A spate of articles has come out recently about how the long-term results of weight loss tend to be so short. The original study that sparked the recent conversation found that not only did most of the Biggest Loser contestants from Season 8 regain much of the weight they had lost six years after the competition ended but, in a finding that’s more worrying, their metabolism slowed in a persistent way. That is, to maintain their current weight, most of them can eat many fewer calories than could someone of the same age, gender, and size who had not lost weight. That most of these contestants also now have persistently decreased levels of leptin — a hormone that controls hunger — is just icing on the cake. A good review of the issue can be found in the The New York Times article on the study, which brought these results to wide attention.
This would be pretty discouraging news for someone who’d like to get into shape or lose weight, to whatever extent. So I thought that I might jot down some of my strategy when I decided to get athletic again three years ago. Becoming and staying active is difficult, and maybe something in my approach can help someone else stay motivated. (Becoming fit and losing weight aren’t at all the same thing, but for many people, they’re two goals of a single project, so I’ll generally treat them here as though they work in tandem).
When you’re just starting out, sustainability is everything
Sustainability is often the last thing that people think about when starting a project: first, achieve the goal; then, figure out how to maintain it. Long-term success would seem more likely, though, if we achieve the goal with a process that’s compatible with how we’ll sustain it. So, for example, if I lose weight by cutting out things I really love to eat, how likely am I to continue doing that for the rest of my life? How likely am I to continue doing that three days from now?
From the outset, I made sustainability the first rule of getting to where I wanted to be. My approach would have to be effective enough but pleasurable enough to make me want to continue it tomorrow. In my case, I’d start working out exclusively at the gym, mostly in group classes. But whatever form of activity is chosen, the principle is the same: my workout today is successful or not based on one thing only — Do I come back tomorrow?
I focused on developing the habit of being more physically active, and not on the deprivation of “dieting”. Sure, my ultimate goal was a very different kind of result — eating better, losing weight, becoming athletic again. But it was too early to care about my progress on any of these. The only thing to focus on now was to do whatever I needed to do to want to return tomorrow. That was the goal that everything else was in the service of. It would guide every decision and change that I would make.
To be sure that I’d come back tomorrow, I had to be laser-focused on preventing the two things that I figured would be the biggest hazards: 1) getting discouraged and 2) getting injured.
Shut down anything that causes discouragement — I was vigilant about this. For one thing, I ended up talking to almost noone about what I was doing. Not many people I knew had taken on a project like this; many people find reasons to not do what they’re not doing (and think it’s a good idea to share them with you); I didn’t think getting a bunch of different opinions would help; and I had found that talking about doing something can sometimes make me less likely to do it. So I spent almost no time talking about my new project. In the first stage of getting active again, I also set no goals for myself. I tend to be competitive and knew that I’d increase the intensity of the workouts too quickly. So I avoided not meeting what would be unrealistic expectations by not having any. I learned to be very aware of how I felt while working out. There’s a difference between exhaustion that feels great and exhaustion that feels sickening. I avoided the latter, which often meant holding back a little during workouts. By not slamming against my sorry state of physical conditioning (yet), I could concentrate on what felt good about my workouts. When I had a rest day, I wanted the pleasure of having earned it, but to also miss working out. My internal dialogue was like a mantra: “How much weight have I lost? How many miles did I cycle?” Who cares? Did I come back tomorrow? Good job! “I look so fat. I’m so out of shape.” Yeah, that’s why I’m going to come back tomorrow.
Avoid injury — This is something I wanted a lot of information about. People who are just getting active (or active again) are prone to injure themselves. They start off too gung ho, don’t realize how much their bodies have changed since they were last active, and are missing information about which injuries are likely and how to prevent them. For example, I knew that I had to be in good shape to run (I had used to run competitively). So I didn’t start to run again until I was over a year into the process. And even then, I had two false starts with the beginning of shin splints and knee pain. Luckily, I had stopped with the first symptoms and had other things I could do while recovering from these, so I lost no time. Nothing made me happier than running, but it was over two years before I was running like I was in training again. The wait was worth it. Cycling and swimming are great non-impact aerobic workouts. Supplement them (or whatever sport you enjoy doing) with yoga for flexibility, balance, and strength (i.e., injury prevention, if for nothing else). And add strength and interval workouts when you’re ready, if you’re inclined. Going from couch potato to athlete is a project that can be thought of in stages. All that matters in the first stage is building the daily habit of working out. Stay uninjured by cross-training, so some muscles get to rest even while you’re working out other ones. It’ll also help you not get bored. And roll, roll, roll.
