Five fears of formerly fat people

I know what its like to be a fat kid. I was in the TAF (trim and fit) club all through secondary school, that means no recess, run around the track and have a piece of watermelon. I also loved eating. Food just tastes good to me - and still does.

After training and eating consistently well for close to twenty years now, my fat kid days are behind me, but it took me some knowledge and effort to put my fat kid mindset and mistakes behind me.

Today the Genesis Gym Singapore team and I help at least a thousand clients each year with their fitness goals and a large percentage of these clients want to become "former fat boys/girls". I.e their main goal is fat loss.

Once they have stated on the road to their goals, there can be mental roadblocks and fears along the way that we need to help them overcome for them to achieve the best possible result.

Here are some of these fears and frustrations and how we help clients overcome them.

1. Fear of eating more

Some of the clients we work with have done a good job themselves of losing weight. But the methods they have used may have done some harm to their bodies. The most common method is simply eating too little.

I am guilty of this as well. When I was a fat kid, my first attempts to lose weight were to skip meals and sleep when I was hungry to avoid eating!

The problem with this is that you will tend to not become lean, but rather a smaller version of your fat self. This means you have probably lost that lovely lean muscle and retained most of the fat.

So... how do we avoid this?

If you are going to lower your food intake, you will need to improve food quality at the same time. Going from 3 bowls of fried noodles to 2 bowls is a good start. But going to a grilled fish with veggies is a far better choice.

If you are going to lower your food intake, do it gradually and try not to go below 30 x weight in kg in calories (25 for ladies) for an extended period of time. That means 2100 calories for a 70kg man. Low calories for too long can be a shock to your body and encourage fat storage instead.

2. Fear of lifting weights

Most of the time the main form of exercise that is promoted is some kind of long slow cardio training. That is how many people lose their initial kilos. And they mistakenly think this weight loss can go on forever by simply doing longer and longer bouts of this kind of exercise.

The problem with this is similar to point 1, the body tends to break down muscle and shrink muscle fibres when you do lots of long slow activity like swimming or jogging.

Not a good thing for long term health and slows metabolism.

Get a good strength training program in place. It is the best use of your exercise time. My book website has some free workouts with video demos that you can try. www.happybodybook.com

3. Fear of carbohydrates

Another common method of weight loss is a very low carbohydrate diet. While this is a good start for many people, especially when you add healthy fats into the plan... it can lead to a fear of carbohydrates.

This is not a good thing. Going too low carb for too long can reduce the ability to use carbs for fuel, it can slow metabolism, and you may miss out on some nutrients that come from carb based sources e.g. fibre and phytonutrients.

So how do you re-introduce your carbohydrates? I wrote a longer article on carbohydrates. But here are some simple guidelines.

• As you get leaner you can slowly add more carbs into your diet. Start at once per week and work up from there.

• As you train more and gain more lean muscle you can add more carbs. Start with carbs after training.

• Carbs should be used together with protein in the same meal e.g. rice and chicken

• Add them in slowly and take note of your measurements like weight and waistline ever 10-14 days. This is not a free pass to go out and eat a whole chocolate cake.

4. Fear of unrealistic expectations

Healthy fat loss is a process that takes time. I usually suggest 10% of the length of time that you have been fat. E.g. if you have been obese for 20 years, 2 years is a good time frame to set aside to do it safely. Good coaching and planning can help you maybe halve that to one year.

But still, there is no magic pill. If that pill existed and I sold it, I would be writing this from my private jet on my private island but no, I'm writing this from the office at my gym in Alexandra.

Why is this? Being overweight is not just a problem of "over storage" of excess food. It changes your hormones, your blood, and your digestion. With Alzheimer's linked to obesity and high blood sugar, it even changes your brain!

So take things safely, slowly - but permanently! Most habits that are kept are done by slow and steady, step by step habit formation. Not a sudden burst of motivation.

5. Fear of a poor result

The "results" of fat burning programs can EASILY be faked. Check out the video below to see how:

Tanning, photoshop, mixing up the before and after pictures etc can really confuse a person.

In addition you need to make sure that the program you are following is NOT designed for someone who is on anabolic steroids. The problem is that the results you get with and without steroids can be vastly different and if you are going to join a gym or get a personal training program in Singapore, you want to make sure that the trainer can get you results without steroids. Not checking on this will almost certainly lead you to be disappointed.

So how do we help people who fear a poor result? The answer is to take control of the things can you can control. E.g. sleep amount, food quality, not hanging around with negative people, spending time with family, etc.

These are largely in your control. Taking action on these and fear of poor results goes away because you are always moving forwards to your goal.

Coach Jonathan Wong has a Doctorate of Science in Holistic Medicine, is a Certified Sports Nutritionist and is the author of "The Happy Body - Getting to the root of YOUR fitness, health and productivity". He is also the founder and CEO of Genesis Gym Singapore (tm), which aims to provide the best personal training and fitness services in Singapore. (Intro Video to Genesis Gym Singapore HERE) The views expressed are his own.