The Sunday News
Busie Mtshede
BECAUSE I am a woman I have to stay in shape and when the scale detects that I have added on a bit of calories I know it’s time to hit the gym. As a woman I struggle to stay in shape because naturally I happen to add some weight unintentionally and it seems it’s a part of my job description to stay in shape even if my man has a sagging belly, not that he does literally. Women’s fitness differs from men’s fitness like night differs from day.
Therefore, achieving the fitness level desired requires a different approach. The main difference lies in the fact that men have an abundance of the male hormone testosterone, while women have an abundance of the female hormone oestrogen. So to all my ladies out there don’t do it to please anyone but do it for your health and to feel good about yourself.
Ladies, ladies, ladies, we are very special creatures. We have unique nutritional requirements that keep us running efficiently. After the age of 30 it becomes imperative to feed those special needs. Otherwise, as the years go by, you may be setting yourself up for major hormonal imbalances, deficiencies, and adrenal fatigue. After all, we look different than men, we have menstrual cycles, we can reproduce, and we are beautiful. Let’s focus on what a woman needs to eat and not just on what all people should eat.
When we start a diet, we see immediate improvements on the scale just by changing our food. Every beginning of a diet and training programme is very motivating. The first weeks of our new diet and exercise programme, we can see our bodyweight dropping tremendously.
Often, we start our programmes by immediately eliminating all bad fats and sugar, feeding the body more properly with the right foods (and drinking more water), and we increase our activity by going to the gym. Our metabolism quickly begins to adapt to the new food, lowered fat intake and our new exercise habits. All of these factors forces the body to start losing weight in the form of fat and excess water.
When we shed off we are so happy to see the scale going down that we don’t really try to understand the why behind it because with some people we often do it for other people or we have been street harassed by people passing comments that make us feel overweight. I always hit the gym or eliminate certain foods from my diet when I feel I have to, it’s never been about what someone says so that is why I enjoy it. Being healthy is essential to a woman.
Just the other day as we were doing our aerobics a certain lady collapsed and my assumption was that she was working herself too hard and starving herself too. So after the incident I had a chance to chat with a couple of ladies I train with in the changing room. Some ladies are working themselves really hard and have since found a home in lifting weights and all. I just wanted to know why some of these women push and work themselves so hard. My finding was that most of the women in the gym are forced to be there and some have a quest of being equal to man in the muscle department and some are just desperate to lose weight and have resorted to punishing diet measure plans.
Some people dread coming to the gym because they are forced to. Well, with so many respectable females being brave and sharing their nightmare experiences, I only hope that women will approach any kind of starvation or restriction eating with serious caution. These are highly educated women who have no previous eating disorder history and they are confessing that they are unhappy with their bodies because of what people say and make them feel. My thinking is that they are in danger of going down the eating disorder path.
The road back to normalcy is a long and painful one. We need to make this apparent for everyone, especially our youths who have a tendency of following trendy lifestyles. Everyone will have moments of weakness or splurge, but why follow it with a round of what really looks like some form of punishment? If you aren’t enjoying your food now, and loving how it makes you feel, please keep searching for what will ultimately work for you. . . After hearing so many people talk about how diet is central to their fat loss, I wanted you to know that you can get and stay lean WITHOUT starving yourself to death.
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will, so if you want to be successful in your weight loss quest just do it for you, do it your way and you will definitely be successful.
Till next week embrace your body and feel good about yourself let’s keep talking whatsapp 0773 089 395.
Feedback from last week
Hi Busie my name is Henry. Thanks for your column “Just Because I am a woman”, it is very good. I hope it is read by all men so that women can be respected and treated with care. – 0772 779 723
I was reading your article because I am a woman its quite educative. – Ernest Ngoma, 0772 702 261
