The American All-Or-Nothing Approach to Fitness and Dieting

 

Though I’m an English Instructor, I share an office in the PE Building with the wrestling coach, a friend of mine, at my workplace, a community college in Los Angeles. A lot of students come in during office hours looking for the wrestling coach and when they see me they assume I am a coach of some sort. As a result, I get a lot of questions about fitness and dieting. I don’t mind this because I have been a fitness buff since I was thirteen years old.

I’ve noticed a pattern from the students’ questions about getting into shape regardless if it’s about gaining or losing weight: They all want to be put on an extreme program consisting of a long list of supplements, 3-hour training regiments, and crash courses in bulking up or slimming down. One girl wanted to lose 30 pounds by entering a marathon and a triathlon. Another student wanted to gain 40 pounds of muscle on his slender 145-pound frame.

They’re shocked when I give them advice, which consists of the following:

 

One. Find an exercise program that you like that causes you to break and sustain a sweat for one hour, five or six times a week. I don’t care if you walk your dog an hour day, play tennis, run up mountains and stairs, use a stair-stepper in front of your television, do mixed martial arts fighting. The only two things I care about is that you like what you're doing and that you’re consistent.

 

Two. If you’re doing cardio, don’t elevate your heart rate so high that you’re uncomfortable. You should push yourself about 75%, at the point where you could comfortably hold a conversation with a person working out next to you. This “hold a conversation” principle has an important function: If you don’t over-exert yourself, you’re more likely to be consistent on your program. Too many would-be exercisers make the mistake of doing too much for two weeks or so and then quitting.

Some trainers claim that there is an “anaerobic threshold” of between 70% and 80% and that you burn more fat when your heart rate is in this zone, more so than if you elevate your heart rate to 90% or so. I’ve read studies that both support and contradict this claim, so I don’t know this definitively. My take on this is that elevating your heart rate to 90% or over is going to burn you out and exhaust you so that you're wearing out your body and making yourself susceptible to injuries. The extra calories you may burn off is too marginal to be concerned with considering the downside of over-exerting yourself.

 

Three. Eat 3 meals a day of real food, not processed food as explained in Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.

 

Four. You owe it to yourself to study some cook books and learn to make meals that you like, that are good for you, and that are practical to cook without making you feel daunted by the task. Supplement your meals with 3 small snacks so you don’t get too hungry between meals. If you’re trying to lose weight, the snacks will be about 100-200 calories. If you’re trying to gain weight, the snacks will be closer to 300-500 calories.

 

Five. Bring your own food to school or work so that you don’t get “punk-fed” by the vending machines, fast food restaurants, cafeteria food, etc.

 

My advice is not what most of them want to hear. I offer no miraculous transformations, no quick-fixes, no life coaches to do all the work while they relax and enjoy the “customer experience” of passively letting someone do the work for them. My conclusion is that most people don't really want to work on their health and fitness. They are looking for cheap drama to fill the void of boredom and to overcome the sense of learned helplessness in their lives.

For cheap drama that comes from the false promise of cataclysmic self-transformation, there are thousands upon thousands of phony miracle potions and crash training programs and millions of dollars are to be made by pandering to the infantile fantasies of those who embrace the All-Or-Nothing philosophy of the typical American consumer: Either make me look like a billboard model, or, screw it, I’ll be the fat slob I was always meant to be.

In a world of excess, I am striving for some middle ground, some sanity that veers away from gluttony on one hand and joyless self-denial on the other.

 

Comments

[Ed]

Most people don't see the light until they have a life-threatening health event. But even then, old habits die hard. Think of those with emphasyma (sp?) who smoke through the hole in their neck. We all think we're immortal.

[jeffrey McMahon]

Yes, we slowly sink into the abyss and then want instant salvation.