Changing eating habits without fear of weight gain

Are you tired of living with a rigid and restrictive style of eating?

Do your food-related habits affect your relationships?

Do you want to stop feeling so anxious, stressed, overwhelmed and conflicted around food-related events and decisions? 

Are you wanting to make food choices that help fuel your active lifestyle, help you feel good physically and satisfy you mentally? 

Are you ready to break free from food rules and build a healthy relationship with food and your body? 

If you said yes to any or all of the following, you may find that there is one thing that is holding you back from feeling controlled by food.....you are worried about gaining weight/body composition changes. 

Unfortunately, we live in a world saturated with diet culture. We are conditioned to group food into "good" and "bad" categories and it's almost universally acceptable to fat shame. Even worse, nutrition experts often encourage disordered eating strategies as a way to improve health, lose weight or enhance fitness/performance. 

Trying to maintain a lifestyle with food rules, rituals and restrictions means you are not living to your fullest potential. The more energy you expend on your food choices, the more distracted you become mentally and physically. Letting go of food-related fears is how you can live a more fulfilling lifestyle. 

But if you are worried that a flexible and varied style of eating will result in a body type that would be seen as unhealthy, unacceptable, unattractive or performance limiting, I must remind you that as an athlete, you need full physical and mental freedom to perform at your best and to keep your body in good health. Restricting the food in your diet, placing food rules on when, how much and where you eat and obsessing over your body will not allow for that freedom. To truly put this 'diet' mentality behind you, you must get over your fear of weight gain. 

• Identify the source of your weight-related fears
  -Comments made by coaches, athletic outfits and performance, a culture that emphasizes leanness.... it's important to identify who or what is making you feel how you feel about your body.
  -Most weight gain fears initiate from cultural weight stigmas. 
  -Success, beauty, attractiveness, ability, happiness, social standard are often tied to what the body looks like. 
  -Food is often used to control stress and to reduce anxiety. Rituals and regimes around food may give you the illusion that you have more control over a situation, making you feel more at ease around eating. Being able to eat without feeling restricted, regimented or ritualistic is a way to challenge the fear of weight gain. 
  
  
• Rewire your thoughts
  -The brain can be retrained. If you constantly think that if your body changes, you will no longer be successful, happy or attractive, it will be difficult to change your behaviors. 
  -Positive affirmations and mantras can help build new thought patterns. 
  -Recognize the triggers for when your thoughts become self-sabotaging. 
  
  
• Change behaviors
  -The purpose of the first two steps is to recognize that there's a close connection between how you think you will look, perform and be treated if you step away from a rigid and restrictive style of eating. 
  -Take a step back to consider how your current style of eating is helping or harming your heath, performance or quality of life. 
  -A healthy weight supports the metabolic demands of your training, while protecting your physical and mental health. It's not controlled, it just happens. 
  

You may be wondering what will happen to your body when you get rid of the food rules? 

The truth is, I don't know and you don't know. The unknown can be scary - thus the constant need to feel controlled by food. While the idea of not being able to tightly control your weight can be scary, your reasons for giving up control over food must be stronger than your fears over weight gain. 

And if that is too hard for you to think about right now, I'll remind you where that fear of weight gain came from.....diet culture! 

Diet culture is constantly selling you methods for how you can and should control your weight to be leaner, lighter or smaller. This puts great pressure on you that your moral obligation as a human being in this world is to control your weight. And if you fail, it's a personal failure. With every diet, restriction, regime and ritual, it's the illusion of control. You must trust yourself that when you eat enough to fuel and nourish your body, while also feeling food freedom and flexibility, your body will be at the weight that it needs to be to function at its best. 

There are many layers to your relationship with food, weight and your body. And these layers change in different times of your life.

But now is a great time to start learning (and unlearning) your food, body and weight related thoughts and behaviors, while challenging those thoughts and deciding what food related decisions are helping you and should stay, and which ones need to be tossed out as they are keeping you from living a meaningful and quality-filled life. 

