“My body just can’t lose weight.”
The voice on the other end of the phone sounded beaten, frustrated, and hopeless.
“If you knew. If you knew how hard I’ve been working. You’d understand. You’d know I wasn’t making excuses.”
My heart went out to Sarah, a mother of a 3-year-old girl and a successful real estate agent. She had come to me after another friend of hers, Tracy, had lost weight working with me through my online training program just six months after giving birth.
A deep breath followed, and Sarah asked why she should believe her body wasn’t programmed to look a certain way. I asked her to keep an open mind, stay patient, and to walk me through everything she had done. As she told me her tale of diet and exercise, I nodded and immediately knew what was wrong.
Sarah was putting time into her weight loss, but the type of effort she was giving—specifically her over-reliance on running—was a problem I had seen many times before, especially among women. I explained to Sarah why her type of running plan isn’t always the best way to lose fat.
Notice the wording there; I did not say running is bad or will make you fat. That’s just not true. It’s a great form of exercise and one with a lot of value. Rather, I was talking about efficiency and why a certain approach to cardio could be why her jeans weren’t fitting better—despite spending plenty of time in the gym.
Sarah decided to give it a try and push ahead. O…