Losing weight, gaining health: A body positivity coach's approach to sustainable healthy living

 

Last year, over a boozy dinner, my three mum friends and I decided to take on the Oxfam 50km Trail Walk. We convinced each other that it would be a fun way to bond and cement our friendship. We had months to train and it was going to be literally a walk in the (national) park! Then motherhood and reality dawned on us that to prepare for a 50km walk properly (without injuring ourselves), we would need to put in real effort.  

 

What ensued was a 3-month long twice weekly training, blackened toes, blistered feet, cracked heels and a continuing series of assaults to our feet, body, and relationships with our respective husbands who were unwillingly but supportively roped into looking after the kids while the mums went off on day long hikes to “cement” their friendship.  

 

We were grateful for the training for it prepared our legs for the enduring 15 hour 37 minute walk and the callouses on our feet made them blister proof, but what we were even more grateful for was that it was over.  One word to capture this entire event was “effortful”.   

 

Throughout my training, one comforting thought kept me going, “I only had 3 months of this training”.  The fact that it was time restricted, made it doable.  

 

Could I have sustained this kind of training and commitment over the long run? No way! My kids wouldn’t have a bar of it, my husband would probably divorce me, and I would have most likely injured myself.

 

Then why is it that so many of us approach weight loss and health goals like we’re continually training for Oxfam – Effortful and Unsustainable – over the long run. 

 

No wonder most of us feel that weight loss is a major effort, and many end up quitting.

 

 

Instead of exhausting ourselves and burning out, perhaps it’s time to take the effortless route. I would even go so far as to argue that unless your lifestyle feels effortless to you, there are high chances you will throw in the towel.

 

Many seem to believe that achieving anything worthwhile requires “blood, sweat, and tears” because after all, “no pain, no gain”, right? But working hard doesn’t always guarantee great results. Job burnout and overtraining syndrome are fine examples of when “hard work” does not pay off.

 

 

 

 

Most situations in life have a tendency—a direction in which things want to flow.  Water flows downhill. It is easier to walk, run, bike or sail with the wind pushing on your back. Electric current will naturally flow through the path that offers the least resistance because it requires the least amount of energy to do so.  We’re wired to take the path of least resistance.  You can choose to go against the flow just as you can choose to carry water uphill, but your results tend to be better when you find a way to work with the gradient of the situation.

 

 

One of the major mistakes blocking many people from being successful with their weight loss effort is succumbing to perfectionistic thinking. It’s tempting to see perfectionism as a desirable character strength as it shows conscientiousness and attention to detail.  In fact, the belief that we need to be perfect to be successful is the very thing we need to give up to be successful.  When slip-ups are catastrophes, mistakes are not allowed, only being perfect is acceptable, perfectionism sets us up for failure.  This incredibly high standard makes weight loss effortful and unattainable. 

 

“Black or white” or “all-or-nothing” thinking is closely related to perfectionistic thinking.  Rather than looking at your eating as either “good” or “bad”.  You could try viewing foods and health choices as a continuum of “worse” to “better”.  There are all these choices available to you.  Every time you go to eat, you can ask yourself how can I improve the quality of my food by just a little bit? Every time you have a moment of weakness, a human moment, you can ask yourself how can I make the situation just a bit better?  

 

An effortless weight loss tip for someone (like me) who loves to eat bread is to focus on making bread a bit “better”, rather than cutting them out of your life entirely.  I choose a wholegrain variety and add protein such as eggs to make my bread more filling and nutritious!

 

The ultimate goal is to gradually eat less processed food and add more whole, minimally processed foods over time!

 

 

 

I like to think of nutrition as a number line from -5 to 5. The far right is overeating (5), the far left is restrictive eating (-5), the middle is balanced eating (0) where energy intake matches your body needs.  

 

Many of us attempt weight loss by going cold turkey, swinging from overeating (5) to restrictive eating (-5) in one swoop.  We may think it’s easier to stop eating all the unhealthy things we love right away so we’re not tempted.  We can stay on track for days, weeks, even months at a time but we always seem to revert back to the old pattern, undermining all our effort, and feeling as if we’ve fallen off the wagon again.  While, cold turkey is a quick-fix method, weight loss is likely temporarily.  Sudden change in our eating pattern is often unsustainable and can often led to a powerful craving that can buckle even an iron will.    

 

In my opinion, the most effortless way for someone who wants to lose weight sustainably is not to go from overeating (5) to restrictive eating (-5).  Rather, the first step is to go from 5 to 4, eating slightly better and slightly less than they are now. For example, eating one sweet thing daily rather than going cold turkey and then relenting and binge eating sweet things in one sitting. This applies to any of your food kryptonite.

 

My personal goal is long-term weight maintenance, so I aim to hover between -1 to 2. At this level, my eating feels enjoyable and not at all restrictive.  Most people will never need to go to go to -5.  This level is for people like body builders, elite weight-classed athletes, professional models, or celebrities.  In short, someone who’s getting paid for the look of their bodies.  Even for these people, -5 level of eating is usually time restricted. No one is meant to live at -5 level. Just like Oxfam training, this kind of eating is not sustainable.

 

It is true that in order to lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit. In my opinion, the most popular but effortful approach to creating calorie deficit is based on the principle of subtraction.  The idea is simple the less you eat, the more calorie deficit you create, the more weight you lose. Now for the interesting question: is it possible to eat more and lose weight? If you focus on adding the right thing, I think you would. 

 

I remember taking my Opa to a Tetsuya degustation lunch.  I’d never forget the look of disappointment on his face when he saw the portion sizes of each course.  After a 15-course meal, he came home and made himself a beef sandwich.  Just like Opa, I eat food with my eyes first.  My husband once observed that I like to “pile on my plate” and he’s absolutely right.  My effortless trick of filling up without filling out is to pile my plate with nutrient-rich, high-volume foods.  High-volume foods like stock-based veggie soups, salad, non-starchy vegetables like eggplants, zucchini, cauliflower, tomato, watermelon, and berries are rich sources of fibre and water.  Because of this, they contain fewer calories, you can eat more of them, they help to keep you full because they literally fill up your stomach, and lastly because high fiber food keeps you fuller for longer, you tend to snack less!

 

 

Attempting to lose weight in effortful ways (by trying to be perfect, focusing on extreme change, and eating as little food as you can) is like saying you’re going to start exercising 7 days a week when you already find it hard to fit in regular exercise. Not impossible but extremely hard to do! A better approach is to focus on how to make weight loss more effortless because it’s more likely to be a sustainable in the long run.

 

 

Gale Ruttanaphon is a body positivity coach. She works with busy women who struggle to identify with the person they see in the mirror. She helps them become strong, lean, confident women by improving the relationship they have with themselves. Gale’s a mom of two, a certified coach, a nutritionist, and an accredited trainer specialising in pre and postnatal exercise. Her approach is based on intuitive eating focusing on health, finding joyful movement you can stick with for life, and loving your body where it’s at while working towards the body you desire.