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In my previous post I wrote a little bit about the categorization of obesity in terms of classes (weight) and the staging of obesity (health measures) that I use to help me training clients with excess weight.

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Today I had planned to get started on describing the methods I use to train those with varying degrees of obesity when it struck me that a lot of fitness professionals don’t truly understand obesity and, as a result, are misguided in their attempts to help people lose weight.  Most certainly, people are eating more and moving less, but unless we understand WHY people are consuming more and failing to move it will be darn near impossible to address these issues.  Today, my goal is to share with you some of my thoughts and provide you with some resources so that you can begin to understand the root causes of obesity.  By understanding these you can put in place practices to address them and have incredible results with these clients.

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If you’re going to train people with obesity, you should understand it.

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As I mentioned above, by understanding the determinants of obesity you can work towards addressing them and by doing this your results with this population (remember that many people who think they need to “lose a few pounds” are clinically obese).  In fact, I’ve mentioned before that addressing these issues need not even be a burden for a fitness professional, but an opportunity to make more revenue and differentiate themselves in a very competitive market.

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Here I am going to provide a few great resources on obesity.  Many who read this won’t take the time to check them out, but those who do will be rewarded with an incredible amount of understanding of this complex problem and I can guarantee it will be eye opening.  When I first started formally working with this population I thought I had all the answers…and I certainly didn’t.  So trust me when I say that the time you take to do this will be worth your while.

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Here is what I would do:

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Go to the blogs of Dr. Arya Sharma and Dr. Yoni Freedhoff and sign up for updates via email, RSS, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever.  Read them as they come.  Get smart.  And, perhaps more importantly, you can go to the Canadian Obesity Network website and download their book Best Weight for FREE.  All you have to do is sign up for a membership (which is also free) and you can get your mitts on a copy.  Although it is more geared towards physicians treating obesity, it will definitely provide insight on how to manage those with obesity and barriers to weight loss including medications, sleep apnea, and tons of stuff you probably hadn’t even thought about.

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I would also suggest taking the time to watch the video HERE by Dr. Robert Ross on the Cardiac and Metabolic Benefits of Exercise.  Dr. Ross is a great speaker and he makes some great points in this presentation.

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Recognize that obesity is a chronic condition

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Obesity, much like hypertension (high blood pressure) is a life sentence.  In other words, once you have it, you’ve got it for life.  But also like hypertension, when it is managed appropriately through activity, diet, and lifestyle changes it can essentially be controlled to a point where the person no longer meets the criteria to be defined as obese.  However, just as with any chronic condition, if you stop the treatment (i.e., stop exercising and increase intake) the condition returns full force.

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So even if a person loses weight, eats well, exercises regularly, and has a seemingly stable new lifestyle pattern, it IS still a chronic condition and remission is possible (and actually likely).  In fact, MOST people who lose weight will gain it back (some suggest the number is as high as 95%) which is why my focus weight clients is NOT on weight loss per se, but on the behaviors and habits associated with those results.

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Frankly, I’m not impressed if someone reports that they’ve lost 50 pounds in 12 weeks with program X as I’m almost positive that most programs have failed to address the reasons why the person became overweight in the first place and the results will be temporary.  This is why I think it is important to a) make clients aware of the chronic nature of weight management, b) don’t offer or promote programs that deliberately contradict this statement, and c) don’t let clients bully me into helping them lose weight quickly on the promise of transitioning to a more sustainable program later.

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Appreciate that PERMANENT weight loss is a slower and more behavior oriented practice.  And that practice must be forever as the condition most certainly is as well.

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Eliminate Your Bias

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Imagine going to get professional help with something and the person who was supposed to help you (i.e., the person who SHOULD be in the best position to help you) had an inappropriate preconceived notion that you were unintelligent just because you worked in a gym?  And what if their help towards you was based on this assumption?  What if they treated you like you were unintelligent?  How much help would they be to you?

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Taking this back to obesity, what if you (the person who SHOULD be in a position to help) were uneducated about obesity and had assumptions and biases that were actually AGAINST the person you were supposed to help?  How much help would YOU be?

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As a whole, I think that the fitness profession (who should be the ones equipped to make a difference with weight management) are probably the worst off when it comes to biases and stereotypes against obese folks.  In fact, we are so busy reading about the latest and greatest fat loss workouts or diets that we fail to educate ourselves on the ACTUAL causes of obesity (note: it has nothing to do with the fact that they didn’t properly time their post-workout shake with 20 grams of whey, 6 grams of BCAAs, creatine, and waxy maise).  So, if we want to be a force for ending this epidemic, we need to understand it…and rid ourselves of our biases.

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The first step to this is to identify your biases and then you can proceed to address them.  I wrote a post about a tool you can use to do this HERE.

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So that’s it for today.  Bookmark this if you need to, but make sure to take advantage of those resources because they are the foundation upon which my methods for training obese people are built.  Next time I’ll get into the actual practices of training obese clients.

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Check out Part III of the series HERE.

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Drop me a comment below and let me know what you think!  If you’re in the fitness industry and think your colleagues could benefit from reading this please don’t hesistate to share it.

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