The Pain Barrier to Weight Loss

One of the many challenges to losing weight that I think is often misunderstood is the physical pain that can be impeding a persons success, especially at the start. I am speaking of pain that can be chronic or aggravated by activity that is caused by ones extra weight. I think this pain is misunderstood by many in the fitness field and overlooked as a significant obstacle.

My Battle with Pain

For me pain from being overweight comes in two forms, my back and my feet. I want to be clear that both these forms of pain have been looked at thoroughly by a doctor and had sinister causes ruled out. I think it is very important to have such things examined by a doctor before determining the cause is due  to one’s size and not something that needs to be addressed medically. That said, both my forms of pain have been established to be caused by my extra weight and would be significantly improved or eliminated by weight loss. Indeed I can confirm with my current 14lb weight loss that I can walk and move farther with less back pain, which is encouraging.

My Understanding of Different Kinds of Pain

Much of my life has involved weight training. I even had such a passion for it that in my early 20s I went to College to take a few years of Kinesiology with the goal of learning more about heath and exercise. Being in that environment I was surrounded with various types of athletes all pushing themselves to physical excellence. I myself was on the heavy side but worked out everyday and very much enjoyed the training. While there I noticed a correlation to pain and performance with top athletes. Pushing yourself hard often meant sore muscles the next day from the weight room or burning legs and lungs while running a 10k. They were signs you were pushing yourself to the next level, it was pain, but a positive pain. This atmosphere had a culture of pain is good with the “no pain no gain” mentality being obvious. I don’t think in this situation this was at all a bad thing, in fact it served high performance athletes well.

Health vs Athletic Performance

The problem in my view is that some of the people in this program were ultimately there to become trainers to people who are not athletes but regular people who needed help with nutrition and exercise. First the no pain no gain is not valid for an average person looking to lose pounds and become more healthy. The correlation between intensity in training and health is not as significant as one thinks. A person who exercises moderately will undoubtedly improve their health dramatically. In turn an Olympic athlete who trains harder than most can only dream does not necessarily improve their overall health significantly over the person who exercises moderately and regularly. Don’t get me wrong, they certainly do still have some improved health over an average active person, but the dramatic increase in health drops off after a certain point. Their real achievement and what continues to increase at a significant rate is performance. The conclusion of this would be that if your goal is to have better health, fitness and mobility and not to be an Olympian, you can certainly achieve this without the pain of massive exertion.

My Experience with Both Types of Pain

Now the before mentioned pain can be a positive thing, you might find you start to enjoy being sore from the gym. That is fine, but that is a different pain in my experience than say my current back pain. I have a unique experience in having both types of pain throughout my life, and what I have found is the athletes in the fitness field have a lack of understanding of the difference. For example if like me you have a sharp stabbing pain in your back as it spasms out of control while you try to go for a walk after dinner, no amount of willpower will allow you to ignore it. You might push through a few nights, but your body will fight you to want to continue your walk. You never learn to like the back spasms from your walk like say the sore chest from bench day at the gym. It is a difference that the “no pain no gain” mentality never understands because they may never experience it.

How it effects your Motivation

Something I remember from my school was my Kinesiology instructor talking about a test she did with some of her students years before I was in the program. She instructed them to wear weight belts around different parts of their body. This was done not just while doing regular activity but also while being inactive like while watching TV or eating breakfast. She measured how they responded to this in relation to their eating habits and activity. Not surprisingly it appeared both eating habits and activity level suffered. From my experience I would think the strain and added pressure on the subjects joints and bodies played a part in this. When you hurt, you feel better by resting, and you also feel better by eating something comforting.

The Good News!

Here is what I find is the positive takeaway. I have already found by eating healthy and losing weight a dramatic decrease in back pain. With this reduction the immediate relief felt by having less pain as well as the enjoyment and freedom that accompany better mobility is a very encouraging force. There is a dramatic compounding snowball effect that would appear to occur. The better you feel the more you want to move, the more you move the better you feel. The trick is you get yourself into that initial position to be able to do sustained activity and get the initial relief. That is why I have focused heavily on improving my diet to start, and as a result already feel I am being more physically active. Therefore physical activity may be a wonderful by-product of healthy nutrition. How it ultimately plays out long term I cannot say, but it certainly seems to be a very positive correlation. As the pain barrier lifts like a flood gate the potential for an improved life becomes more obvious and exciting. The trick to getting the gate to crack open is just taking things just one step at a time to start.