I call my mother’s side of the family the Dominant Gene Family. This is because they all look alike. The men are spitting images of one another, separated from identical twindom only by differences in age. The dozen or so women have slight differences in their bodyfat deposition patterns, with some being more apple- than pear-shaped, but there are no tall lanky ones lurking among us. Put our faces side by side and it starts to look like some kind of X-Files cloning situation. My genetic inheritance is pretty clear.

Yet even among this genetically similar group of Eastern European peasant stock, there are differences. And the differences are clearly connected to our choices of activity and nutrition.

For example, my mother and her sister look a lot alike. They both have dark hair and eyes, the same distinct nose, many of the same mannerisms. They are both short, stocky, and rounded. My aunt has struggled for years with obesity. Her tiny frame objects to the load it carries; her knees have been operated on several times, her hip bothers her, and she has difficulty walking. In 2006 she was in a terrible car accident that crushed her feet and ankles. She now has even more trouble getting around.

My mother has also struggled for years to maintain a healthy weight in the face of hypothyroidism and cancer. Unlike her younger sister, she has been successful in this project. The key difference between the two is their lifestyle. My aunt loves fatty foods, bacon, butter, pirogi, potato chips, and anything that suggests comfort. I wouldn’t challenge her to a drinking contest either.

My mother, on the other hand, has a B.Sc. in food sciences and worked as a nutritionist. She rarely drinks, always eats her veggies and vitamins, and no matter how cold or crummy the weather, doesn’t miss her daily brisk walk around the neighbourhood. In her life, nutrition and activity are non-negotiable items. Now in her sixties, she maintains a healthy body weight for her age and body type, and looks younger than her baby sis.

what do genes do?

Genetics are only blueprints — work-in-progress guidelines. They are not a destiny.

Genetics tells us what will happen given certain environmental conditions. We might say that I am genetically programmed to gain fat if I eat 5000 calories a day. But we might also say, equally correctly, that I am genetically programmed to lose fat if I eat 1000 calories a day.

Given the condition that both my parents have the dominant gene for brown eyes, and that everything else is in place to allow that gene to be expressed, I will have brown eyes. Quite often, even for something simple such as eye colour, there needs to be, say, one gene that says “brown eyes” and another one that says, “make ‘brown eyes’ happen”. Our environment can influence, or control, the expression of our genes. And in fact, in the case of some genes, this change to the expression can happen at any point in a person’s life.

A very useful (though unfortunate and tragic) example comes to us from indigenous societies who transitioned to eating and living in Anglo-European ways within recorded history. (Gary Taubes and Michael Pollan describe this at length in Good Calories, Bad Calories and In Defense of Food, respectively.) Indigenous societies are a good population group to study because their genetics are relatively discrete: they may have been living in more or less isolated communities for generations — perhaps centuries. Indigenous societies living on traditional diets typically had very low incidences of many chronic diseases that we assume are commonplace: obesity, heart disease, cancer, periodontal disease, etc. When they adopted Anglo-European foods and living patterns (or had these forced upon them), which included sedentary lifestyles and processed foods high in artificial fats/vegetable oils, sugar, and chemicals, their health drastically declined. In the case of groups such as the Pima, the outcome was disastrous. And yet, people’s genetics have not radically changed in only a few generations. Even more interestingly, well-controlled studies have shown that indigenous people can reverse these effects by returning to traditional ways of eating.

More reading:

• My Big Fat Diet – an experiment with Namgis First Nation on Canada’s West Coast
• The American Indian Health site for more reading about indigenous diets and wellness
• South Sea islanders and the New World Syndrome that causes formerly robust people to die in their 30s, 40s, and 50s

Let’s say we have an athlete who is genetically gifted. Every ball she throws hits the target dead on. She is the fastest and strongest athlete on the field. Her body is a slab of rippling muscle ennervated by lightning reflexes. But what if she doesn’t have any interest in training hard, constantly striving to improve her performance, and focusing on her goals? What if she just can’t be bothered get out of bed in the morning? Is she going to be an elite athlete? Probably not. Genetics alone isn’t going to make her an elite athlete if she doesn’t get off her ass.

To further muddy the waters, consider this excerpt from the work of Karl Anders Ericsson, which explores the role of practice and skill learning/mastery:

When experts exhibit their superior performance in public their behavior looks so effortless and natural that we are tempted to attribute it to special talents. Although a certain amount of knowledge and training seems necessary, the role of acquired skill for the highest levels of achievement has traditionally been minimized. However, when scientists began measuring the experts’ supposedly superior powers of speed, memory and intelligence with psychometric tests, no general superiority was found — the demonstrated superiority was domain specific. For example, the superiority of the chess experts’ memory was constrained to regular chess positions and did not generalize to other types of materials. Not even IQ could distinguish the best among chessplayers nor the most successful and creative among artists and scientists. In a recent review, Ericsson and Lehmann (1996) found that: (1) measures of general basic capacities do not predict success in a domain, (2) the superior performance of experts is often very domain specific and transfer outside their narrow area of expertise is surprisingly limited and (3) systematic differences between experts and less proficient individuals nearly always reflect attributes acquired by the experts during their lengthy training…

[W]orld-class [chess] players did not differ in the speed of their thoughts or the size of their basic memory capacity, and their ability to recognize promising potential moves was based on their extensive experience and knowledge of patterns in chess… According to [one] influential theory, expert performance is viewed as an extreme case of skill acquisition.

From “Expert Performance and Deliberate Practice“. For more reading, see Starkes, Janet L. and Karl Anders Ericsson. Expert Performance in Sports: Advances in Research on Sport Expertise Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2003.

In other words, people can be generally gifted by virtue of some arrangement of their genetics. But the ways in which they develop those abilities and excel can be very, very specific. (We all know brilliant people who are helpless outside their domain of expertise. My PhD dad bought an ab gizmo from an infomercial. Nuff said.)

The other take-home here is that excelling takes a lot of work… but doing “pretty good” likely doesn’t require either elite genes or an elite work ethic. You can be a pretty good anything if you roll up your sleeves and bust out a little elbow grease. In this case, you can certainly maintain a healthy level of bodyfat with good nutrition and regular activity, regardless of what your bossy-assed genes think.

We now know that there is no single gene that controls something as complex as metabolism or athletic performance. We also know that in the case of genetics and bodyfat levels, genetics is only one part of the puzzle. Genetics can only create a plan of action for various contexts. Your behaviour and environment do the rest.

what mom and dad also gave you: family dynamics

Genetics aren’t the only thing that bring families together. Social factors also play a role. Your family teaches you how to live. (And if they can’t be a shining example, hopefully they can be a cautionary tale.)

A recent article in the American Journal of Sociology explored the relative roles of genetics and social factors within families. Social factors can be many things:

• the messages that your family communicates about food and exercise (e.g. food is love; or food is a cause of angst)
• the things they do (e.g. eating meals together, or not)
• the behaviour and habits they model and reinforce (e.g. chronic dieting or overeating; active family outings)
• the knowledge and information they transmit (e.g. from parent to child)
• how they communicate that knowledge and information (e.g. positive reinforcement; criticism; spoken and unspoken rules)

As the authors explain:

[P]arents socialize their children to share similar values, attitudes, and behaviors related to eating, physical activity, and weight concerns… From an early age, parents model their weight-related preferences and orientations as well as their level of self-restraint.

