Three Common Fitness Pitfalls to Avoid (And What to Do Instead)
Benjamin Franklin once said that there are three inevitability in life: death, taxes, and too much fitness information. Okay, he didn’t say that last one, but it’s still true. Fitness is amazing. We compensate for this by making thoughtless decisions that actually make us vulnerable. Let’s look at three ways we can avoid falling prey to our own psychology and the psychology of marketers.
Relying on marketing language to determine the healthiness of food
Why it’s wrong: Low sodium, low fat, low carb, organic gluten free … there are countless labels that marketers use to represent health. But what about these names makes them healthy? Nothing really helps, because “healthy” depends on the context .
Why it’s especially bad: While eating foods with the above labels may seem harmless, it creates a potentially dangerous way to look at food. The problem is what researchers call a health halo . Dr. Yoni Friedhoff of the Weighty Matters blog explains:
[The Halo of Health] was coined by two active consumer behavior researchers named Brian Vansink and Pierre Chandon. Their experiments consistently demonstrate that believing that a food is a healthier choice leads to a disproportionate increase in consumption of that food. In other words, people are eating a lot more of the less terrible, so-called “best for you” choices, that they are actually eating more calories, salt, or sugar than they would have eaten. chose the frankly cheeky brother of that meal. If they did this, there would be no illusion if they thought they were making a deliberate choice.
TL; DR: Choosing “healthy” options over unhealthy foods tends to cause dieters to eat more calories overall, and negate their weight loss efforts.
The “healthy” labels above can be useful for small groups of people, such as “low sodium” for people with hypertension . But most of these labels have been dismissed as an indicator of health. Over the years, we have overly vilified sodium andfat . There is little evidence that organic foods are more nutritious , and the original researcher who cursed gluten recently changed his stance .
Instead, these labels create a so-called “black and white diet” that can seriously harm your psychology. Nutritionist Lyle MacDonald explains on his Body Reconstruction blog:
You can find examples of this all over the place where people assume that healthy / good food can be eaten in uncontrolled amounts, whereas the slightest amount of unhealthy / bad food means the diet has failed, the dieter , is immoral and weak, and health will simply be destroyed (this is manifested to an extreme degree in a psychological state called orthorexia, when people view food as a moral choice, judging not only themselves, but also others by the food they prefer to eat) …
What to do instead: The health halo will make you spin your wheels for years without progress. Learn to avoid labeling foods as “healthy” or “unhealthy.” Of course, it’s okay to eat organic food for personal or ethical reasons. But if you do it for weight loss, only your wallet becomes thinner.
Using programs because they are from famous athletes
Why it’s wrong: Because there is so much confusion behind health and fitness, it often seems easier to copy the daily routines of people with amazing physiques. Often these become professional athletes. The logic seems reasonable: If I want chest and abs like my favorite NFL back runner, how could I go wrong with following his training program?
In fact, the physiological response to diet and exercise is different for everyone. Your favorite pro athletes are subject to selection bias – they are already the best athletes in the world. They follow a specific program because it addresses needs specific to their sport, their pre-existing muscle condition, and so on, not because it’s an easy way to get injured or stay fit.
Why it’s especially bad: There is no quicker way to fail a fitness program than to start with unrealistically high expectations. When this happens, severe psychological damage ensues. There is a feeling that one did not have control over the situation and the self-respect of the sinker. Oddly enough, I found that every time such a failure occurs, it becomes more difficult for the trainee to recover .
What to do instead: Before completely trusting a plan written for someone else, do your research. The disturbing truth I have learned while working in the fitness industry is that many marketers don’t care about you when you give away your money .
Look for someone who supports your long-term success. Celebrities and pro athletes don’t play games when it comes to your fitness (I might be wrong, but I don’t think Snooki will cry before bed if people don’t follow her diet ). Always do your research to find a reliable source of fitness information.
Evaluating Workout Effectiveness with Sweating and Soreness
Why it’s wrong: Sweat is simply a sign that your body needs to cool off. Nothing more. It could be a sign of calories burned, but there could be other things as well – like oh, I don’t know … it’s hot outside!
Why it’s especially bad: People are surprisingly inconsistent in drawing accurate conclusions based on internal and external data. On the one hand, we measure certain things with incredible precision, especially if they involve our biological wiring.
Let’s say you lift a box in your garage. You don’t know how heavy it is, but you pick it up. At this point, your central nervous system (or CNS for short) instantly measures its severity when you apply just enough force to lift it.
On the other hand, there are certain things that individuals cannot judge based on data. For example, renowned economist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman discovered that experts cannot predict the success of stocks (despite the irony of their confidence in their knowledge). Likewise, determining the effectiveness of a workout based on indicators of discomfort – how much you sweat, how painful you feel afterwards, etc. – is also useless.
Surprisingly, fitness tends to extol these things. (“Feel the Burn,” “No Pain, No Benefit,” “Sweat is Crying Greasy,” “Look at the Fancy New Way of Bending My Foot!”) But using discomfort as a measure of effectiveness sabotages you in two ways. First, it distracts your attention from your true goals in favor of completely useless feats. Is your goal to build muscle becoming “how many burpees can I do before I vomit”? Your weight loss goal turns into “how many more miles can I run before my nipples get tired?”
But perhaps you watch The Biggest Loser and find that the pain they experience while exercising is inspiring. Or maybe feeling pain and nausea at the end of a workout makes you feel fulfilled. This is where the second, more dangerous sabotage begins.
As a fitness coach, I quickly learned that clients respond to error in one of two ways. Some clients pass out for days after a bad weekend and end up falling out of the train for good. Others, however, are not phased. Like Tom Brady after he intercepts, they mount the horse again as if nothing had happened.
Fickle clients had one strong trait: self-compassion . The power of self-compassion (which is not unique to fitness ) allowed them to consistently recover from their mistakes . But when we romanticize pain, we subtly accept the need for self-flagellation. Instead of showing self-compassion and forgiveness after overeating , we punish ourselves with exercise. Or arbitrarily limit what we eat. This can often lead to increased overeating, which feeds the hungry body, and in some cases escalates into a serious eating disorder. It’s worth noting that this type of pain motivation may actually work for some, including naturally gifted athletes who have never had a problem with self-esteem. On the other hand, a former chubby kid like me should approach fitness in a completely opposite way. I always think of this quote when someone who lacks self-compassion wants to change themselves:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; it can only be light. Hatred cannot drive out hatred; only love can do it. ” – Martin Luther King (The timing of MLK’s day is completely random.)
Successful fitness transformation follows the pattern above: it must come from self-love, not self-punishment.
What to do instead: Ignore unhelpful metrics like sweat and pain. Instead, focus on scientifically based metrics that matter, such as your waist and weight measurements (or how your pants fit).
Finally, remember to show self-compassion and love yourself. It is important.