Reasons why you are having a "bad body" day.

In our weight and image-obsessed society, it can be difficult to maintain a healthy relationship with food and the body when you are having an "uncomfortable body" day.

Our culture is really tough on bodies - we are taught that our current size/shape/weight is a problem and it requires immediate fixing.

The human body is amazing. It’s constantly working for you. As you go through life, it’s only natural and normal that your body will change along with you. The body is complex and dynamic. Every day your body is adjusting to its environment and the stress placed on it.

Let's look at some of the incredible ways that the body works for you and why you shouldn't overhaul your diet or exercise regime if you feel or see your body making a small shift in size, shape or weight throughout the day.

Body image and athletics - something needs to change!

Unhealthy weight control/loss practices are a serious and ongoing problem in sport, especially in aesthetic and weight-bearing sports, like running and triathlon. Too often, athletes are pressured by media, coaches and competitors to change body composition in order to boost performance. There's the mentality that you have to be thin to wind.

But if losing weight was a guarantee to performance improvements, why don't more athletes excel at sport after they experience some type of weight loss?

Many athletes are told (or assume) that they would be more successful in a sport if they lost weight or changed body composition. Regardless of the performance outcome, athletes who are asked or told to lose weight.change body composition are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors such as fasted workouts, skipping meals, replacing higher calorie foods for calorie-free/diet foods, fasting/cleansing/detoxing, using weight loss supplements, diuretics or laxatives and/or overexercising. While a short period of performance enhancements may be seen, most athletes end up with broken bones/stress fractures, hormonal issues, amennorhea (females), fatigue and burnout. Far from the performance improvements that are told to happen from weight loss!

Although I am not a sport psychologist (like my amazing friend Dr. G), feeling the need to lose weight can be a form of emotional abuse. Whether you are told to lose weight from a coach, you are constantly comparing yourself to other people or your inner critic is telling you that you would be a better/faster/happier athlete if you lost weight, you may not be aware of the emotional trauma that you are enduring and how it affects your confidence and self-worth.

How can we change the mindset of so many athletes/coaches that weight loss = performance improvements? 

• It starts with the coach - who is directly involved with an athlete's physical and mental development. Many coaches and experts wrongly place their own attitudes, thoughts, strategies and personal experiences with weight, dieting and body image on their athletes. Athletes need a coach who is a good role model, promoting  positive self-image and healthy dietary and fueling strategies. Coaches need to recognize that an athlete is more than just a body and athletic success does not result from a number on the scle or body image. 
• Weight is a sensitive and personal issue for many athletes. You can't look at someone and tell if he/she has underlying issues with food and body image. Unfortunately, many coaches and experts do not realize how certain words can affect an athlete. For example, if a coach tells his athlete that its bad to eat carbs after 6pm and the athlete eats a slice bread at 6:05pm, the athlete may feel like a bad person. When a nutrition "expert" suggests to an athlete that weight loss will improve performance, that athlete will spend a considerable amount of energy trying to change body composition (often through quick fixes and extreme approach). If a coach makes a snarky comment about an athlete's size, the athlete may feel an overwhelming sense of distress - overlooking strengths and becoming obsessed with weaknesses. 
• Coaches need to see an athlete as more than an object - consider how an athlete's lifestyle choices, mental and physical health, emotions and individual development can contribute to performance. It's absolutely wrong and unjust to assume that if an athlete weighs less, he/she will become a better athlete.  We must stop assuming that when an athlete looks differently, he/she will perform differently. 
• You can't perform at your best if you are not in optimal health. Because most athletes do not seek out professional guidance from a sport dietitian, there is no one to closely monitor and watch over an athlete for extreme behaviors. A sport dietitian can also clear up misinformation and debate against unhealthy dietary practices that may sabotage performance and health.

As a coach, sport RD and athlete, I take performance and health very seriously. I never ever tell my athletes to lose weight - ever! 

