Active Living

File this post under gross gender-based generalizations.

In my experience women are most insecure about what they look like, which leads to a host of issues around not eating enough, feeling shame, and misguided attempts to “lose weight.” Social pressures and cultural discrimination against aging women have something to do with this. Just ask any woman in Hollywood when well-written, three-dimensional roles start drying up. Amy Schumer hilariously skewers this hypocrisy in the definitely NSFW clip below (seriously don’t click if salty language offends you). The basic message in Hollywood is one that I think gets filtered through the rest of our culture, which is, “women, don’t get older.”

Men, on the other hand, tend to feel less secure about what they can do. My theory is that one can split men into two categories: men who go to the gym in their teens and twenties, and men who don’t go to the gym during that timeframe. The men who go to the gym in their teens and twenties spend a lot of time at the bench press and doing various curl movements to achieve big arms. The men who don’t go to the gym as young men perhaps never will, especially if they’re not able to perceive how their unfit status holds them back from enjoying greater quality of life.

I spend a lot of my energy with older male clients trying to get them to understand the benefits of gradually progressing, avoiding injury, and working on movement patterns instead of ego-boosting exercises like bench presses and dumbbell curls. They look over and see the kid in his early twenties pressing a bunch of weight over his head and they immediately think less of themselves if they can’t lift the same weight. I have to work hard to convince them to do things like warm up properly and stretch post workout. They just want to load a bar with as much weight as possible and move it, especially with their upper bodies.

That’s not the most difficult obstacle to overcome for me as a coach. The biggest hurdle consists of the guys who used to work out in their twenties but stop going to the gym because, well, they got older, and they’re not as strong as they used to be. So rather than face the indignity of a long warmup and lighter weights they just stay home and talk about their “bad back” or “bad knees.” Sound familiar? I spend a lot of time thinking through how to convince guys like this to go to the gym and most of the time I feel like Sisyphus pushing an Indiana Jones-sized boulder up a hill.

Women in my experience are more willing to ask for help in the gym because they haven’t internalized the cultural pressure to already know everything about it. Remember, a woman’s only job in our culture is to stay as young-looking and thin as possible. So for the women who seek out personal trainers, yoga instructors, or Pilates coaches they’re more willing to say “help.”

I’ll be forty next month, so I know a little bit about the aging male demographic. And I know more than a little about ego because I’m constantly battling my own in the gym. There’s a voice in my head who sees stronger men as confirmation that I’m less than rather than as an inspiration. It’s not difficult to see how this destructive thought process could turn–even subconsciously–into “I’ll just not work out” with some sort of half-baked justification thrown in to massage the ego.

I’ve had too many conversations with the children of aging parents who report that they just cannot get dads to pay attention to their health and wellness for me to stay silent or ignore gender-based culture differences. If I had one wish for my female readers it would be for them to learn how to love their bodies as they are. For the men? It would probably be to learn how to swallow their pride, ask for help, and learn how to get stronger step-by-step. (Actually, I’d have the same hope for women. The learning to love their bodies thing is almost always the first step toward a willingness to strive for step-by-step strength).

If you’ve been struggling to get your dad or grandfather into the gym, try talking him through the logic.

1.) He doesn’t have to wake up hurting every day just because he’s older.

2.) Strength training isn’t just for young guys. The benefits go well beyond the aesthetic and performance.

3.) He can still build muscle well into his 70s–it’s never too late to start. Even in his 80s, he can still see neurological benefits from strength training that will manifest as improved movement and strength.

As for the aging women? Let’s talk next week…

Ta-Nehisi (pronounced TAH-nah-HAH-see) Coates won the National Book Award this year for his book “Between the World and Me,” written in the form of a letter to his son. The book is an extraordinary exploration of what it means to be black in the United States of America. As I sat down to write this week’s column, I found myself returning to the text because of Coates’ emphasis on the cumulative effects of racism on the black body.

Coates uses the word body (or its variants) from the opening sentence of the book to the very last paragraph, and the repetition is intentional. He recounts a scene in which his young son is inconsolable following the announcement that the police officer who shot Michael Brown would not face punishment.

“What I told you is what your grandparents tried to tell me: that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.” (emphasis mine)

As far as I know, Coates hasn’t devoted much time in his writing to fitness and health in the traditional sense. But this emphasis on the word “body” betrays an intuitive understanding of what it means to be a healthy human being. One of the great things about literature–and art generally–is that we bring our life with us into the piece. So I read “Between the World and Me” as one of the great arguments in favor of holding policymakers accountable for the health of the citizens they lead. And I read it in part as a rebuke to those of us who don’t treat our bodies with the respect they deserve, especially given how easily some people’s bodies can be destroyed in an instant.

Too deep for a fitness blog? Maybe. But I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people lately about their bodies, and I’m disheartened to hear the way many people think and talk about the one body they’ll ever have.

“I don’t have time to cook,” they say.

“Working out feels like a waste of time,” they say.

“Why would anyone work out five days a week?” they’ll ask.