Using longitudinal data, the researchers examined siblings within families. Their conclusions?

Genetics plays a significant role in determining an adolescent’s weight, but families’ social and behavioral characteristics are also important. Furthermore, incorporating genetic information not only reveals that familial social patterns compound biological weight trajectories; it also illuminates the fact that the association between inactivity and adolescent weight is embedded within a family’s collective lifestyle.

In other words, it’s both nature and nurture.

Interestingly, by the way, the researchers also note that immigrants to North America are usually leaner. Their children are relatively fatter. Genetics don’t change drastically in a single generation — but the environment does.

DNA ain’t destiny

I used to think that my body composition was my genetic fate, given the rest of my family. I felt very out of control. I felt like everything had been preplanned for me and I had had no say in the matter. I now know that my genetics are only a predisposition, not an unalterable fate. Given a context of caloric excess and sedentary living, I will become overfat. Given a context of regular activity and controlled, high quality nutrition, I will stay lean. The same genes that say I’ll be out of shape when I do X also say that I’ll be fit when I do Y. Boy was I relieved to discover that I do have control over my fitness and health! Phew! Now that seems kind of dumb, but we are all experiential learners and sometimes the simplest, most obvious things… aren’t.

People are often shocked to hear that I was once quite overfat. They can’t believe that the tiny grrl in front of them once resembled a Weeble. But it’s true, and I have the photographic proof. If you could look inside my genes, you’d see the proof there too — very likely, you’d find plenty of blueprints for obesity, heart disease, and the like. But I’ll be damned if I always let those DNA bastards tell me what to do. Genetics are, as Bill Murray said to Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters, more of a guideline than a rule.

the “health conspiracy”

Another thing I hear a lot of in certain circles is that there is some kind of conspiracy among health care professionals. There are various nefarious parties: the Medical Establishment, the Nutritional Cabal, the Rabbit Food Cultists. Usually The Media factors in there somewhere too. Now, I’m the first to admit that many general practitioners aren’t exactly hipsters when it comes to the latest clinical data on fitness and nutrition, but still, as I understand it, one has to have some rudimentary grasp of physiology to graduate from med school.

And let’s all agree, shall we, that anything produced by the mainstream media is probably a steaming pile of cow poopie. Frankly, we would all gain about 20 IQ points just from throwing away every mainstream media product and celebrity-and-advertisement-riddled-tabloid in a 50-foot radius. It’s stupid and it’s making us all stupiderer. And it has nothing to do with our real lives.

That being said, I have to point out that THERE IS NO NUTRITIONAL AND FITNESS CONSPIRACY. Oh sure, there are studies funded by the Butter Council or the Association of Meat Marketers or whatever. There is a fitness, diet, and supplement industry that enjoys leaching cash from people who are vulnerable. But this is where your brain comes in, now that you’ve given it a nice little freebie from ditching the Cosmo shit.

Scientific studies popularized in the mainstream press are usually overblown, overhyped, and sometimes, even completely contrary to what the researchers actually found. Don’t get your information from there. Get it from a reliable source like PubMed, the Berkeley Wellness Letter, or the Harvard School of Public Health. Go to the library and find books on nutrition and exercise, and make sure they’re not published by the California Institute of Enlightenment. Look for a university or other academic affiliation. Hell, look for a bibliography in the back, at least. Sorry to be elitist but that’s how it goes. One book I recommend for nutrition is Walter Willett’s Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy. For other book recommendations and tips on how to evaluate research, check the “Learning” section of this site.

Look at the information critically. Think about its applicability to you. Was it done on rats? Then it might not mean quite as much to humans, except as a clue for future research. Was it done on people in some weird situation, like crash dieting or living in war zones? Was it done with a sample size of 9 people? Is it extrapolating some small result to a larger population, or making grandiose claims for modest findings? Is the “data” anecdotal (”Bob says this works great for him”) or empirical, based in actual clinical studies?

There is no anti-fat medical conspiracy. There is no exercise conspiracy. There is only media hype and clinical research. There are the laws of thermodynamics, which apply to all of us, and they stipulate that energy can’t be created from nowhere. Calories in and calories out have a relationship. There are realities of physiology which we can choose to confirm or deny, but which do not go away for our denial.

So what does all of this mean? The conclusion is sort of boring, really. In my experience, what I have found is that people who eat well and exercise as a means of achieving self-care and wellness succeed. People who eat well and exercise only as a stopgap for their bad habits (”I ate an apple, now I can eat a cookie”, or “I walked on the treadmill so now I can belt back this fifth of JD”) do not. And by succeed I do not mean squeezing into a size 4. I mean living life happily and healthily, at whatever size that is. If your bodyfat level is having a negative impact on your health and athletic performance, then consider dealing with it through positive fitness and nutritional practices. If you are fit, meeting all your goals, kicking ass in your medical tests, and feeling great, then keep doing what you’re doing!

Exercise and eat for health and wholeness, whatever your size or shape. Remember that one day you might need to move a couch or run for safety on short notice.

Take care of your body because you love it, not because you hate it. Be fit and well in the way that works for you. Don’t participate in self-delusion, but don’t beat yourself up either. Care for your insides and your outsides. And of course, eat your veggies because hey, mom was right, they are good for you.

Anyhoo, this question raised some issues for me that I’d like to discuss.

Not all fit women look like fitness models.

Actually, 99% of them don’t. There are all shapes and sizes of fit women and female athletes in the world, from 90 lb. gymnasts, to 150 lb. sprinters, to 200 lb. shotputters, and everything in between. There are female athletes who are mentally or physically disabled but could kick my ass from here till next Tuesday. A great example of an elite athlete who doesn’t resemble a fitness model is Lynne Cox, the world’s best cold water distance swimmer. Cox is so hardcore that she swam to Antarctica without a wetsuit, and has amazed exercise physiologists with her ability to withstand near-freezing water temperatures. Frankly, I find her much more inspiring than the airbrushed cartoon bunnies on the cover of Shape magazine.

Here’s an amazing photomontage that appeared in the unfortunately short-lived Sports Illustrated for Women many years ago. It features a selection of female Olympic athletes from different sports. That’s right — Olympic athletes. You can’t really be in much better shape than this.

I think it speaks for itself. (Clicky on the thumbnails to make ‘em bigger.)

Not all fit women want to look like fitness models.

