Women, Weight, Sports Performance and Body Image

Women athletes tend to be somehow more image-conscious than men. Their concerns mostly come from coaches pressure, peer pressure, athletic body stereotypes, modern society standards or just marketing, social media and advertisement.

Here, I will not be the first nor the last to touch upon such a multi-angled topic and heavily discussed issue. I will talk briefly about weight and sports performance rather than weight and athletic image. These are two completely different things. If you are a female athlete and you are exercising to lose weight, this article is not for you at this point. If you are a female athlete and you are exercising for performance, hold on tight and read on.

First and foremost, performance takes into account the duration/frequency/intensity of the required  training for a specific event, it differentiates the body weight from the fat percentage, and it takes into account the individuality of the athlete. All these parameters are hard to put into numbers and precise percentages. For women in triathlons for example, there is a vast variability of the duration of events and there is also a big range in top performing athletes regarding body fat percentages, body weights and BMIs. There is definitely not one athletic body stereotype that performs better than others.  When you take a look at the professional sprint, olympic, half or full triathlon distances, some elite women (on the same event) tend to be short or tall, lean or a bit more muscular. The reason behind this could be genetics, different training schedules and habits, different diets or some combination of the above.

From my personal experience, I have never followed a strict diet plan throughout my 5 years of training and competing at the collegiate and then elite amateur triathlon level. I have always followed general healthy guidelines like eating regularly fruits and vegetables, and mixing up rice, potatoes, pasta, some fish and meat, a bit of bread, butter, ice cream, chocolate and wine in moderation. It has been primarily the training load that dictated the necessary body adaptations and I have stayed consistent and loyal to my plans - even during injuries and setbacks. In simple words, I eat whatever makes me happy and not heavy ~ whatever does not compromise my training and I stay put to my regime. I know the foods that work best for me in terms of digestion and I also know the foods that make me happy and full of energy - and I keep those latter in my A list! And although my diet has not changed much over the years, my training has changed a lot. I am  now putting more hours a week and with more intensity compared to 2012 when I started, and surprisingly, my body has acclimated to bear the load.

2012: lean but not strong

2012:my body went through
a series of adaptations

My first year in 2012, when I started biking, running and swimming regularly, my body went through a shock. I started losing weight dramatically. I was trying to stuff myself up with food and extra fatty treats but my body was refusing to absorb anything. My body image looked lean and muscular but I was not feeling strong, I was not having the endurance or the speed that I wanted. I was concerned but I let it be! Over the following years, as my body and muscles were changing (and it was a slow, gradual change!), I developed a better musculoskeletal system and a stronger physique. My body can now absorb more hours of training, I feel more energetic every day, a whole lot stronger and with a much bigger aerobic engine.

WOMEN: please do not abuse your bodies. Let them adapt to the training load gradually. Give it time ~ adaptations happen in the long run. Do not rush anything! You may lose fat, you may gain body weight and muscle mass but since every one of us is unique, just let it be and enjoy the process. It doesn't help worrying about being too lean or too big or too muscular or too short or too tall. Just look around you and you will see world and olympic champions in different lengths and widths!

2016: more muscles, more strength and endurance, faster times

If you are training towards an endurance event and you are trying to lose weight through diet because you believe it will elevate your performance, either you need different coaching advise or you are concerned too much about some stereotypes or you are not training long enough to let your body adapt to the distance. Just stick to the foods that work for you and make you happy and train appropriately for the distance you are aiming to race and perform!

Stay healthy, stay happy and stay true to yourselves!

See you out there ~