Let’s Talk About Body Fat
Whenever I hear the comment, “You have, like, no body fat,” I cringe a little inside…
The “nice girl” in me awkwardly says, “Thanks,” knowing it’s meant to be a compliment, but the grown-ass woman in me wants to say, “Of course I have body fat! If I didn’t, I’d be dead!”
You can’t see much on my arms right now, but it’s because I’m genetically pear-shaped, so it prefers to live on my thighs more than on my arms and abs.
In order to live the healthiest version of themselves, most people are looking to lose fat, but some people actually need to gain some fat to keep their body functioning and their hormones happy. It’s all about balance.
AS LITTLE BODY FAT AS POSSIBLE IS NOT A HEALTHY GOAL!
If I hadn’t have kept enough fat on my during my 2016 race season, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my period and get pregnant one month after the long, grueling Spartan World Championship, and I cannot imagine my life without our precious Taylor.
In my decade as a personal trainer, rather than focus on a particular weight or body fat percentage, I encouraged people to work out using the peaks and valleys method (hard day followed by easy day), eat healthy 80% of the time, and try not to overthink or over analyze anything.
If people work out consistently and eat well in general, the body will find a healthy composition for it’s unique self, allowing people to enjoy their lives rather than constantly fight their body to look different.
Another comment I get sometimes is, “I’m just not that disciplined.”
My answer to that is usually “Oh, exercise is my therapy,” or “I get paid to work out.”
I realize I could just say “thanks” and leave it at that, but when I see other people, usually women, looking at me with less with a smile of admiration and more of a critiquing frown on their own body, I feel compelled to give some context to my body, and acknowledge that I got there originally because I had a stressful childhood and running (as opposed to singing or art) happened to be my therapy of choice.
Couple that with some natural talent and good coaches and I started getting rewarded for it (high-fives! hugs! scholarship!), so I doubled-down on my dedication and eventually became a professional athlete.
Now I literally get paid to work out, so even though yes, it still takes a lot of discipline, it’s not the level of discipline required from someone with an 8-10 hour job, plus a family to take care of and/or a social life to navigate on top of trying to find time and energy to work out well.
In the same way that it would be silly and stressful of me to compare my mediocre cooking to a professional chef, I encourage anyone looking at photos of professional athletes to remember that not only do we get paid to work out, but the photos you see of us are generally action shots with muscles engaged. (Sometimes I’ll look at a photo of me swinging on an obstacle and think, “My back does not look like that when I look at it in the mirror.”)
And most important, we all have different genes and body shapes, with no one particular size/shape defining what is healthy or fit.
I’ve spent just enough time on the comparison train to know it doesn’t make me happy, so I’ll take my defined arms/abs + thighs that sometimes rub together while others can have their apple-shape with defined legs + love handles, and still others, their whole-body curves, and we can all dance away to the beat of our own drums.
(I’d like to give my friends in eating disorder recovery a huge shout-out for opening up about their experiences and working to change the conversation around body image. One of my biggest anxieties about having a daughter revolved around the fear of watching her potentially get sucked into society’s trap of judging her self-worth on what her body looks like, and I feel more encouraged each day that she can be free to love herself regarding of what the scale says. Thank you, Amelia, Bailey, Cali, Nell, and Rea!)