February/March 1996

Forget the Numbers, How Do You Feel?
By Tami Anastasia

You diet. Count calories. Weigh yourself daily. And at the end of the month, you feel the same. You weigh the same. The numbers are all the same. Maybe it's time to stop focusing on the readouts, dials, and other gauges of fitness and learn how to assess your fitness and well-being from the inside out.

The first step is to let go of your dissatisfaction with your body. Learn to accept yourself for who you are, regardless of your shape or size. Every human being is mentally, emotionally, and physically unique. Yet there exists a widespread perception that the person with a perfect body has a perfect life. Since the perfect body is often equated with being thin, weight loss becomes the key to happiness. That myth has been perpetuated by advertisers and the media for years.

For some, weight loss can play an important role in the reduction of cholesterol levels and can diminish the heart's workload, among other things. But weight is only one factor in the overall health picture. Most of us can improve our health and the quality of our lives by eliminating unwholesome habits like skipping meals, working long hours, bringing work home, avoiding exercise, and sleeping too little or on an inconsistent schedule. Instead, we can adopt a way of living that rewards us with lower resting heart rates, improved circulatory systems, decreased depression, increased ability to concentrate, improved immune systems, and stronger respiratory, skeletal, and muscular systems.

Three important elements to achieving good health include sound nutrition, stress reduction techniques, and regular exercise. When exercising, always use the listening to your body approach and avoid the no pain, no gain strategy, which can cause injuries and sabotage your efforts to become physically fit.

If you are already overworked and feeling stressed about not getting everything done, you may feel that a trip to the gym or racquetball court is just another demand on your time. That kind of thinking sets up a negative approach to exercise. You may need to first clear the negative feelings in order to develop a positive attitude toward working out. Consider how exercise might alleviate stress, give you more energy, and enhance your ability to concentrate, thus making you more efficient. Determine what else would motivate you to engage in regular exercise.

Assessing Progress from the Inside

The following written exercise may help you clarify your fitness needs and establish internal benchmarks for measuring your progress. Divide a piece of paper into two columns. Title the left side Ways I'd Like to Feel Better and include physical and mental/psychological items such as

1. have more energy
2. sleep better
3. improve fitness level
4. better moods
5. better concentration

Title the right side How to Measure Changes Occurring and list ways to assess change such as

1. reducing medication; getting more work done
2. going to sleep easily; staying asleep; sleeping longer
3. climbing stairs without becoming winded; walking faster and farther
4. feeling less irritable; having fewer mood swings; feeling less depressed
5. thinking clearer; more creative; better at problem solving

As you become more physically fit, expect the number of items in both lists to shrink or change with your needs.

Exercise provides many positive benefits that you may never see in a mirror but they contribute to your good health and sense of well-being. In an article in Idea Today (a publication of International Association of Fitness Professionals), Michele Clemens-Silence listed many positive changes that result from regular exercise. The list includes improved cardiovascular health, flexibility, mood, energy, muscular strength, self-image, endurance, and posture. She noted that exercise reduces body fat, decreases blood pressure, and diminishes pain and stress.

Getting Started

Reasons for not exercising run the gamut, from boredom and self-consciousness to unrealistic expectations, perfectionism, and guilt. Incorporating into your life a healthy regimen that includes exercise doesn't mean throwing away daytimers and to-do lists, but rather scheduling time for yourself. It means shifting your focus from how you look (external) to how you feel (internal). It requires releasing negative attitudes toward exercise and embracing your chosen activity as an enjoyable and healthy one. It also means periodically asking yourself, How do I feel?

Tami Anastasia, owner of TAMS, has a Master's in counseling and over 16 years' experience in the fitness industry. She is a personal health and fitness counselor who combines personal training and self-esteem counseling with eating habits modification and stress management.