Toxic Fitness Dialogue

Nowadays, it is hard to talk straight with people. We are constantly tiptoeing around people's insecurities and trigger words. The world is full of individuals dealings with terrible things, eating disorders, body shaming, and cyberbullying. It is important to acknowledge that and try to create a culture where those things aren't as prevalent. No one should ever feel uncomfortable in their skin or feel that they need to look a certain way. It is your life, and you have the right to live it however you'd like.

Although if someone decides they want to look skinnier, get stronger, or otherwise change their bodies in any way, it is also their right. The reason they want to change their bodies doesn't matter. It is their body. If someone wants to hire me to help them change their body, I will help them do it.

I won't ever tell someone they need to lose weight; I've had many clients who don't want to. I once had a pretty heavy dude come into the gym and ask me to teach him Olympic lifts. He didn't exercise, and he didn't have the mobility or the strength to do the Olympic lifts. The easiest way for him to accomplish his goals of performing Olympic lifts would have been to lose 50 lbs of fat with basic strength training and then start working on big lifts, but his goal was not weight loss. So we began drilling the overhead squat pattern until I was confident he could safely catch a snatch.

We met once a week for months, and as a result of a simple strength training program and his desire to do Olympic lifts, I'd estimate he lost 50 lbs anyway. Good habits beget more good habits. Generally, when someone starts a workout routine, they also improve their diet, sleep, and water consumption. Regardless of why you start on your fitness journey, it usually has a net positive destination.

Everyone exercises for a different reason. Many people feel more confident, healthier, and have higher self-esteem when they stick to a workout routine and see results. The same is true of making progress in other hobbies. Progress and accomplishment make people feel worthy, and that is important.

Lately, however, there has been a campaign on the rise about the dialogue used in the fitness industry. People call these terms toxic or harmful. Just to be clear, words cannot be toxic (except for slurs). Only how you use and interpret them can be. And just because an individual finds scientific term triggering does not mean that it is time to remove it from our dictionaries.

In this article, I want to talk about fitness dialogue and which terms we should change as a culture, and a few that some people need thicker skin concerning.

NON-TOXIC FITNESS DIALOGUE

Calorie deficit is a term used to describe consuming fewer calories than you expend in a day.

This is a term that has been under fire lately. Some people believe that calories don't matter, that you shouldn't count calories, yadda yadda yadda. I don't count calories, but pretending a calorie deficit isn't necessary for weight loss is foolish.

It is clear that tracking calories can cause issues for some people. If you don't want to count calories, don't. No matter how this term makes you feel, it is a medical marker like blood pressure or insulin levels.

Sugar-free is a term used to tell you a product has no sugar.

Recently this one has been under debate thanks to Demi Levato walking into a yogurt shop. She saw a sign that said sugar-free and labeled the company and the term as "triggering."

Knowing that certain foods do or do not have sugar is relevant for a large community of diabetic and pre-diabetic people. If you want to get rid of sugar-free, we'd have to get rid of peanut-free, gluten-free, vegan, and all other qualifiers. People have every right to know what is in their food regardless of how it affects a celebrity's mental health.

Vegan is a term that should exclusively tell you if something you intend to eat contains animal products or bi-products.

Vegan is a word that is very helpful for many when making dietary choices. I have a good friend who is allergic to eggs and dairy. The only desserts he can have are vegan. The term should strictly apply to food as I'm sure many other people find this information quite pertinent as well.

Although lately, this term has been taken over by clothing and shoe companies to inform you that no animals were harmed in making their products. Or to simply help sell their shoes to the vegan community. I don't care who made your shoes or how but nobody was going to eat them, and the shoes don't eat so... They can't be vegan.

I understand they were made without the exploitation of animals. But what if they were made with child labor? Is my house vegan? The wood was probably in a forest that I imagine was home to animals. So does that no longer qualify? Where is the line?

These are just a few examples of the terms that are being policed or misused due to a bias of a small group of people. These are terms that should only be used to relay facts. If you decide to skew them in a way that affects your mental health or sells more shoes, then that is a problem with a company or individual, not that terminology. (Unless, of course, the masses accept this and change the definitions)

That is not to say that the current fitness dialogue is without flaw. There are a few terms I'd love to see go away.

TOXIC (NEGATIVE) FITNESS DIALOGUE

"No pain, no gain" or "push through the pain"

If you are in pain, stop. Listen to your body, not your friends or a bad trainer. Some burning in your muscles is normal, and not all exercises feel good. I mean, calf raises are a form of torture.

However, the second you feel any joint pain, stop. Lower the weight and check your form before continuing.

