7 Lessons on Fitness I Learned from Working at a Gym

After working in a women's fitness facility for a couple of months, I have gotten to know a number of women and see their successes and failures up close and personal. I have been amazed at the soul strength that resides within women and been able to identify certain trends of those who have been successful in harnessing that strength to be successful at managing their health. Our facility serves women ages 18 to 81, some healthy as can be and some with some fairly involved medical conditions. Regardless of age or health status, some irrevocable truths have surfaced throughout my time there and I will share these with you in the hopes that you will take to heart some of the lessons I have learned.

Lesson #1: The Number on Your Scale REALLY Doesn't Matter

Like many women, I too have agonized on what the scale says about my life, but since working at a gym, I have had the unique honor of weighing and measuring a ton of women. I have seen women stand side by side who weigh within five pound of each other. One was fit and healthy, the other was shorter, obviously bigger and completely out of shape. The number told me absolutely nothing about the physical fitness of the women!

So, if the number on your scale doesn't matter, what does? Well, often we look to the scale because it gives us an idea of what others might see when they look at us. But, like I've told my clients over and over again, no one sees a floating number over your head of how much the scale says you weigh- they see you, how you fit in your clothes and how you carry yourself. The other reason we often look to the scale is for a health indicator. Medical doctors have been looking at weight to determine our approximate health levels for decades now, but I can attest to the fact that weight and health do NOT always go hand in hand! Instead, you need to pay attention to your percent body fat and your body mass index. These two will give you a more accurate predictor of where your health is than a scale ever could!

Lesson #2: Your Mindset Will Determine Your Success More Than Your Genes

If you can get yourself excited to work out, have fun with healthy foods, and forgive yourself easily when you fall off the bandwagon or go on vacation, you are much more likely to see success and maintain it for the long run than if you are only going through the motions to look good for a special event or get in shape for bikini season. Also, if you have your mind made up that your lifestyle IS CHANGING and you don't just HOPE IT WILL WORK THIS TIME, you are much more likely to see lasting results. After talking to so many women, I've noticed that the smallest changes in vocabulary can reflect a huge change in their personality and motivation to take control of their work out routine and eating habits. References to hoping things will change or other tentative statements such as "we'll see if I can..." or "perhaps I will try..." reflect a feeling of being out of control. While I completely empathize with that feeling, the truth is that nothing changes when we feel that way. Until we can fix our relationship with food and physical activity to be one of control where we actively choose to participate in exercise for 30 minutes to an hour at least 3 times a week and choose foods that nourish our bodies instead of those that are most easily available, our bodies will simply not be healthy.

Lesson #3: Culture Can Influence Your Weight Management

The culture you live in can have a huge impact on your weight management. Not only the American Culture of fast food, convenience options and instant gratification, but also the family values or immediate social expectations. Consider, for example, the people you live with- do they value health or convenience? Do they want you to invest in the things which will make you healthier and happier or do they tend to drain you, wanting you to do everything for them? Now ask yourself the hard question, if your immediate culture is not naturally supportive of you choosing healthy choices for your life, what can you do to change that? It might mean saying no to extra responsibilities or being firm with your children regarding the chores they need to take on. It might even mean changing your grocery shopping habits or the route you take home from work- you know, the one that conveniently takes you right by your favorite fast food restaurant?! Whatever it is in your life that needs to change in order for you to be successful, do it! Until you identify and change the things in your life that are obstacles from your success, you will keep setting yourself up for failure.

Lesson #4: Beauty is Not a Result of a Slim Figure

Do not ever mistake beauty for a slim figure. Beauty is an internal quality that resonates through the physical appearance. After getting to know so many women, I have found ones who were thin and relatively in shape whose personality made them terribly ugly. On the flip side, I have met many women who could never be a model based on physical attractiveness alone, but whose personality made them irresistible people. Your beauty is not reliant on what other people see when they look at you, but who you are. If you want to be more attractive, don't just work on the physical aspect, make sure you are working on becoming a beautiful person who appreciates other people and chooses to see the good in others instead of focusing on the negative.

Lesson #5: Regardless of What Marketers Want You to Believe, It is Impossible to Be Healthy without BOTH Diet and Exercise Components

I know that for myself, I have tried multiple times over the years to lose some weight just by eating better or just by exercising. It has worked for the short-term, but it never stuck until I started doing both. The same is true for every client I have seen at the gym. If they are working out consistently but not eating right, I know. They don't have to tell me themselves because their monthly results tell me how they are eating. If their percent body fat is elevated as high if not higher than the month before (when it was already in the very high range), I know that their diet has been atrocious. And you know what? Their numbers don't change much. They may lose some here and there, but it rarely stays off and most of the numbers simply hover around the same range. However, when a client combines eating healthy and consistent meals with regular exercise, I've noticed that not only do the numbers change, their outlook on life changes, their energy levels sky rocket, and they seem to find a new zest for life.

Lesson #6: Strength Training and Cardio are Essential

For some reason, many women tend to prefer cardio workouts afraid that strength training would make them too buff and manly. On the other hand, men try tend to prefer strength training, hoping to become buff without engaging in the more "feminine" work of cardio. However, both are essential for varying reasons. Cardio workouts help you maintain a strong heart and vascular system, to keep you feeling young and capable. Strength training works on your muscles to protect your joints. Both of these together are a strong combination for vitality as you age. Many of our women who have engaged in both consistently have been able to maintain fairly high level of health well into their late 70s and early 80s, a time when the overwhelming majority of the public has quit working out. This leads me to believe that both are essential for building total body fitness.

Lesson #7: You Know You Best

The health industry is huge and there are about a million "experts" out there who have developed work out routines, diet systems, gym equipment, etc. and some of them have legitimate research to back up their claims. But the truth is that at the end of the day, you know you best. You know what time of day is best for you and you know what types of foods make you feel miserable and which ones make you feel satisfied. Choose which experts you listen to very carefully and always make personal choices based on what you know is best for you because at the end of the day, your health is your responsibility, not your personal trainer's, not your gym's, and not your doctor's. You're the one who has to live with the health decisions you make, so take them seriously and base them on what you already know about you, how you work best and what your natural tendencies are.

If you've learned something or made a decision as a result of this article, be sure to post it below to encourage others. We all struggle with choosing healthy lifestyle choices and it certainly helps to hear what others are doing to positively change their life.