Exercise is often seen as a tool for weight loss, but Dietitian Lucy Carey argues that this mindset often backfires.

“Do you actually want to go to the gym?” I asked her. She was looking at the floor and I had a feeling I already knew the answer. She had an energy about her that exuded sadness and desperation.

“I mean, yeah,” she said, looking over my shoulder to her father, who was sitting on my other side. An uneasy tension built inside me. I suspected that she wasn’t telling me how she truly felt, but rather saying what her father wanted to hear.

“Let me rephrase that.” I took a beat and thought about my words. “If you go to the gym and you enjoy it and you have fun and you feel good BUT you don’t lose weight, will you still want to go to the gym?”

She looked at me then, her hazel eyes making contact with my green ones. Her energy flowed through the connection and her words tumbled out in a rush, as if she couldn’t stop them. “No! I mean, that’s the whole point. I want to lose weight. If I’m not losing weight then there’s no point.”

I looked at her parents then and spoke plainly. “That’s what concerns me.”

She was only 13.

Exercise is often used as a tool to control our body weight and shape. But using exercise in this way is a mistake, because it’s focusing on the negative (“I dislike my body and want to change it”) instead of the positive (“Exercise makes me feel good and is a way I show respect to my body”).

Exercise is an extremely powerful health tool, there’s no doubt about it. Regular physical activity has been shown to significantly reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, providing a natural and effective way to boost mental health. Getting active also releases endorphins, which enhance mood and create a sense of wellbeing. Additionally, exercise can improve sleep quality, increase energy levels, and reduce stress by lowering cortisol levels. All of this contributes to overall emotional stability and resilience, making exercise a powerful tool for maintaining a balanced and healthy mind.

So why are we only exercising for weight loss?

When the focus is the number on the scale, and that number doesn’t shift, or doesn’t shift enough (spoiler alert: it’s never enough), we give up. I’ve seen it over and over and over again. If the focus is on weight, it’s like our clients get their blinders on. They can’t see all the great health benefits they’re making if the number isn’t moving downwards and, just like the young lady who kept looking at her dad, they think it’s all for nothing.

On top of that, using exercise to change your body because you dislike yourself is trying to hate yourself healthy. It just doesn’t work. Negative self-perception and self-criticism undermine the very foundation of wellness. When you engage in self-loathing, you are more likely to adopt punitive and unsustainable practices driven by guilt and shame. This mindset can be toxic, feeding cycles of extreme dieting, overexertion, and burnout. And, as I’ve written about before, puts the body in such a stressed state that weight gain is more likely.

Using exercise to change your body because you dislike yourself is trying to hate yourself healthy. It just doesn’t work. Negative self-perception and self-criticism undermine the very foundation of wellness.

So how do we exercise for the right reasons, and find joy and happiness in moving our bodies?

First, we set goals unrelated to weight. I often ask my clients why they want to lose weight and I keep asking why until we get to a reason we can turn into a positive goal (I have a free training on how to do this here). Whether it’s to reduce stress or to keep up with their kids, that’s a goal we can work towards that won’t have them giving up after a few weeks.

Then we try things out to find what they truly enjoy! Our diet-centric society means we often think we need to go to the gym, but not everyone is a gym bunny. Yoga, hiking, dancing, team sport – the best exercise you can do is one that you like, because then you’ll stick with it. It takes courage to try out different things, and a buddy to try them with can be worth their weight in gold.

And we can’t forget the power of incidental activity! This is all the movement in our day that isn’t planned exercise. It’s walking from the car into work, it’s playing with our kids, it’s hanging out the washing and vacuuming the house. These little things add up! Doing calf raises while brushing your teeth, walking around when talking on the phone, walking around the sports fields instead of standing still to watch kids play sport – there are many little things we can do for an extra boost of activity.

As for the 13-year-old who was desperate to lose weight and gain her father’s approval, it turned out she wanted to play netball with her friends. And I strongly recommended that her parents work on their relationship with food and exercise themselves, before their daughter went any further down the diet culture trap.