I’m a novice rower in my third season. I’m one of the strongest novice rowers, but also the heaviest (female) novice. This hasn’t seemed to be a problem before, I’m very healthy and strong, but when we did weight-adjusted pieces I began to realize it was a bit of a problem. I’m 5 7 and about 178 pounds, and about 20 pounds heavier than the other girls. I’m not self conscious about my weight, although according to my BMI I am slightly over weight, and now I’m realizing I could perform better if I was slightly lighter. I’ve tried dieting before, but I’ve always felt weak and worried about my strength while working out three hours every day. Do you have any tips about losing weight healthily as rower?

First, as an athlete, don’t take your BMI too seriously. BMI can’t tell how much muscle mass you have and since muscle tends to weigh more than fat, it more often than not classifies athletes (of all kinds) as overweight or obese when they’re obviously not.

To lose weight in a healthy manner, it’s requires a fairly simple, boring combination of diet and exercise. To lose fat mass, cardio is the way to go – biking, runnng, swimming, erging, etc. 3-4x a week. To maintain your strength, do core and weight training 2x a week. The biggest change will come from your diet. Successful weight loss tends to be about 70% diet and 30% exercise. As a rower, you’ve got the exercise part covered, so your diet is where you’ll want to focus your attention. Take inventory of what you eat and then spend some time finding healthy substitutes and slowly phasing out the unhealthy stuff. Don’t try and go cold turkey on Ben & Jerry’s or whatever because that’ll just make you want it more.

The reason you were probably feeling weak before when you were dieting is because you weren’t doing it the right way. To some extent, yes, dieting is about adjusting your caloric intake, but it’s more about just making healthier overall choices. You’re young and active, so your metabolism is probably still fairly high, so you’re burning energy a lot faster than the normal person, which means you need to be eating foods that provide an adequate amount of energy for a long period of time. Don’t try and limit how much you eat..if anything, you want to increase the number of meals you eat (instead of 3 large meals, eat 5 small meals) and substitute healthier options for the not-so-healthy stuff.

Also, don’t focus too much on what the scale says. Check it periodically (like, every couple of days or once a week) but look for more noticeable changes, like your jeans fitting a little looser or changes in your measurements – tangible stuff like that is a better indication of weight loss than the scale.