Some do, some don’t. Most female athletes are more concerned with performance and achievement than aesthetics. There is nothing wrong with trying to look like a fitness model, if it’s a goal that you have set for yourself, and a goal you can achieve safely and sanely. But it’s not the only way to be visibly or actually fit. The goal of a fitness model in competition is perfection: good skin tone, nice physical display (which includes costume, hair, makeup, and a smile), pleasing physique, looking good in exercise wear, a swimsuit, and often evening wear. While a fitness model is certainly an athlete, she is not supposed to show the exertion of her performance. The goal of an athlete is achievement, and that often means getting dirty, getting bruised or cut, competing wearing things like tape, bandages, knee braces, and so forth. The athlete’s attire is often unflattering or baggy, because it’s usually designed to maximize the athlete’s capability of movement, not her aesthetic presentation (Brazilian volleyball player uniforms, erm butt floss, notwithstanding). Athletes can guzzle water or pour it over their head to cool off, spit, throw up at the finish line, jump into the dirt, and do a variety of unattractive things in the course of their endeavours. So, while I do not mean to suggest that fitness models are not athletes (because their training usually necessitates a wide variety of activities), I do mean to suggest that fitness models are not the only ideal for female physical fitness. In fact they are a somewhat poor one for many types of athletes.

We don’t all aspire to the same aesthetic goal.

Some women want big muscles. Some want to be super-lean. Some women with low bodyfat have breast implants; some prefer the sleekness of small breasts. Everyone’s values about physical appearance are different. Moreover, people have different genetic gifts. A small, stocky woman is going to waste her life if she tries forever to look like a female basketball player. A big, muscular woman is likewise going to experience a world of disappointment if she directs all her efforts towards being little and cute. Many, many fit women and female athletes don’t look like fitness models and are very happy with this state of affairs. People who write me to tell me that they find my legs too big are barking up the wrong tree. I want my legs to be bigger dammit!

We’re all individuals.

Given your training parameters and genetic gifts/limitations, you’ll end up with the appearance that is suited to YOU. Human biological variation is incredible and wonderful. Don’t try to look like someone else. Try to look like yourself, only fitter. If you have big muscular legs, use them to squat with. If you have narrow hips, take up running. If you have wide shoulders and big hands and feet, enjoy beating the hell out of everyone else at swimming.

The world does not need more pictures of women in bikinis.

People who want to see fitness models can go to the bazillion fitness model sites online. I don’t bother with that shit here because it takes space away from lifting information, and frankly I get enough email from lecherous weirdos already. Furthermore, beginners often get very turned off by images of apparent “perfection” (I use that term advisedly) because it seems so unattainable. It’s much more inspiring for many people to know that fitness is something which anyone and everyone can do to see benefits. Plus, I’m not good enough with Photoshop to airbrush in bigger shoulders and better thigh definition.

Even fitness models don’t look like fitness models.

The fitness industry is about as truthful as the sideshow industry. Let’s break this down.

Low bodyfat. By and large, fitness models are photographed only when they are in “contest shape”, which means that they have dieted down to a low bodyfat for a short period of time. In the “offseason”, most carry a higher bodyfat level because extremely low bodyfat levels are physiologically unmanageable. Many fitness shows hosted by models are filmed only a few weeks out of the year for this reason. And by the way, dieting down to 10-12% bodyfat is much, much less exciting than you would think. You do not feel sexy and attractive. You feel hungry. All you can think about is how crappy you feel, how hard it is to concentrate on anything, and how you would kill your own momma for a bag of Cheetos.

Photographic tricks. Start with the basics of lighting, angles, and posing. Posing in itself is an art. Posers must learn how to present their body so their “flaws” are hidden or camouflaged, and their best features are emphasized. Ever wonder why we don’t see too many “after” shots where the subject is posed slouching and photographed with a cheap flash camera? Things also look different in reality than on film. Davin’s page on bodybuilding photo tricks illustrates this beautifully, as do others such as Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty video, and Bigger Stronger Faster, in which filmmaker Chris Bell fakes his own before-and-after shots. We all know people who are “photogenic”, which means they look good in pictures, and we all know people who are attractive but don’t photograph well. Many photogenic people look too angular or “imperfect” in person, yet their face comes beautifully to life through the camera lens. Add the magic of Photoshop and airbrushing. Hell, a good computer graphic artist could make me look like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (although they probably couldn’t help my little problem of being incapable of sinking a basket).

Extreme dieting. I’ve already mentioned dieting. However I should add that this isn’t your run of the mill eat-celery-sticks-for-a-few-days kind of diet. This is a diet that spans up to 20 weeks at a time, and involves a highly regimented eating pattern. We’re talking food scales and measuring cups which dole out precise amounts of brown rice and chicken breasts. We’re talking Shaolin monk level of spiritual and physical discipline.  (Scott Abel refers to fitness models and bodybuilders as “competitive dieters”, and speaks very frankly about the metabolic and psychic damage done by such extreme regimens in his blog.) We’re also talking about mommy’s little helper: drugs.

Drug use. Many  fitness models use anabolic steroids, just like female bodybuilders. Other drugs used are thermogenics, diuretics, appetite suppressants, amphetamines, and the plethora of “gray market” bodybuilding supplements.

Wardrobe, hair, tanning, makeup. Pretty standard stuff for a fashion shoot, really. Tanning is crucial because it emphasizes muscle definition, as does applying something shiny like oil or an iridescent powder. Often a topical bronzer is applied over a base tan. In person it sometimes looks like a weird orange colour.

Tricks of the trade. This means stuff like aluminum or painted wood plates so it looks like the person is lifting a ton (I have aluminum and wood plates at my gym; they’re designed to be the height of 45 lb. plates but lighter… I don’t mind people thinking I’m lifting 135 lbs. over my head!). Duct tape or masking tape is a must. Drag queens and models alike know that it helps prop up cleavage and can be used to pull back skin to increase visual definition. Two-way tape or Bikini Bite helps stop the inevitable wedgie or embarrassing exposure which is a risk with tiny bathing suits. Pre-photo dehydration (achieved usually with the help of drugs) is crucial for optimizing definition, flattening tummies, and leaning out faces.

Surgery. A nip here, a tuck there, a little fat sucked from here, a little collagen added there. Breast implants and lifts, tummy tucks, calf implants, nose jobs, chin jobs, etc. etc. etc. Nothing wrong with surgery–after all, it makes sense if your face and body is your living–but let’s not pretend that it’s Ma Nature’s handiwork.

Again, this isn’t to denigrate the hard work of women who work as fitness models. But it’s a job like any other. Fitness models don’t crawl out of bed with a hangover and raging PMS and immediately have someone snap their picture with a cheap Instamatic. Their representation is a carefully planned event and construction of an image, which has little to do with them as people.

Frankly, I’m sick of other people telling me what I should look like.

As women we get subjected to lots of commentary on our physical appearances. Male strangers tell us to smile, they ogle our breasts, they scream “Nice ass!” or “Hey fatso!” from passing cars. We’re all well aware that we are judged every day on how our bodies look. I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t care about how I looked. BUT we should look good on our own terms, without other people feeling that they have the right to judge us or tell us how we should look. My ideal for myself is different than many other people’s ideal for me, which is fine as long as they keep it to themselves. Besides, according to the media ideal we’re never good enough anyway, so ya might as well divert all that negative mental energy you waste on worrying about it. In media ideal terms, there’s so much wrong with me that the only thing to be done is burn the whole house down and start again! Hahaha! Oh wait, my teeth are straight. Those can stay.