We must stop viewing weight as a performance limiter or as the best next step toward athletic greatness. There are many ways to boost performance, like eating "enough", fueling properly, timing food with workouts, strength training, mental strength, quality sleep, good recovery practices and consistent training. While weight loss may lead to performance improvements, we can't assume that reducing body fat will benefit every athlete. There are no shortage of cases where athletes have experienced a temporary boost in performance in the initial phases of changing body composition but eventually suffer from eating-disorder/disordered eating symptoms, overtraining, hormonal issues, menstrual irregularities (female athletes), low bone density, a weakened immune system, chronic injuries and a performance decline (or a sporting career cut short) overtime.

Sports are designed to build self-esteem, boost confidence, promote physical strength, improve skills and teach life lessons. As an athlete, you should do what you like to do, which is participate in the sport you love. It's hard to love what you can do with your body when you are underfuled, undernourished and underappreciated.

If an athlete feels the need to lose weight (for whatever reason), he/she should be the one to voice the concern and the next step is to consult with a sport dietitian - an outside voice to provide non-judgemental, practical, realistic, effective and safe information.  With proper education, support and guidance, athletes are more likely to stay in good mental and physical health, experience athletic excellence and maintaint great enjoyment for sport for many years.

Athletes - love your amazing body and be sure to thank it. Rest it, respect it, nourish it and fuel it daily. 

DEXA Body Composition Testing - Review (and results)

Several weeks ago I was contacted via email by someone from a company who asked if I was interested in receiving a complimentary DEXA Scan (along with Karel) in return of a review. As you may know, I am not a fan of the scale and I never weigh myself. Considering all that makes up your body, your body weight can’t accurately be told by a number on the bathroom or BMI scale. But this doesn't stop far too many athletes from daily or weekly scale weighing - often feeling like the scale runs or ruins the day.

A DEXA Scan is a reliable, gold-standard way to precisely measure body composition (I discussed this in my book Essential Sports Nutrition). DEXA stands for dual energy x-ray absorptiometry.  More than just a weight, a DEXA Scan tells you what you are made up of - muscle, fat and bone. You can see muscle asymmetry, visceral fat and bone density.

For the athlete with excessive body fat, weight loss may improve health and sport performance. However to pressure from society, coaches and social media, it’s not uncommon for many athletes to have body image struggles, feeling like the body should always look differently. Because many athletes resort to unsafe weight loss methods and strategies when feeling “fat”, the first step in a weight loss program is to gather baseline information of your current body composition – what are you made of? Your bathroom scale does not tell you what you are made of - it only tells you a number.

Understanding body composition 
Your body weight is made of two parts: body fat and lean body mass.

Body fat can be divided into two types; essential fat and storage fat. Essential fat is stored in organs, like the heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, intestines and liver, as well as in muscle tissue, the central nervous system and bone marrow. Although a small amount stored in the body, the body requires this type of fat for bodily processes. Essential fat is very important for your overall health. Women have more essential fat than men for child-bearing purposes. Essential fat is also needed for hormone related functions.

Storage fat (the more familiar fat) consists of fat accumulation in adipose tissue. Subcutaneous fat helps to protect the skeletal structure and to conserve body heat. Visceral fat (or abdominal fat) lies just beneath the skin surface. An excessive amount of visceral fat has been linked to health issues. It's important to know your android fat level and gynoid fat level (and ratio) for metabolic health. Gynoid fat storage (pear shape) is common in women as this fat is stored primarily around the hips and thighs. This storage is often seen as healthy for child bearing. Android fat (apple shape) is stored in the midsection, predominately in the abdomen, but can be also be found in the chest and upper arms. This type of fat is consistently shown to place people at a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, hormonal issues and more. Knowing the distribution of fat in your body can be helpful to monitor health risks and to minimize health issues later in life. Because a DEXA scan measures different types of fat in every region of your body (even your head!), the ratio of android to gynoid fat (A/G ratio) is something to monitor. You want this ratio below 1.0.

