Are you using the right tool?
You can do lots of things with a pair of vise-grips. I’ve pulled screws out of walls (don’t ask), used them as a hammer (but only when a shoe with a substantial heel was unavailable), used them as a wrench (I stripped many nuts on my bicycle by using vise-grips instead of the right sized crescent wrench!) I’ve found they’re very handy to use to when I can’t find a pot holder and need to lift the lid off a steaming Dutch oven. I know this is a bad idea, you know this is a bad idea, but we all will use the wrong tool at one point or another. The problem is, we don’t end up with the best results when we use the wrong tool. Things get broken, it’s frustrating and the whole process becomes more difficult than it needs to be.
So why do so many people assume they can get their best nutrition and weight loss information from someone whose job it is to do something else?
1. Personal Trainers. A personal trainer’s job is to teach you how to exercise and to motivate you to get stronger muscles and a more efficient heart. Yes, increasing your exercise will also help you lose weight, but they don’t specialize in weight loss or nutrition. I’ve taken and passed one of the most difficult personal trainer tests out there and it made sure I knew how many calories are in a pound and it made sure I knew that clients should eat a meal or a snack after they workout, but that’s about all the information it required me to know about weight loss and nutrition.
If a personal trainer is going to motivate you to show up to exercise, that’s great. If she is going to show you new exercises and better, more efficient ways to get in shape, then she’s your gal. If you think a personal trainer is your best source for weight loss information, you’re paying the wrong person.
2. Your physician. I know, I know, they’re saints and geniuses (and many of them are), but their job is to heal people who are ill or broken not to teach you how to lose weight. I get it, it’s easy, you’re seeing him anyway about your bunions so you may as well have him tell you what you need to do to lose weight. Besides, your insurance will PAY for you to see the doctor and may not pay for your visits to the dietitian. When it comes to weight loss, your doctor knows all of the ways that being overweight is bad for your health, she may be able to prescribe a medicine that might help you lose weight and she most certainly knows how many calories it takes to lose one pound. But she won’t be able to help you the way a dietitian can.
A doctor doesn’t have the time (and often doesn’t have the interest, otherwise he’d have become a dietitian!) to learn about your typical diet, educate you on how weight loss happens, set goals for making changes in your diet and help motivate you to lose weight. Know this, if your doctor says, “You’ve gotta get this weight off or you’re going to die young. Cut back your diet to 1200 calories per day,” he may be speaking the plain truth, but it doesn’t provide the framework or support for real, sustained weight loss. Doctors provide medical care, dietitians provide nutrition care.
3. A Life Coach. If you need a mentor and someone to help you brainstorm, then a life coach with a solid background may be able to help you, but if you need someone to provide sound nutritional advice, he’s probably not your go-to guy.
4. The Weight Watchers Meeting Leader. As far as weight loss programs go, Weight Watchers is reasonable and sensible, but their leaders are trained to know about Weight Watchers products, the points system, how the scale works and what worked for them when THEY lost weight. I heard a Weight Watchers leader give the advice, “Every time I eat a bite of anything I shouldn’t eat, I count it as one point regardless of how many points it really had.” REALLY? So that turns a 6 point candybar into a 20 point candybar because I took 20 bites of it. They have good intentions, but their training is in Weight Watchers, not in weight loss or nutrition. (Same goes for Jenny Craig, NutriSystem, etc.)
And what if you need a tool that isn’t in the garage? You can borrow it from my husband or you can rent it from Home Depot. But seriously, what if you need more help than a dietitian?
I do nutritional “counseling” but my area of expertise ends when you stop talking about food and start talking about your marital stress, your childhood trauma, your son’s school problems or your history with depression. As long as we’re talking about food, I am the one for you, but when the issues get bigger (and often times for people with emotional eating issues or people who consistently eat more than they want the issues are more substantial), it’s time to send in another player. You can still talk to me and we can unravel those food problems, but when those food problems start to get figured out and we start to see that the food problem has to do with an emotional problem, you can chat with your therapist about it.
If you’re looking to lose weight, get in touch with a dietitian who specializes in it. It’s what we love to do, it’s what we’re good at doing and it’s what we’re trained to do. Physicians, personal trainers and weight loss meeting leaders all have their skills, but teaching you and motivating you about weight loss aren’t necessarily on their tool belt.
Know this: if you’ve got a long row to hoe, don’t use a snow shovel.
May you be happy and healthy,
Regan
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