I am a normal woman. I am not a fitness model. I work out in slobby gym wear with no makeup, and I get dirty and sweaty and messyhaired. My breasts are not lifted and separated; they are mashed onto my chest by my cheapo sports bra. When I forget to shave my legs I don’t really care. I am in there to work hard, to lift some heavy shit, and to forget about how my body looks in favour of thinking about what my body does. After having had a few injuries and illnesses, I am happy that the old girl works at all! Can I get out of bed in the morning without pain and make it to the coffeemaker? If so, then yay body!

That is the point of this site: weight training and fitness in general are for everybody and every body! Yes, you will look better and feel better with weight training. I know that I do. But sorry, you’re not going to see pictures of me stuffed into a bathing suit. Let’s just deal with it and move on.

Triathlon competitor - what we often imagine a "fit person" looks like

American Olympic weightlifter Cheryl Haworth: a "surprising" image of fitness?

“Fitness models” proliferate in the popular press, and this suggests that fitness should be evaluated by how one looks in a bikini, and perhaps a willingness to splurge on cosmetic surgery. We see little evidence of ostensibly fit people performing actual tasks (though they may indeed be able to do so).

And yet, the more legitimate definition of “fitness” is a readiness or level of preparation to be able to perform a desired activity/activities. Every time I watch a “fitness competition” I wonder why we waste time judging women in evening gowns. If they are fitness models, let’s see them run an obstacle course, or jog three miles through the forest while carrying a loaded backpack. Let’s see them do some pullups, or swim laps in a rough ocean. Let’s see them throw some freshly baled hay on to the back of a truck, haul a full wheelbarrow, or help their buddies move a couch.

"Fitness model". Ummm... seriously... what the hell?

If this were the case we would quickly find that looking fit (whatever we perceive that to look like) and being fit are two different things. We would also find that being fit is a highly specific condition. Both sprinters and marathoners are fit, for their respective activities. Yet, a sprinter would not likely be fit for the marathoner’s activity, and vice versa. You might also notice that the bodies of sprinters and marathoners look much different.

So the issue of whether someone can be fat or fit raises the question, “Fit for what?”

A good starting point is fitness for real life challenges. For example, if you lived in eastern and central North America in the summer of 2003, you probably experienced at least a few hours of the blackout. I was at work when it happened. Normally I commute home using the subway. I managed to find a bus that was going in the general direction of my house. Though it got me in fairly decent proximity to my neighbourhood, I still had to walk briskly for an hour in the heat. Luckily I was wearing sensible shoes (thank heaven for such a fortuitous choice that morning!) and more importantly, I was in good enough physical condition to execute this task on demand. I met many people along the way who were not so lucky. They were sitting down, out of breath, wiping sweat from their brows.

Oh, and that event also correlated with the scheduled outage of the elevator for six weeks in my building. I work on the seventh floor. You would not believe the bitching from non-disabled people who had to climb the stairs to the third floor. Quelle horreur!

It’s clear to me that one can indeed be fat and fit. Yet along with asking “fit for what?” we might also ask, “How fat is fat?” Many strength athletes, particularly in heavier weight classes, do not worry too much about staying lean, because they feel that carrying a bit of bodyfat helps their performance. They can eat more and put on more lean body mass, without suffering the possible strength loss from dieting.

However, past a certain point, that bodyfat becomes extra weight to move around. They end up hauling 400 pounds of barbell plus 100 pounds of bodyfat. Moreover, many superheavyweight strength athletes are discovering that even their regular activity has not prevented health problems such as cardiovascular disease.

In other words, some fat helps them. But too much fat detracts from performance and health. The key, then, is to find an optimal level of bodyfat that takes account of one’s chosen sport needs, one’s individual body makeup, and one’s performance overall.

the concept of the “natural” body

One thing I hear a lot of in feminist circles is the notion of the natural body. The concept of the natural body is that we all have a predetermined body shape or size to which we all eventually gravitate. The foundation of this concept is sensible. For example, genetics clearly plays a major role in determinining whether one will be tall or short, what the colour of one’s skin will be, and so forth. Genetics is what controls our skeletal and muscular structure and to give us many permanent attributes: the width of our pelvis, the length of our legs, the thickness of our joints, the shape of our muscles and where they attach to the bone (so don’t buy that crap about Workout X changing the shape of your muscles or making them longer, unless Workout X involves ripping the tendon off the bone and reattaching it). Many of these things cannot be altered.

Patterns of fat deposition–where you put on bodyfat–are also largely genetic, although they can be altered in large part by hormones. For example, women tend to put on bodyfat on hips, thighs, and belly. This is known as the gynoid, or female-pattern, fat distribution pattern. Were a gynoid-pattern woman to start supplementing testosterone and taking estrogen blockers, over time the areas of bodyfat deposition would shift to her midsection and lower back. Testosterone is one factor responsible for the android, or male-pattern fat distribution.

It appears to be the case that genetics also affects one’s body composition. Some folks are simply, by virtue of what mom and dad gave them, leaner or fatter, more or less muscular, than others. The reasons for this are complex and involve a host of factors, many of which are not yet fully understood. These factors include resting metabolic rate, fat setpoint, and control of appetite. However, the human body is also subject to the laws of physics and thermodynamics.

One of the most changeable factors in determining our body composition is energy balance or energy availability. In other words, calories in versus calories out. No matter what your genetics, in large part, it comes down to this simple equation. Under experimental conditions where intake and output were controlled and monitored, with subjects cloistered in a measurement chamber, nobody has yet defied this rule, and believe me, they’ve tried.

The problem with using the “natural” body as a standard is that we live in a profoundly un-natural world. Our bodies evolved for constant activity and scavenging for food. They did not evolve to sit at desks, in cars, or in front of TVs. Our bodies also evolved to find fatty and sweet foods appealing, and to hoard nutrients in case of possible famine. As such, the thrift mechanisms which would be a survival advantage in a foraging society can be a significant detriment in a sedentary society where food is as close as the nearest Dunkin Donuts.

Moreover, we deliberately alter our natural bodies all the time. In order to write this article, I need to wear glasses. I had a shower today and thankfully for everyone around me, I used deodorant. Were it not for medical intervention, including immunization, at several points in my life, I probably wouldn’t be here today typing (another un-natural activitiy!).

Thus, it’s for these reasons that I am uncomfortable with the idea of a laissez-faire approach to the body and the assumption that the body will just sort of find its own individual groove.

“Some girls are bigger than others / Some girls’ mothers are bigger than other girls’ mothers.”

–Morrisey

Over the last several months, I have turned the twin elements of fatness and fitness over in my mind. I even thought about not writing this article because it might piss people off. But this is my site, so what the hell. I have some rather conflicting feelings and thoughts about these issues, based on my experiences with them. I have numerous points of entry into this discussion.

First, I have spent over twelve years directly studying women’s and feminist issues. I did volunteer lectures on body image and media images of women for both high school and university students. In art school I examined historical images of women and looked at both traditional and feminist critiques of how women are represented. I speak to young women both as colleagues and as students, about their self-perceptions, about their ideas around fatness and body image. I had the privilege of knowing an amazing, sexy, and cool fat activist and discussing her work with her.

