Monthly Archives: January 2007

Success has its rewards – and its consequences

Over the years I have observed and helped many clients reach their goals.

However, most clients by far will achieve some degree of success only to slide back to where they started.

Why?

I think the answer is fear – fear of becoming a different person.

The typical 30 pound over fat, under muscled woman for example, will look and feel completely different if she achieves her goals. Completely. And she knows it. She feels it.

She fears it.

What would happen to her if she did, in fact, become a 45 year old svelte, sexy, toned, powerful, slinky, youngish looking, confident, high heeled sportin’ babe?

This: She’d get hit on far more often. She’d need new clothes – nay, an entire new wardrobe. She’d feel confident and sultry in lingerie. Her husband would start climbing all over her every night and say ‘things’ to her (this may or may NOT be what she wants). She’d start realizing what she is capable of – and perhaps what she has wasted so many years not doing. Her boss would think more of her and promote her.

So on and so forth.

It’s just too scary. It’s safer to stay put.

Poppycock. Staying put is a lot more dangerous.

I say shed the fear and go for it. Feel empowered. Feel sexy. Feel powerful.

Feel, feel, feel.

The time is NOW! (And this goes for guys too – sans the lingerie of course.)

BMI – The Big Mistake Index

Recently grade schools all over the country have taken BMI (body mass index) measurements of children to determine who is or is not over (or under) weight (yet many of these schools continue to feed their children pizza, cakes and junk for school meals).

The National Institute of Health (NIH) says:

"Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to both adult men and women."

Well, no. BMI is NOT, by any means, a measurement of body fat. It is a rough estimate of how over weight you might be. It’s got nothing to do with the actual amount of fat you have on your body. And this definition comes from the NIH! Wow.

Remember what Mark Twain said? "Be careful of what you read in health books. A misprint just might kill you."

Anyhow, BMI is measured by taking the child (or adults) weight in pounds multiplied by 703 divided by height in inches squared.

To make it simpler, go here to find yours.

BMI Categories:

  • Underweight = <18.5
  • Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
  • Overweight = 25-29.9
  • Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

When I took mine, it had me at 25.4 meaning, I’m on my merry old way to obesity.

Here I am:

Fredstanding Hardly on my way to obesity.

What the BMI doesn’t take into account is muscle or lean tissue. The more you have the heavier you are and thus the measurement becomes just a guesstimate.

In other words, a male power lifter who looks chunky on the outside will definitely have a BMI making him in need of the NIH fat police, yet, his actual body fat amount or percentage will be quite low.

For kids I can see the value – sort of. Most kids are not into weight lifting so there will be few if any gross errors when using the BMI on kids.

And it’s too bad more obese kids aren’t into strength training because scientific research clearly shows that strength training is by far the best activity an obese child can engage in to both reverse obesity and to beef up a child who is too lean and frail. We train many kids at Serious Strength with amazing results.

Aiming for a healthy weight is NOT the issue (as the NIH claims). Aiming for a healthy body fat percentage is. 

A small step for fat-kind…

Losing Fat_1 fat is a ugly, arduous process. It’s tough – really tough to accomplish.

Lofty goals like "I’m going to lose 50 pounds by the end of summer." sound good, but they almost always wind up in failure.

Goals are important, make no mistake. They are vital to the success of anything desired in life. However, the key to success in fat loss is making small, more reasonable goals.

As an example, if you are 50 pounds over fat, a goal of losing 5 pounds in one month is very doable. As any adult knows (especially those with children), a month flies by. When the goal is achieved, no matter how small, you feel good, empowered and successful.

Keep your goals small and your losses will be big!


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