CHANGING
YOUR NEW MUM GOAL
SETTING LANGUAGE
By Jen Dugard
Y
our new-mum client
walks into the gym.
You congratulate her
on her recent arrival, move
through her pre-exercise
questionnaire and then it’s
time for goal setting!
Goal setting with a new mum is easy,
right!? Clearly she is here to ‘get her
pre-baby body back’ and you will
do everything you can to help her
do exactly that.
put her body and mind through
huge challenges, and is adjusting
to being a mum – sleep-deprived,
sometimes alone and confused
as to whether she is doing it right –
upon stepping back into the gym to
find that little bit of solace for herself,
it has been confirmed that she is not
enough just the way she is.
She must once again strive to be
‘fit’, to be ‘smaller’, to meet society’s
expectations to ‘get her pre-baby
body back’ and she believes she
will not be enough until she does
exactly that.
You have been taught to help
her emotionally connect with her
weight loss goals and so you start
talking about how she feels now
she’s a new mum and carrying extra
weight; how she feels when she tries
to put on her old jeans and she can’t
squeeze them past her thighs; how
she feels when her husband wants to
make love with her and all she can
think about is how her tummy will
jiggle and how she’d just rather not.
You drill into all the ways she feels
crappy about her postnatal body,
giving her ALL the incentives you
possibly can to help her truly feel
more and to connect into all of the
things she’s not.
Clearly she is
here to ‘get her
pre-baby body
back’ and you will
do everything you
can to help her do
just that.
Little do you know that this woman
has a history of body image issues.
She has spent her late teens, 20s and
right up until she has had this baby
beating herself up about what her
body is or isn’t, and truly believing
that her worth is wrapped up in
what she looks like.
And now, even though she has
grown and birthed another human,
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WHAT’S NEW IN FITNESS - SUMMER 2019
WHAT’S NEW IN FITNESS - SUMMER 2019
And so, with new goals written down
and instructions to hang those jeans
in a place where she can see them
EVERY SINGLE DAY, you lead her into
the gym to begin her workout.
I know that we do this as Fitness
Professionals as I have done it myself
with clients. I have asked them
about clothes they can’t fit into
anymore. I’ve requested they dig
around in their wardrobe and find
that item they can use to ensure
they stick to their aesthetic goals
which I wrapped up in emotion so
they would be driven not to fail.
I have also been that client, and
when I look back at my fitness
journey I know my relationship with
disordered eating BEGAN when I got
my first a trainer. I was pinched and
measured, given my goals, and told
to eat half of the sandwich and only
the low-calorie yogurt.
Don’t get me wrong, I was a willing
participant and I loved the results
I got. But I recognize now it simply
fueled the ‘not enoughness’ I had
felt my whole life and my mission to
be smaller was driven from a place
of wanting to be loved rather than
of love for myself.
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