Second, I have worked for several years as a personal trainer, helping diverse people meet diverse goals. In these interactions I have also had the chance to observe how people perceive their bodies and the bodies of others around them. I have surveyed the clinical literature in fields like physiology and nutrition.

The third point of entry is personal, and has two elements. The first element is the experience of watching my father cope with his heart attack. We have a family history of heart disease but it was quite clear that lifestyle factors of activity and nutrition made a significant contribution to his risk. As we sat in the cardiac ICU one night, my father enumerated his sins to me, like a penitent making a last confession to a priest. He talked about all the chances he had to care for his body, that he did not take. He painstakingly catalogued every piece of pizza, every pound gained over his ideal weight, every run around the track he did not do because he had too much seated paperwork to finish. In the moment of staring death in the face, as the medical team fought to save him, my father decided that if he made it, he was going to make different decisions (by the way, he made it through, and he’s currently the proud owner of two new stents).

The second personal element is my own experience of being both leaner and fatter than my ideal bodyfat range. I thought a lot about whether to mention this. In a way it feels like kind of a copout to presume that my ideas should have merit just because I spent some time in a fat body. On the other hand, it has been an excellent learning experience to learn how to manipulate my body composition in a productive fashion. This has been particularly instructive to observe in the context of my family. We are all short and stocky, and our genetics predispose us to obesity and overfatness. Family photos look like Weeble conventions. It has been most interesting to consider what role genetics does in fact play in determining my own body shape. It has also been very illuminating for me to observe the changes in my self-perception.

So, given my multiple perspectives on this issue, I have chosen to struggle with how to best understand the complex questions of fitness and fatness.

fat as a proxy

In my line of work as an academic dweeb, a key concept is that of a proxy. A proxy is something that stands in for something else. In terms of empirical, numbers-based research, proxies are things which express complex ideas using the limited tools of statistics. It’s understood by researchers that a proxy is not a perfect measure of something, but is good enough to use as a means to express an idea.

A proxy doesn’t necessarily cause something, though it can. For example, a study might be released which shows that people who don’t eat breakfast are much more likely to suffer heart attacks. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the presence or absence of breakfast causes heart attacks. Breakfast can be a proxy for lifestyle here. Perhaps people who don’t eat breakfast have other problematic lifestyle habits. Or, perhaps breakfast is meant to be used as a proxy for people’s rushed lives. Maybe people who are too busy do not have time to eat breakfast, and it’s the level of time stress that leads to increased heart disease. Or, maybe, who knows, the absence of breakfast, or the absence of nourishment at a critical time in the body’s morning chronology, may cause a rise in stress hormones which do indeed cause heart attacks!

An ongoing conceptual struggle exists between fatness and fitness. It is quite confusing to sort out fact from fiction and relevant from misleading or inappropriate information in the mainstream media. Even apparently sympathetic media such as feminist magazines can interpret the results of scientific study in problematic ways.

For instance, a Canadian feminist magazine recently reported the results of a clinical study on heart disease, which showed rates of heart disease in women correlated with bodyfat levels. The magazine concluded that the study showed that fatness was good for us. Reading the study closely, however, it actually showed that bodyfat within a certain range had positive health effects, possibly because having sufficient bodyfat resulted in a healthy supply of circulating estrogens. It didn’t mean that more bodyfat meant more protection from heart disease; in fact, quite the opposite; past a certain point, risk of heart disease is greatly increased.

Fatness is used, both in clinical literature as well as mainstream media, as a proxy for fitness and health. There are advantages to using fatness as a proxy, as well as disadvantages.

Fatness is a useful proxy for fitness and health because:

• in general, fatness is fairly well correlated with nutritional status and activity levels. Despite the role of genetics in body composition, is quite clear from cross-national lifestyle and nutrition data that good quality nutrition and high levels of regular physical activity are the primary determinants of bodyfat levels.
• there are health conditions which are directly caused by fatness (e.g. joint problems because of increased bodyweight loading on connective tissue, or hormonal disorders related to the amount of bodyfat, which is a hormonally active tissue)
• there are health conditions indirectly associated with fatness, usually because of the correlated poor nutrition and low activity levels

On the other hand, using fatness as a proxy:

• does not address people who are overfat but nevertheless participate in regular exercise and good nutrition
• does not always show the problematic health status directly and indirectly associated with underfatness (such as lower bone density)
• does not address people who are at normal or lean bodyfat levels but who are unfit and poorly nourished

So, how do we make sense of the question of whether it is possible to be fat and fit, and or fat and healthy?

the facts

Fatness in excess of, as well as below, ideal ranges has clearly been shown to increase mortality and morbidity. In other words, being over-fat and under-fat can make you sicker and more likely to die early. To say it a fancy way, having a level of bodyfat which is significantly greater or lesser than an ideal range can increase both the risk of premature death as well as the incidence of a poor quality of life. (Don’t get all uptight, lean bodybuilders. I’ll explain this more below.) This is, as I have noted, due to both indirect as well as direct factors. This relationship has been unambigously demonstrated.

Excess as well as inadequate body fat changes the chemical environment of the body. Above a certain level of body fat, your cells make more of the stuff you don’t want (such as inflammatory proteins) and less of the stuff you do want. Your organs don’t respond properly to the chemical signals that the cells send (such as in the case of insulin resistance) — or they respond too much. Below a certain level of body fat, same thing, except some of the actual substances are different. For example, in a very lean person, leptin levels may drop; in an overfat person, leptin levels may be high. In an overfat person, circulating sex hormone levels may be too high; in a very lean person, sex hormone levels may not be high enough. Etc. Some of this can be offset with nutrition and activity. Some of it can’t.

Bodyfat levels are not absolutes, but are expressed as a range. There is a range of variation in optimal bodyfat levels. Some women can be very healthy at 15%, while others can be very healthy at 25%, a significant difference of 10%! Additionally, while bodyfat is correlated to some degree with bodyweight, it plays a much greater role in health status than bodyweight per se. A 150 lb. woman can be very lean and muscular, or she can be inactive and overfat (or perhaps even muscular yet overfat). The scale alone does not reveal the nuances of health and fitness status.

Nutrition, lifestyle choices (such as smoking), and activity levels are far, far greater determinants of fitness and health than bodyfat levels alone. Indeed, a growing problem among young women is the constant maintenance of an underweight body through self-starvation or excessive dieting, consumption of caffeine or other stimulants, and/or smoking. Inactivity and poor nutrition among young people is also at shockingly high rates, and even young children are showing signs of pre-diabetes, insulin resistance, and atherosclerosis (arterial plaque, a major factor in cardiovascular disease).

A body that is under-fat from starvation or malnutrition, drug use, illness etc is different than a body that is under-fat from good nutrition and regular activity. Likewise, a body that is over-fat from poor nutrition, sedentary living, chronic illness such as polycystic ovary syndrom or hypothyroidism is different than a body that is extremely fit, active and healthy but carrying a little extra squish.