With each statement and each question, my interlocutor suggests that they don’t take their body seriously. They they think the food they put into it is only an afterthought; that ensuring proper movement of the vessel that will carry them along in their existence on this planet is time better spent on other things; that the spreadsheets at work are more important than having the strength and energy to spend quality time with the people that they love.

When I respond to their questions and statements with reason and fact, usually people agree with me. Their body IS important. Nutrition IS important. Movement IS important. So more people share Coates’ intuitive understanding of the human body’s primacy than it would appear given how most of us choose to spend our time. The question becomes, then, how do we close the gap between what we know to be important and the values we exhibit on a daily basis?

I’m not sure I know the answer. I wouldn’t call myself a cynic necessarily, but I know the stubborn tug of job, television, and eating out can be difficult to surmount. I know this because I’ve had the same struggles even while I work as a fitness professional. To say that I’m well-known in certain Oregon District restaurants would be a colossal understatement, for example. I happen to hate our kitchen and the dishwasher we inherited doesn’t appear to have been operational within the last ten years. (It only “sort of” cleans the dishes). So I get it: cooking doesn’t always seem like a fun option. But when I find myself slipping into the abyss, I remind myself of my body. It’s my body.

Normally I’d end a column like this with a numbered list of things you can do starting right now to turn your life around. Today I just want to ask you to do this. Take off all of your clothes. Stand in front of a full-length mirror. Be honest with yourself about what you see–and what you’d like to see.

This is your body. It’s the only one you’ll ever have. Contained within it is your emotional health and memories; contained within it is your ability to interact with the world around you and the people that you love; contained within it is your capacity for expressing the physical manifestation of love. How ought you to treat such an important and impressive vessel? What choices could you make right now to reflect that?

I’m not a registered dietician, but as a fitness and lifestyle coach I’m often in the position of giving general nutrition advice. More often than not, the people who come to me aren’t seeking advice on managing a disease. My clients usually just want to feel and look a little better.

I’ve been trying to do more thinking lately around my process with people and the patterns I see with clients. I realized that when it comes to nutrition, probably the advice I give most often might surprise you.

Eat more.

People are shocked to hear this. They think they can’t “lose weight” because they’re eating too much. “What am I doing wrong?” they’ll ask me. Then they’ll show me a food log that indicates skipped breakfasts, an iceberg salad for lunch, and then a low-carb (or virtually all carb) dinner. And they’re coupling this woefully inadequate amount of food with cardio. Lots and lots of cardio. Sure, this method of starvation and sweating on the treadmill might help them lose weight initially, but usually they’ll plateau. Why?

1.) Don’t try to lose weight

The first problem is that they’re trying lose weight in the first place. A nasty drug habit can help you lose weight. Losing weight shouldn’t be the goal. Strength should be the goal. And if strength is the goal then you need to eat well to be strong.

Starvation means you’re losing body weight, but a lot of it’s going to be muscle. And if you’re a woman this vicious cycle of starvation and cardio could be wreaking havoc on your hormones, ensuring that you retain body fat and work against your goals.

2.) Eat more, but eat well

Eat more. You mean, I can have the donuts?

Not so fast. Eat more, but eat more vegetables, eat more good sources of protein, and more of a variety of foods. If you’re eating for strength, you need nutrient dense foods to ensure your body is functioning properly. If you’re eating for strength, you need to make sure your body has a ready pool of amino acids from which it can draw to build muscle. If you’re eating for strength, you need to be eating at regular intervals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner).

3.) Cardio is for stress relief and heart health, not fat loss

If you like to run, run. But don’t try to run off your excess pounds. The goal with body composition is to change your metabolic environment, which is a complex stew of hormones, tissues, biochemical reactions, and gastrointestinal function. You’re not going to run off that piece of cake you had a Janet’s going away party in the conference room. But you can, with the right combination of strength training, sleep, stress management, nutrition, and conditioning work ensure that the piece of cake won’t make much of a difference in your overall body composition.

4.) It’s difficult to overeat (actually) healthy foods

If you fill more than half your plate with vegetables at every meal, you’re going to have a difficult time eating too much food. This is where a little education goes a long way. I coach people all the time who tell me during our first meeting that they “eat healthy.” And then they proceed to tell me about the healthy spaghetti meal they ate for dinner the night before.

Spaghetti doesn’t seem unhealthy, does it? And since I’m not an advocate of low-carb dieting, I’m not hating on it because of the pasta.

But the way most of us eat pasta is terrible for us from the most basic plate composition standpoint. Few vegetables. Little fiber. Way more starchy carbs than is advisable. Probably not as much protein as we need. See how quickly that healthy spaghetti dinner becomes a starchy sugar bomb with just a little understanding?

If you think you’re eating healthy now, check yourself. Gluten free does not necessarily equal healthy. Low fat does not necessarily equal healthy. Homemade does not necessarily mean that it’s good for you. “All natural” doesn’t mean anything at a all.

So yes, eat more, but make sure you’re eating well with an eye toward strength and fitness. The rest will usually take care of itself–as long as you’re eating your veggies. And lots of them.