scale and let the number dictate whether they’re a success or failure.
I wonder if I’m a failure today?
That’s not healthy!
Here’s some facts:
The weight loss industry was worth $71,000,000,000 in 2020.
Over 95% of people that lose weight gain it all back, usually plus some, inside of two years.
That means people spent $71,000,000,000 on something that worked less than 5% of the time.
How do they stay in business?
They’ve set themselves up so when it doesn’t work –
YOU BLAME YOURSELF AND THEN BUY SOMETHING ELSE!
It goes like this.
Tell you to lose weight – for “your health.”
Tell you that you need their “SECRET” diet/supplement/workout to do it.
Sell you an unsustainable diet and/or workout plan.
Blame you for not following through on their impossible-to-follow-through-with plan.
Make you feel like a failure who “didn’t want it enough”.
Sell you something else.
Rinse and repeat.
Imagine if Sony sold you a TV that didn’t work 95% of the time then blamed you for not wanting to turn it on bad enough.
Assholes.
Here’s another thing.
2) Losing weight isn’t physically healthy, either!
The fact that almost no one sustains their weight loss tells you it requires extreme methods to do it.
That means that people are required to, quite literally, live their lives around these weight loss methods.
That means:
Mental fatigue
Physical fatigue
Bone density issues
Poor recovery
Loss of strength
Loss of libido
An all-encompassing mental focus on food
For more on this look up the Minnesota Starvation Experiment.
Here’s the kicker. The amount of calories in the semi-starvation diet? About 1600. That’s 300-400 MORE calories than many diets currently call for. You know…for your health.
And again, if all that made you healthier overall maybe it would be worth it, but it doesn’t.
The truth is that losing weight by itself generally makes no difference at all in your physical health.
So…what are you supposed to do?
Change your focus.
Instead of looking to the scale as the main indicator of your success, look to the things you thought weight loss was going to give you.
More energy.
Getting off medications.
Moving better.
Feeling more confident.
Less chronic pain.
Now take positive steps to make those things happen and the awesome thing is that these steps FEEL EMPOWERING!
You can:
Move in ways that feel good to you.
Eat foods that give you pleasure, energy, and taste great.
Do things that make you feel excited and fulfilled.
Concentrate on things you CAN do vs. things you can’t.
Take time for yourself.
These are things that can make you healthier right now, no scale required.
And you’ll find that even without losing a pound you’ll feel better and more positive and that’s what this is supposed to be about.
This is a complicated topic and one on which entire volumes have been written, but the bottom line is that pursuing weight loss alone doesn’t take into account so many reasons that people think they want to lose weight in the first place.
Don’t feed a $71 billion dollar industry. Feed yourself.
Mitch Rothbardt 510-754-7113 Mitch@CastroValleyFitness.com
P.S. I know this topic is triggering for a lot of people. Just getting out of the weight-loss mindset requires untangling of lifelong habits and belief systems.
Especially if you’re a woman.
I’ve seen the damage it causes or I wouldn’t feel so strongly about it.
If you need to talk this through or just clarify a few things I’m here for you. This isn’t a sales pitch. I don’t care if you’re a client or not, I just know how painful this can be. Reply to this and we can talk in person, on Zoom, or just through email.