Strong is the New Skinny
‘For all of the cardio you’ve logged, all of the creative twists on bodyweight training you’ve tried, all of the yoga, plyometrics, and circuit workouts, there’s a staple that might not have always been en vogue, but has never, ever failed to deliver: lifting heavy.‘ — Sheila Monaghan, Equinox
Good news: you don’t have to yo-yo diet, swear off fats, cut all carbs, or starve yourself. You also don’t have to pedal to nowhere like a hamster in its wheel or kill yourself running (unless you love it). The days of fat-free, sugar-free, cardio-heavy prescriptions are done. Even the ‘waif’ look is losing major ground to role models, real bodies, redefined beauty, and curvier icons.
Can we all just breathe a collective sigh of relief? Or jump for joy even? I never really liked Dannon Light & Fit, I never was going to have Kate Moss’ bod from the ‘90s, and even if I achieved my 15 minutes of Atkins-powered thinness in ’04 (like Oprah in ‘88!), none of it was ever sustainable for me. And I imagine you might agree.
Thankfully, the new “it” things are: weight lifting, circuit training, and taking in calories from smart fats, complex carbs, fibrous foods, and protein-packed sustenance.
Not just healthier and more achievable, these shifts are also good for your career. Having a firm handshake and good posture have always sent the signal: I am strong and confident. But get this, Harvard Business Review recently published findings that concluded ‘for leaders, looking healthy matters more than looking smart.’ Awwww snap.
“Overall, our findings suggest that although intelligence may be important for leadership in certain circumstances, health […] appears to dominate decision making in all contexts of leadership.” — A Face for All Seasons (pub. Front. Hum. Neurosci., 05 November 2014)
Besides getting to eat whole foods again (yay!), not killing ourselves to run in place ad infinitum (phew!), and exuding “I am a leader,” here are three reasons the skinny→strong and dieting→healthy eating shifts should excite you:
- When you eat, you have energy. When you eat fresh foods in a healthy fat-fiber-carb-protein (“macro”) ratio for your body, you have super energy. And when you have super energy, you can think, walk, talk, caretake, problem solve, jump, weight lift, laugh, and take on all the crazy-hard-exciting things life throws at you. And when you don’t have energy, everything in life is harder. You also take up less space and risk losing the confidence and strength you need to be an active participant in the world around you.
- When you lift weights, you build muscle. When you build muscle, you are not only stronger physically, but your strength increases your resilience mentally and emotionally. Muscle also takes up way less space than fat, which positively impacts your physique and waistline. When you just diet or just do cardio, you aren’t building muscle. Muscle not only gives you strength and has you looking better, it also helps increase your basal metabolism.
- When you stop dieting, you start living. If you define success on a diet as losing the weight you wanted, then I am a 6-time gold medalist. I played the 17 Day Diet, Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, and Volumemetrics games and won each. Until life set back in and I couldn’t measure, monitor, track, and prepare everything. These programs are helpful jump-starters, but you ultimately need to find what works for you in the long run. They all taught me a little something and I am grateful to them, but heaven-help-me if I had to stick to them for the rest of my life.
We all know that the female gender has forever been held to and chased an unachievable, unhealthy, and ever-moving ideal. I don’t envision this changing entirely. But just as Rachel Mercer calls 2015 ‘the first year she is excited to be a woman on the internet,’ this is the first year I am excited to be a woman who likes to eat and loves to lift.
For more information, see my previous post: “How I Gained and Lost 60 Pounds as an Entrepreneur — and So Can You!”