Lean body mass is everything that is not fat. Your bathroom scale doesn't know how much of your body is lean vs. fat. For example, your scale doesn't tell you the weight of your bones, organs, muscles, fluid, ligaments and tendons. More so, if your body composition is changing, your weight won't tell you why it's changing - is it more/less fluid, more/less muscle, more/less fat, more/less bone?

When we think of words like lean, fat or overweight, what do those words really mean? For example, according to a height and weight table, I may be classified as normal weight (but on the high end), but this table doesn't take into account my muscle mass and bone density. And although excess body fat can have an impact on your overall health, you do need body fat for important bodily functions.

If you are concerned or interested in your body composition, I highly encourage you to ditch the scale and get a DEXA scan. The DEXA Scan website will help you find the nearest location (and pricing) to get your body composition tested. Although not every center with a DEXA scan is listed on this website, it's a good starting place. The average price of a DEXA scan varies from $50-150 (on average). I'd say that's extremely reasonable, considering all the information you receive and the ease of the test. It only takes ~6-8 minutes for the machine to run the scan on you - while laying down - and you immediately get your results right after the test.

Because a DEXA scan tells you a tremendous amount of information about your body composition, here are some practical applications from the analysis of your body composition:

• If you feel the need to change your body composition, you should know exactly what you are made of before attempting to change your diet or exercise regime. And because you can't target your fat loss or spot reduce, even if you try to build muscle or reduce body fat, repeated testing (ex. every 3 months) can show you trends over time after establishing a baseline - particularly, how your body composition has changed over time. This will also emphasize the fact that healthy and sustainable body composition changes can not be quickly achieved, especially through extreme exercise or strict eating methods. Far too many athletes overexercise and undereat for the reasons of wanting to weigh less to perform better. If you are serious about changing your body composition, you need a very specific program/approach that will help you achieve your goals (ex. decrease body fat, increasing muscle) without compromising your health, performance and quality of life. And because body composition changes don't guarantee performance improvements, your primary focus for changing body composition should be for health reasons - not aesthetics. 

• Although a DEXA scan is not a bone density exam, it does give you a general overview of your bone strength. As an athlete, you should be very concerned about this number. A high bone density (higher Z-score), means strong, healthy bones. Interestingly, a DEXA scan may tell you about  imbalances, that may have resulted in (or predispose you to) an injury. This information may help your PT/trainer better understand the exercises that you need to be doing to rehab appropriately (after an injury) or to reduce the risk of an injury. For example, in the DEXA scan, you can see the difference between your right side and left side bone density. A large imbalance may indicate a muscle imbalance from a past muscle injury or an injury waiting to happen.
• Body weight is a sensitive topic and many athletes are trying to avoid the scale for that reason. I agree - the scale is not a good indicator of your self-worth, athletic talents or overall health. Because poor body image can lead to obsessive behaviors (ex. eating/exercising), a DEXA scan may give you reassurance and satisfaction that your body is actually in great health. I feel there's something extremely powerful in knowing exactly what you are made of - it also shows you how incredible your body is because of all that it's made of. Plus, if you have recently gained or lost weight, you want to be assured that it's the "right" kind of weight. For example, you could avoid carbohydrates for a few days and lose a lot of water weight. Your weight may be lower but your weight loss likely didn't come from fat. 

Karel and I found this experience to be very enlightening. We never obsess about our weight/body image and our eating habits are not regimented or strict. The information we received from our scans was more about knowing what we are made of, instead of feeling like we need to use this information to make changes. We don't plan on making any changes with our diet (or training) to change our body composition for we are both healthy, performing well and enjoy our current style of eating/training. Plus, we feel our body composition  naturally changes throughout the season based on our ability to adapt to training stress and recover between sessions. We also know that serious health issues can occur from getting too lean (the body gets weaker, not faster). And seeing that it's only June and we still have over three more months of Ironman specific training, we don't want to jeopardize our health in favor of attempting a leaner body composition.