Feeling guilty about a meal, a dessert, guilt-free

Halo Top Ice cream has been at the center of the guilty eating - guilt-free debate. Here is the whole discussion in a nutshell:

One side: you don't have to be guilty about ice cream

Otherside: People feel guilty about eating ice cream; Halo Top should make you feel less so.

Guilt and food should have no association. They do, in part because of fitness culture, part marketing, and partly because of our relationship with food.

Unfortunately, you cannot go back in time, and bulimia is not a viable lifestyle. So you have no choice but to accept what you've eaten, revel in the fact that you enjoyed it, and then move on. Halo Top has a great product for people on a weight-loss journey, some misguided marketing shouldn’t be enough to make you boycott low-calorie desserts.

Needing to "EARN" dessert

This one is a bit of a touchy subject. You should not feel that you have to earn food. You are not an indentured servant. You are likely an adult who can have ice cream for breakfast and donuts for lunch if you so desired.

On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with rewarding yourself for hard work. If every time you do a hard workout, you make a delicious milkshake, that will strongly reinforce the behavior of a hard workout. Rewarding yourself to help establish a habit is different from never eating dessert unless you work out. There is an important distinction; one is a positive thing, a reward. The other is negative, abstaining from sugar unless you've done enough today to justify it.

That new fad diet

When a diet is viewed as something with a time limit, like a cleanse, a fast, or 30 days of XYZ. You will do to lose weight and then return to what you usually do. No matter what the latest diet craze is, it won't build sustainable long-term habits if it has a time limit.

I often joke that if I were a coach on the biggest loser, I wouldn't have my contestants workout. I'd have them fast. I'd feed them water, bone broth, and vitamins. They'd go for short walks, hang out, learn about sustainable habits, work remotely, play video games, or do whatever to take their minds off the hunger. They would lose more weight and likely have a better mental state than the group that exercises and gets yelled at for 11 weeks.

The biggest loser isn't designed to build sustainable healthy habits; it is a reality show where significantly overweight people work out for 6-8 hours a day. Much like fad diets, unrealistic in the long term but cause rapid weight loss at the beginning.

POSITIVE DIALOGUES ABOUT WEIGHT LOSS

How do you tell someone they need to lose weight?

You can't. And you shouldn't. No one will ever thank you for it.

If you gain weight, you know. You don't need anyone else to tell you. As a friend, the only thing you can do is encourage a person to do activities with you.

People's bodies are a touchy subject, don't touch it.

If you have to talk to someone about it because it is becoming a health issue, speak to an expert.

The best way to get your overweight friends to exercise?

I've been a personal trainer for over a decade, and I know one thing for sure. You cannot make people change. They have to want to. And if they don't want to, they won't.

Find an activity they might like and do it with them. Walking? Biking? Rock climbing? Rowing?

Whatever you think they'll get into. Have a fun time with them doing something active. Again, healthy activity begets more healthy activity.

How to talk to some about fitness in general?

I'm not a therapist or a social worker. Or have any of the qualifications necessary to do the things that they do. However, after working with thousands of people on their body composition, I can spot someone with food or body image issues from a mile away.

So much of what trainers do is read people. You have to know how to talk to people of all different backgrounds about all different things and then read their responses accurately.

Recently, I had a client doing kettlebell swings. She was using the 20kg kettlebell for the first time, and when she finished, I asked her how it felt.

She said, "awful."

I chuckled and moved on. Suppose this was a new client or a different client. I would have been very concerned. Why was it awful? Does something bother you?

With her, I knew it was "awful" because it was challenging. She has been swinging a 16kg kettlebell for weeks, and it has become pretty easy for her.

In general, I wouldn't recommend talking to most people about their workout routines or diet. Unless you are complementing the success that they've had. When it comes to getting a loved one to change, it is best to do so with actions rather than words. Cook healthy meals with them, and do physical activity with them. If you must talk about it, talk about your personal fitness goals. Whomever you are talking to will open up about theirs, or they won't, and that is ok too.

No matter what words you use to discuss weight loss or fitness culture, you will probably make someone unhappy. If you think specific terms are part of a toxic culture, don't use them. Trying to force other people to adopt the language that makes you the most comfortable is a colossal waste of time and energy.

You cannot control the words or actions of others. You can only control yourself and how those words and actions make you feel. If someone in the fitness community writes or speaks about things you find triggering, don't read or listen to it. It isn't on others to change the world to your liking.

All in all, just try to have a better relationship with your body than Dr. Cox, he is the pinnacle of toxic fitness culture: