Just “suck it up” attitude!
I had to wait a week before I could write this – as I had to calm down.
Last weekend on the Channel seven program “Sunday Night” – Taryn Brumfritt and Ashy Bines were interviewed on their stories about body image.
Being a qualified personal trainer for over 16 years I started this career in a different era – pre social media days. It was exactly that “personal”, it wasn’t about training people and posting images of their training sessions on line for everyone to see – as I feel this becomes “impersonal”.
The industry has changed so much, and now the personal trainers out there trying to sell their business to others by exploiting their current clients on their pages.
I get it – it’s to show testimonials to others to make them attracted to their business. That’s how it rolls these days.
However to speculate about people mainly women to have to suck it up and try harder – this is an absolute joke!
Yes I have trained many people and more so women, who over the years have struggled with their weight and body image.
I never understood the hormone imbalance because I never experienced it myself….UNTIL
Eighteen months I lost my only brother, he and I were very close and I struggled with his battle of cancer prior to his passing.
So as a trainer, what did I do, I threw myself into coping status and trained to run a marathon whilst he was very sick – to give myself a goal to focus on. I needed to pound out my frustration and anxiety for the fear of losing him.
Then after his passing I decided to set another goal to prevent myself from grieving and I entered a figure competition – to get that six pack, to just keep busy and not let myself just grieve.
I was a mother to two young boys and a partner, plus ran my own personal training business. So yep I was busy!!
I worked hard for the figure competition and was stage ready, I competed and I placed!… THEN….. BANG….hormone alert!! They crashed and burned in a big way… each week I gained weight, just a little bit at a time. Yes I knew I would gain some, but not as much as I did.
I ate very clean, and I got very frustrated. I worked with my own trainer and naturopath to try to understand why this was out of control!
So I was lucky enough to go and see Embrace the movie and I was totally moved by this documentary. I understood where Taryn came from and other women around the world. What alerted me the most was when she said her trainer suggested she enter a bikini competition!. I realised then so many trainers out there think this is the answer – abs and arse!
Well it’s not about this, all it does is put a person’s confidence into another basket – a basket case full of hormone issues and then mind issues!!!
So to all the trainers that have that mindset “get on with it and deal with it” I think this is disgraceful. Wait until you have trauma, lose a loved one close to you, or have a traumatic life experience, see how your body copes with it, and see how sometimes weight gain is out of your control.
Prescribing a meal plan from a cookie cutter shelf product will not give everyone the same results, none of these meal plans have taken into consideration a person’s hormone balance, some foods on the plan may interfere with a person’s toxicity level, they could be intolerant to some foods, yet you place them on the same meal plan and they therefore end up worse.
If you are carrying excess body fat and you want to invest your money into your health and wellbeing, find out how you hormone levels are first, talk to your training to make sure they understand what is required in this situation, sometimes slogging it out because you’re trainer thinks you need to shift the weight off quick, may actually be making your body store more fat…
Please look after yourself and take on the appropriate style of training that suits you and will give your the results you deserve.
Here’s to your health and wellbeing
Kerrie
*picture of me post competition before the weight came back on.