Here is a recap of our body composition analysis from the Lovelace Family Medicine Center in Prosperity, SC. 

KAREL

Age: 42
Weight (weighed with shoes and clothes on, I feel this should have been a naked weight): 145.0 lb
Height (shoes on - I feel they should have taken our shoes off): 67.5 inches
Body fat percentage: 12.4%
Android: 13%
Gynoid: 13.6%
Android/Gynoid ratio: .96 
L Arm: 10.7% fat
R Arm: 11.3% fat
L leg: 12.9% fat
R leg: 12.2% fat
Head: 21.7%
Z score: 0.1
T score: 0.1
(a score of -1.0 or above is normal bone density. A score between -1.0 and -2.5 means low bone density or osteopenia and -2.5--4 is osteoporosis. A T-score is your bone density compared to what is normally expected in a healthy young adult of your sex. Your Z-score is the number of standard deviations above or below what's normally expected for someone of your sex, age, weight, ethnic or racial origin). 
L Arm: 0.950 BMD (bone mineral density, the amount of bone mineral in bone tissue)
R Arm: 0.997 BMD
L Ribs: 0.736 BMD
R Ribs: 0.639 BMD
T Spine: 0.887 BMD
L Spine: 1.093 BMD
Pelvis: 1.205 BMD
L Leg: 1.251 BMD
R Leg: 1.254 BMD

MARNI

Age: 37
Weight (weighed with shoes and clothes on, I feel this should have been a naked weight): 114.0 lb
Height (shoes on - I feel they should have taken our shoes off but I'll take the height increase :): 61.5 inches
Body fat percentage: 17.1%
Android: 13.9%
Gynoid: 23.2%
Android/Gynoid ratio: .60 
L Arm: 16.5% fat
R Arm: 14.3% fat
L leg: 21.3% fat
R leg: 19.5% fat
Head: 21.3%
Z score: 0.5
T score: 0.8
(a score of -1.0 or above is normal bone density. A score between -1.0 and -2.5 means low bone density or osteopenia and -2.5--4 is osteoporosis.)
L Arm: 0.794 BMD (bone mineral density, the amount of bone mineral in bone tissue)
R Arm: 0.842 BMD
L Ribs: 0.571 BMD
R Ribs: 0.632 BMD
T Spine: 0.966 BMD
L Spine: 1.212 BMD
Pelvis: 1.078 BMD
L Leg: 1.128 BMD
R Leg: 1.148 BMD

Although athletes tend to have lower body fat percentages, extremely low body fat can pose health issues - for men and women. When it comes to seeing where you stack-up with your body composition compared to someone else, be mindful that your body is unique. We must keep in mind that there an extreme variability of body shapes, sizes, heights, bone structure, genetics, weight and fat and muscle distributions. No two bodies are the same so it's not worth comparing your body composition (or image) to that of another athlete. Two athletes, each with 15% body fat can look extremely different. You can also be very fit at different body fat percentages. You can also be extremely lean but in poor health. This is why it's also important to never assume that weight loss will result in performance gains. Through DEXA testing, you can see how your body is put together and what you are made of. It's up to you if you want to do anything with that information.

Final thoughts....we found this process informative. I saw this as a wonderful opportunity to see how strong and healthy my body is in the inside and to see what I am really made of. Because athletes can become so overly focused on body image, make sure you are spending your energy in the right place - to become a stronger, healthier and better athlete. Performance gains don't come quickly and you should never make assumptions that lean = fit. Strive to be in great health and don't tie your happiness, confidence and self-worth to an image or body composition.

If you are interested in getting your body composition tested, you can use this link, DEXA Scan, to find your nearest location. 

I was not paid to write this post and all thoughts/feedback are my own. In return of this blog post, I received two complimentary DEXA Scan tests at a location of my choice. The closest location per the DEXA Scan website was ~90 minutes away. The test was performed on June 4th, 2019.