What works for each of us is unique
Much of what we know about becoming fit or losing weight comes from either scientific studies, which have to be replicable, or mass-produced consumer products, like workout and diet plans. If you talk to enough people, you’ll find that every approach has success and failure stories, and that people who have long-term success are outnumbered by those who don’t. I avoided following any instructions. My workouts and eating were based on one thing only — how I felt at the time. This means that there was a lot of variation day-to-day, and also a lot of difference between what I was doing and what anyone else was doing.
Because I was following my own inclinations, I did many things that were counter-intuitive or went against common advice. In this first stage, I stayed away from a lot of popular group exercise classes like BootCamp and H.I.I.T. because I knew my performance in them would discourage me, making me not ready for them. I never planned my workout more than one day ahead (but always wrote out the options for tomorrow's workout at the end of today’s). I sometimes worked out in both the morning and the evening on one day. A couple of times, I showed up to the gym all dressed for a class, felt a complete lack of desire to go in, and turned around with no compunction. I planned to work out every single day, because I knew that something would come up once in a while (work or something fun) that would make me miss out; that would become my rest day. I never took a gym class or did a particular activity that I didn’t want to do. And by the way, I didn’t cut out any kind of food and never let myself feel hungry. Incidentally, I’ve never eaten so well — meaning, such flavorful, diverse, pleasurable food — as I did while I was working out and losing a lot of weight. Remember, sustainability. The whole process has to be something that you want to continue in some form for the rest of your life. My greatest associations with doing this thing that was so physically difficult are how good I felt doing it, how much I enjoyed being at the gym, and how good was the food I was eating.
So, I can’t imagine how to approach this particular project (or any other that I’d want to continue forever) without making spontaneity and pleasure the center of it. What that means day-to-day is that I had to figure out my own inclinations and reactions to things, to be adaptable, and to simplify my measure of success: Is what I’m doing today going to make me want to come back tomorrow?
What comes after the first stage?
Stages two and three. From the beginning, I thought about this project in three stages: I) getting myself in a daily habit of working out, which meant avoiding discouragement and injury; II) getting fit and losing most of the weight that I wanted to lose; III) becoming athletic again, being in training (losing the last few pounds and maintaining my weight would be byproducts again). Each stage has a different focus — sustainability → conditioning & weight → performance. But the next stage doesn’t supplant the previous one; it builds on it. The first stage establishes a baseline, a kind of minimum floor, and whatever was important to establishing that stays important. Even when it becomes necessary to fall back a little, to rest, it’s all still part of the project.
I personally can’t achieve or maintain my target weight without being athletic. In fact, trying to lose or maintain weight without working out sounds crazy to me. I don’t have the temperament to be deliberately hungry. Luckily, when I work out, my appetite decreases. (I know, this is counter to everything I’ve heard too about exercise and eating). I have no idea what my resting metabolism is now compared to what it ever was. But when I work out, and am moving in space, and am carrying my weight in different ways, I become conscious of it in a way that I would never be otherwise. I appreciate what I can do when I’m lean and light (and not stuffed) that I can’t do otherwise. So there’s a self-corrective mechanism built into staying active that tends towards being both fit and lean. I’ve never watched the biggest loser, so I don’t know what approach they take or what the contestants did after the show. But it seems to me that sustainability itself comes down to one thing: making the process overwhelmingly pleasurable. And whatever that means for any one of us, if that’s what you want to do, it’s nothing more than a series of trials and errors with immediate feedback and corrections all with the aim of continuing to do what makes us feel great.
Credit where it’s due
Three years ago wasn’t the first time I had tried to become athletic again. But it was the first time that I had joined a Y. There was something immediately apparent when I joined this non-profit gym — they wanted you to come back. There aren’t many places in a lot of towns that consciously set out to be so inclusive, to create a community that’s so diverse and participatory. Like every institution, the view from the inside (I mean, the staff and instructors) is different from the outside one (the members). But I can say that I personally couldn’t have succeeded without the Y, and that I’ll always be grateful to the people there.
I hope this diary will serve as something of an antidote to the articles that say the odds are against us (and all the Clinton/Bernie diaries that are keeping us indoors). They tend to omit an approach that maybe can’t be easily replicated in scientific studies or addressed in plans written for mass consumption — an individualized approach that’s rational, self-determined, and most importantly — one that brings us joy.