If your answers were truly, authentically “a”s, then you can stop reading now since I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t know. But if you were honest with yourself, there’s a good chance that your answers were mostly “c” (oh, and if you answered “b”s, well, hey, I’m cool with that too). One of the first books I ever read as a budding feminist was Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth. In it, Wolf talks about how women are under tremendous pressure to measure up to a mythical, normative ideal, and how this constrains their choices and self-perception. Years later, in art crit class, I read the words of art critic John Berger in Ways of Seeing:

“Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This not only determines the relationship of men to women, but of women to themselves.” (italics mine)

To put these two pieces together, as women in North American culture, we know that we are under surveillance, as are all women. We are perpetually evaluated to see if we meet particular standards. Most of us do not. Yet, instead of living outside of these boundaries, we attempt to stay within them. We place our bodies under careful watch, but more importantly and more insidiously, we place other women under surveillance too. We know that there are tangible risks for not measuring up, and there are rewards for meeting the standards. But we also choose to punish others who we feel have succeeded better than we have.

“Oh my god, Becky, look at her butt. It is soooo big. She looks like one of those rap guys’ girlfriends… They only talk to her because she looks like a total prostitute, OK? I mean her butt — It’s just so big. I can’t believe it’s so round. It’s just out there. I mean, it’s gross.” —Sir Mix-A-Lot, Baby Got Back

When a woman attacks another woman, all she really proves is that she hates herself. –Erica Jong

This punishment may be as harmless as a snotty thought about fat ankles popping into your head when a beautiful woman walks past. It may be subtle, and manifest itself in sly put-downs, concerned worrying to a friend about how much weight she is lifting and don’t you think your arms are getting bulky? It may be more overt, taking the form of social ostracism and open hostility to women who are deemed too perfect. In any case, it is a common reaction. Why is this so? What if, I would like to ask, what if instead of putting other women down and being our own worst enemies, we supported other women in our everyday lives? What if, instead of muttering “slut” or “nice fake tits” at the cute girl in the locker room, you said “hi” and smiled? What if, instead of discouraging your lifter friends, you made a date to join them in the gym so they could show you the ropes?

Me and OMGBFFA at our first grappling tournament, September 2007. She won gold. And I was thrilled to bits for her.

If you have been into training for a long time, perhaps you know what I am talking about. You feel apologetic around other women, as if you’re letting them down or buying into the beauty myth. Maybe you feel the need to justify yourself, or hide under baggy clothes. Maybe people ask you if you have an eating disorder just because you prefer fruit and cottage cheese to greasy hamburgers for lunch. Part of the problem is that North Americans seem to feel an instinctive distrust of people who are perceived to know too much about fitness (or anything, really — we aren’t always much on book lernin). Being fit is viewed as incompatible with being smart, or being a nice person.

Sound familiar? It’s the old dumb blonde versus smart ugly librarian routine all over again. Women can only be stereotypes, not people. So here’s my challenge to you: start looking at fit women as potential allies and friends, not competitors and enemies. Success is not a finite pool, and just because someone is doing well doesn’t mean that it’s taking away from you. Who knows, you might get some good squat tips or a date out of the deal.

I was that trainee, once. The most annoying thing was that I could not figure things out. I ate well. I felt I was active. Yet I was 50 lbs overweight and at 5 feet tall, that’s significant.

The worst part was exactly this “what the hell is wrong” part. I felt doomed by genetics. I felt out of control. I felt disempowered. I knew that crash dieting wasn’t a solution but I didn’t know how to change my eating (or that I should change my eating – I thought I was eating perfectly well). I wanted to feel good but I didn’t, and no amount of rationalizing or raging against the beauty conspiracy did the job.

In over a decade of experience as a trainer and someone on the journey of physical culture what I have discovered is that human perception has only a loose connection to reality. We do not see ourselves — or others — as we really are. We may see ourselves as fatter or thinner, healthier or less healthy, more or less muscular, etc. etc. but in any case, unless we are highly experienced professionals, we are generally not very good judges of our food intake, activity levels, degree of fitness, or body composition.

I’ve had emaciated women insist they were too big, or show me imaginary giant biceps. I’ve had very overfat women insist that their thigh size was due entirely to freakishly muscular quadriceps even though the skinfold caliper demonstrated a fat measurement of 50 mm. I’ve had people insist they were eating a perfect diet until we went through day by day, meal by meal and discovered forgotten Starbucks frappucinos, glasses of wine, 3 pm handfuls of jellybeans, inappropriate portion sizes, and a host of other mystery ingredients. “Exercising regularly” suddenly becomes “well, I did skip Thursday, and I guess I was booked that other evening so I didn’t go, and then there was that Doctor Who marathon on TV over the weekend that I couldn’t miss…” Either that or “busting ass in the gym” really means “a single tiny drop of sweat wiggled its gentle way down my temple”.

Studies of human behaviour demonstrate time and again that humans consistently overestimate their activity and underestimate their food intake. It’s not that humans are stupid or lying (well, some of us are :)). It’s that we’re not as good as we think we are about recording reality. If you’re a fixit type of person, you will know the danger of “eyeballing” things. A good carpenter or dressmaker knows: measure twice, cut once. No matter how great you think your ability to make a straight line, a perfect square, or precise 3/8” cut is… it’s not as good as a machine’s. (There’s a deck out there in Toronto with a jellyfish-shaped edge that testifies to a girlfriend’s hubris in this regard. I ain’t sayin where and I ain’t namin’ names. But I am saying, after that edging, we did the rest with proper chalk lines.)

Looking back now on myself a decade earlier, my errors are obvious to me as an experienced trainer. It wasn’t obvious to me at the time, of course. However, if I’d sat down and done a good honest accounting of things, I’d have figured things out a whole lot sooner.

Allow me to debunk some common assumptions.

You very likely have quite normal genetics and metabolism. You are very likely average in most ways.

First, most people have never seen a truly lean, freakishly fit, elite athlete or bodybuilder. They have no accurate concept of what “lean” or “muscular” really looks like. Many women tell me they “bulk up easily” but in reality, they don’t look very muscular at all. I’m still waiting for the day when I meet the next Kim Chizvesky. You probably aren’t any kind of muscle-bound weirdo. Sorry. I know you want to be special.

Genetics is not a destiny. It’s a blueprint for how your body might behave under particular circumstances. Genetics says “If you eat more calories than you expend through activity, you will gain weight”. However, genetics also says “If you eat fewer calories than you expend through activity, you will lose weight.” There are no giant bodybuilders nor obese people in Siberian gulags. Genetics works both ways. In most people’s cases, they have great genetics – for life on the savannah 20,000 years ago.

Metabolism encompasses all of the body’s functions, not just the speed at which food is processed. Most people, unless they have some kind of major disease, don’t have “slow metabolisms” (and if you have said disease, you probably have doctors inspecting your pituitary right now, so you probably already know about it). Neither do people magically have “fast metabolisms” – again, if they have mysterious powers of high idling speed, they’re either a toddler or also sitting in the doctor’s office discussing their rapid heart rate, diarrhea, and hair loss.

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is how much energy it takes to keep you alive: to keep your brain thinking deep thoughts, your liver churning through that margarita, and your heart to beat its little thud-thud-thud. Most of your body’s energy intake goes to support your internal organs. BMR depends a lot on age and sex. An 80 year old woman has a slower BMR than a teenage boy. You can’t control your age or your sex (not without hormones and a little surgery anyway). But that being said, your overall energy needs also depend on your activity, and this you CAN control.

Hey! Don’t get down! There’s nothing wrong with being average. An average person can accomplish amazing things with ongoing commitment to hard work and a healthy lifestyle.

You’re very likely not as muscular as you think you are.

Take a look at the photo below. This is a cross-section of a woman’s thighs. The muscle tissue is the dark red stuff that looks like steak. The body fat is the light yellow stuff around the outside. The thighbones run through the middle — they’re the two small circles (grayish-white with an inner red dot).

The photo below shows a woman’s hips and pelvis in cross section. The front of her body is the top of the photo.

Nuff said.

You’re very likely carrying more body fat than you realize.

This isn’t a moral judgement. It’s just that the average woman is about 20 to 25% body fat. That means one-fifth to one quarter of her body is made up of fat. For a 150-lb woman, that means 30 to 37.5 lbs are fat. Go to the grocery store and pick up a block of butter. That’s 1 pound of fat. Then grab a steak. That’s probably also 1 pound, but 1 pound of muscle. Get the idea?

A leaner-than-average fit woman might be 15-19%. Depending where she puts on body fat, she might never be able to see her abs, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t healthy. The average fitness competitor is probably something like 9 to 12%, and only for the short period of competition and photo shoots. Someone whose bodyfat is around 5%, such as a male bodybuilder about to go on stage, usually looks like they should be shuffling off this mortal coil. Really, they look like they have some horrible tropical parasite (and Oompa-Loompaism from the fake tanner).

Whatever body part you think is hideous… probably isn’t.

Unless you’re that mole guy from Austin Powers, it probably looks quite normal. If you eat well and if you are active on a daily basis, you likely look just fine, no matter what the shit excreted by the media sphincter says. Thighs are supposed to have some mass to them. Otherwise they wouldn’t be very good at holding you up, now would they? Would you build a house that was held up by toothpicks? Would you put tiny little training wheels on a car? Hell to the no, my friend. Adult women come in all shapes and sizes, and most of them are really quite presentable. And no, nobody is starting at your freaky nose.

Fun game! Gather your friends and rule out the obvious “hips and thighs” for women. Then ask what their least favourite/most angst-provoking body part is. The answers will often surprise you – you will likely have no idea that they worried about the hated part. As a teenager, my husband was convinced his feet were too small (too small for what is unclear, as he wasn’t prone to tipping over). He bought shoes two sizes too big, so in every photo he looks like he’s wearing big floppy clown shoes. Now he’s moved on to fixating about the idea that his wrists are too narrow. (???)

You’re likely not as fit and active as you think you are.

While we all like to imagine ourselves as ninjas, we probably aren’t pushing ourselves as hard or as far as our body can manage. There are people out there climbing Kilimanjaro and swimming the English Channel while we’re patting ourselves on the back for walking 5 minutes to the car, or exercising twice a week (There’s a waiting list for swimming the Channel. No shit. Book now if you’re just starting swimming lessons). Remember that humans evolved to be active pretty much all day long. Nothing wrong with walking 5 minutes, if that’s all you can manage. But strive for more, and more often. Push to the edge of discomfort and challenge yourself. Rattle your cage a little bit. And commit to daily movement for life. That’s what gets results.

You probably eat more than you think you do.

An ounce of cheese, which is one serving, is the size of your thumb. A cup of cooked pasta, also one serving, is about the size of a tennis ball. Go measure it out with a measuring cup. I’ll wait.

Pretty surprising huh? I know, I know. There there. *patting you gently* Cry it all out. That pasta serving size was a trauma wasn’t it?

I took the picture here in the Amsterdam airport (which, by the way, has some of the most outstanding food in any airport I’ve ever been in, not that that is a huge accomplishment). Look at the serving size. The bowl of soup on the right is a small. The bowl on the left is a large. The glass is a regular sized glass of juice – about 6 ounces. You can see the beer bottle and cap (right corner) for size comparison.

If you live in North America, compare these small (i.e. normal) portion sizes to the enormous quantities you get in restaurants and fast food joints. In the U.S., restaurant dinners are typically served on platters, not plates, and come with unlimited quantities of things like bread. A Super Big Gulp drink from the 7-11 is forty freaking four ounces. A medium-sized Frappucino is 16 ounces – 2 cups – and has 420 calories, with 51 grams of sugar. I see folks coming out of movie theatres with literal buckets of popcorn, I mean with little handles and everything. I imagine the wheelbarrow of popcorn will be next.

The point here is not to make you feel badly about going to a movie, it’s to illustrate that in North America and, increasingly, the rest of the world, we have lost the concept of appropriate portion sizes, and as a result, when combined with our generally poor human perception, we drastically underestimate our food intake.

Despite all of this, you can probably do more and get fitter than you thought was possible.

Seriously.

Go by the numbers

To some degree, all measurement techniques are inaccurate. But they’re a whole lot more precise than humans. That’s why I use them most of the time instead of human observation. Tape measurements, caliper measurements, written records, portion measurements… all of these things are easily employed tools. If you have a working simian brain, grade 3 literacy, and opposable thumbs, you can use some or all of them.

I know the frustration of “what the hell is wrong” well. I have experienced it and so have my clients. They come to me having “tried everything”. When we sit down together I can usually figure out the problem within a few minutes. Usually they are overestimating activity or underestimating food intake or both, but we don’t know until measurement techniques and a clear-eyed, honest accounting are applied.

Here are strategies. The purpose here is knowing, not policing. Before you can know whether you are on the right track, you have to get an accurate picture of where you actually are.

1. The scale is an OK tool of measurement for some things but not others. I’d still use it but I’d start using tape measurements. See #2. Personally I believe in daily weighing, because body weight fluctuates from day to day with hydration levels. If you eat something a bit salty the night before, or you’re at a certain point in your menstrual cycle (many women retain water at ovulation and just before their periods), you can see up to a 5-pound jump in the scale weight. The next day, or within the next few days, it’ll be gone. Thus, for accuracy, it’s better to weigh daily at the same time and in the same way (usually first thing in the morning after you’ve gone to the bathroom), and take the weekly average.
2. Take tape measurements of the circumference of your neck, chest, waist, hips, thighs, calves, upper and lower arms to track any changes in body composition. You use multiple circumference sites because changes can occur at some places and not others. The more data points, the more accuracy you have. Don’t pull the tape so tight it can double as a tourniquet, or let it sag so you can add pretend inches to your mighty biceps. The only person you’re lying to is yourself.
3. Write down everything you eat and drink, and measure portion sizes. Use measuring cups. Seriously. I was shocked the first time I actually measured things. Remember: until you learn exactly what four ounces or one cup looks like, EYEBALLING DOES NOT WORK.
4. Write down all activity: duration, intensity, type.

Do #3 and #4 for one to two weeks. Don’t worry about assessment. Just record, and be anal retentive about it. Be honest. Don’t be either overly self-critical or overly lenient. Step back a little bit and observe yourself without judgement, but also without indulgence. If you’re obsessive, make it work for you. Why should OCD get a free ride?! This is not obsession towards self destruction. It is obsession towards self knowledge. You are handing over the power of assessment to neutral techniques who do not judge. They record only. They do not care. They only know numbers. They don’t know morals, success, or failure.

At the end of the assessment period, review and evaluate the data. Very likely you will observe patterns or things that you can change.

And here is where you can begin to take the control back.

Allright possums, it’s tough love time. If you don’t like being nagged by a complete stranger, quit reading now. If you are comfortable still complaining about your body and making excuses for your life, then step away from the computer, and go sit in your own filth somewhere. I’m waiting.

Now, I know that many of you need a kick in the ass from the Mistress because you are lazy and can’t be bothered to do things unless someone yells at you to do it. How do I know this? Many clients have confessed to me that they would never come to the gym unless they paid someone to push them around. If you’re one of those people, keep reading and you’ll get the benefits of my harassment for free. I spent a lot of time coddling clients, coaxing them gently through their fears and uncertainties. In many cases it worked, and we were both happy. In other cases, nice just wasn’t cutting it. Some people really need structure and limits. They need a drill sergeant who is kind but firm, someone who tells them that they’re going to crank out 10 reps and they’re going to like it. It’s for those people I present the following.

Oh yes, I can hear the whining starting already. In fact I’ve heard all the excuses so many times, I was able to throw together the following list off the top of my head.

Excuse #1: I need to wait until I lose another 20 lbs., get married, resolve my mother issues, make some more money, blah blah blah, insert future goal here.

No you don’t. You need to start RIGHT NOW, today, this very minute. What is that in your hand? A cookie? Either eat it and own up to it like a big girl, or throw it out. What is that sitting next to you? A phone? Pick it up and call your local gym, and make an appointment to see their stuff. I see a pen sitting on your desk next to a calendar. You will use this pen right now to write down three days on the calendar that you will spend 30-60 minutes doing something physical. For most of you there are feet at the end of your legs. Stand up and do something with them to get them moving. Think of what you can do right now, today, and this week to take charge. Then do it.

Excuse #2: I’m too fat.

If you can move, you’re not too fat. If you’re too shy to leave the house, move around the house. If it hurts to move, do what you can, and try a little more every day. If you don’t want to join a gym, buy a basic free weight set for home. Even two dumbbell handles and a few plates will be a great start, and it’ll cost you less than fifty bucks. Have a look at my advice for overweight beginners.

Excuse #3: I don’t have time.

For most people, “busyness” isn’t really the problem. Time management and prioritizing are. How many hours a week do you spend watching TV? Surfing the net? Wasting time in other ways? I’m pretty sure you can find 3-4 hours a week to work out. I’ve organized my workout so that I only go to the gym two days per week, with one of those days on a weekend. The rest of the time, I do 20-30 min workouts at home with my dumbbells, jump rope, and pullup bar. If you are truly too busy to take care of your body, you have bigger problems. Eventually, of course, you’ll have plenty of time to spend on fitness after you have your first heart attack or nervous breakdown. Your body is carrying you through the day. You owe it at least some pampering and care. Just like you make an appointment to see the dentist, make an appointment to work out, and stick to it. Also, check out my Workout for the Time Poor.

Excuse #4: I’m too tired.

Why do you think you’re too tired? Because you’re out of shape. See Excuse #3. Find a time when you’re not too tired, or throw down a cup of coffee, put on whatever you consider upbeat music, and squeeze in 30 minutes of exercise. One thing I like to do after a stressful day at work is get off the subway one stop before my regular stop. It’s a nice 15 minute walk home through a pretty neighbourhood, and by the time I get to my front doorstep, I’m usually feeling revitalized from the little activity break and the fresh air. If your life is grinding you down so much that doing this is impossible, you’re in deep poop. For most people not living in an army trench under heavy artillery fire 24 hours a day, this is very doable. After a few weeks of working out, you’ll find you have a lot more energy. The less you do, the less you’ll want to do.

Excuse #5: I’m too shy to go to the gym with all the good looking people.

Find a gym, such as the Y, which caters to a wide clientele. Those kinds of gyms are usually cheaper than the Thong ‘N’ Pose gyms anyway. Then, when you go, remember that most people there are more hung up about themselves than you. The good looking ones are thinking about how good they look, and the beginners are thinking about how un-good they look. Either way, nobody is paying attention to you. If going to the gym seems excruciating, invest in a basic set of dumbbells and a bench. Check out my home gym ideas.

Excuse #6: I know what to do, but can’t be bothered to do it.

I’ve actually heard this one several times. My response to this is usually, “Well then, quit bitching about it.” If you’re not prepared to make change, then you don’t deserve to complain. Knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing at all.

Excuse #7: I hate my thighs/tummy/self. I wish I looked like a supermodel. But since I can’t, I won’t even bother trying anything.

Look, honey, you only get one container. And you get what mom and dad gave you. You can make it the best possible container it can be, and love it for what it is, or you can waste your life pissing and moaning about something that isn’t possible. Control what you can control, change what you can change, and forget about all the other stuff. Celebrate health and living free of pain. Stop obsessing about BEING and LOOKING, and start DOING.

Excuse #8: Exercising is hard.

Of course it’s hard. Anything worthwhile is hard. Relationships are hard. Parenting is hard. A rewarding career is hard. But suffering from highly preventable diseases of sedentary living and poor nutrition, such as type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease, is harder. Exercise should also be fun. Find something you enjoy and do it. Muck around in the garden, walk the doggie/kids/partner/neighbour’s doggie, shake your moneymaker to Aretha, whatever you like. Try a new activity for variety. Take up fencing, or salsa dancing, or water aerobics. Play a game. Have fun! Get outdoors as much as you can, enjoy some fresh air, enjoy being alive and able to move.

Excuse #9: It’s too complicated.

Lifting weights is not rocket science. Find a heavy thing and pick it up. Put it down. Pick it up again. Rest a while. Pick it up and put it down again. Next week, try a heavier thing. Occasionally, pick up your right foot and put it in front of your left foot. Repeat with other side. Perform this alternating motion for 20 minutes a few times weekly.

Excuse #10: I don’t know how.

Read your way through this site, and through all the recommended links. Then see #9.

Excuse #11: I might have a setback and get discouraged. What if I do something wrong or have a bad day?

Well, shit happens. You get up, dust off, and get right back on the horse again. Fall down eight times, stand up nine or some other Confucian truism like that. The whole point is the process, not the perfection.

Excuse #12: I can’t afford to join a fancy gym.

Fancy gyms are way overrated. Check out the local Y, community centre, etc. or invest in a few dumbbells. Check out my low-tech workouts and advice on a home gym. Go for a walk.

Awright maggots! Now move it on out! GO!!!!