Reframing Weight Loss for Wheelchair Users
April 25, 2025 Seth McBride
I’d like to start this conversation about weight loss with a simple suggestion: Let’s stop talking about weight loss. For one, weight loss is a loaded term and almost guaranteed to spark fights over diet versus exercise, what type of diet works best, what types of exercises burn more calories, and on and on. Add in disability, and there’s a whole other layer of variables to argue about.
It’s exhausting. And not in the “I just had a good workout and now feel tired and content” kind of way, but in the “good lord, we have countless experts trying to find the best ways to lose weight and it’s still so damn hard, what’s the point, I just want some French fries” kind of way.
Instead of jumping into that debate, let’s roll back and look at the bigger picture. Usually, when people want to lose weight, the weight itself isn’t the primary motivating factor. Do you really care about the number? Or would you like to have more energy, make it easier to transfer and navigate your world, and worry less about secondary health issues? If you want to transform your body, try focusing on what you are gaining, not what you’re trying to lose.
As Ellen Stohl wrote about her own weight-loss journey in New Mobility 15 years ago: “I rolled away with something much more important than the svelte figure I’d been hoping for in the first place: In the vain effort to simply look better, I learned how to live better.”
Health and wellness journeys are different for everyone. I’ll be sharing some of my own insights from 25 years as a wheelchair user with a C7 spinal cord injury, but yours may be different. Please share your stories of what has and hasn’t worked for you.
Start with Activity
Illustration by Doug Davis
When I was a freshman in college, I weighed around 165 pounds and had a significant quad belly. I was heavier, and doughier, than I needed to be. But what really annoyed me was that I wasn’t strong enough to do a lot of the things I wanted to do — like push around a hilly campus without exhausting myself or do a floor-to-chair transfer. I started working out with the goal of getting stronger, not losing weight. But a funny thing happened. As I got stronger, I also started to lose weight. After a few years, rather than restricting my diet to keep weight off, nutrition became a means of keeping muscle on.
In 2018, I wrote a deep dive into metabolism for wheelchair users. Fortunately, that article still holds up to current research, and if you want a better idea of how paralysis and varying levels of function affect how much energy you burn throughout the day, it’s worth a read. But the main point is that while wheelchair users typically burn fewer calories on inactive days than nondisabled people do, on active days wheelchair users typically burn just as many calories as our nondisabled counterparts. Elizabeth Broad, a sports dietician who works with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams, summed up the paradox nicely: “The higher the level of your spinal cord lesion, the more important it is for you to maintain a regular activity level.”
Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to turn into a gym bro. (Or gym bra? Gym betty? What’s the preferred term for women who like to get shredded?) For some, doing simple workouts at home is a more accessible option than going to the gym. For others, having positive peer pressure is important. I personally shudder at the thought of having people cheer me on as I crank out some reps, but there’s a reason CrossFit is a thing, and gyms are often willing and able to adapt their classes to wheelchair users’ needs. If you’re one of those people who likes people, group fitness classes like Zumba provide fun and motivation that solo workouts never will.
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