So, I met w/ a trainer at my gym on Saturday, and he was VERY unsupportive of low carb ("Atkins is horrible, I can't believe people still do it, ketosis is NOT the way to go") and Body for Life ("Just a marketing gimmic geared at people who want to believe they can roll out of bed and spend 20 minutes in the gym and transform their bodies.")

He wants me to start at 40 minutes cardio 3x / week at 60-70% intensity ("This is where you will burn most fat") and says even athletes only do one anaerobic workout/week... He thinks I should do body circuits emphasizing full body conditioning (push ups, etc) 3 x/ week vs. working out isolated muscles ("When in life do you lie on your back and try to move 150 lbs of stuff with your legs?). He thinks 20 reps per body part is best, and that pyramid sets are for serious body builders only ("Do you really want to build lean body mass when your baseline is already 130 lbs?"). He thinks I should be doing flexibility/balance work (yoga, pilates) 3x/week... and basically, that I am not spending enough time in the gym. He thinks I should be eating more veggies ("unlimited amounts") and less fat/protein.

Should I go on?

I just feel so discouraged that this "expert" completely trashed everything I have been doing these past 3 weeks The fact that the scale is back up a few pounds isn't helping... but I have decided I will complete Challenge 1 (I can't NOT finish what I start, and am enjoying it in any case), and go back to see him at the end of it to remeasure my body fat and discuss my results. Depending on how happy I am w/ my results, I will work out a different plan w/ him for the following 12 weeks, and get some comparative results...

Anyway. Not sure why I am writing. Just to vent, I guess.

Babs

Hi Babette,

Yaaaargh!

This guy really cheeses me off! First of all, a personal trainer works for YOU! He's free to spout off whatever nonsense he likes about LBM, but that doesn't mean you have to listen to him!

Um yes, I do. LBM is metabolically active. It burns calories just by existing (35-50 calories per pound, per day). Not only that, but a pound of muscle is about the size of a tennis ball and a pound of fat is the size of a grapefruit. I've also seen the statistic that muscle is 22% smaller than fat. If you added 10 lbs of muscle to your 130 LBM and carried 20lbs of fat (making you 160) you'd be the same size as someone who weighed 124 without much muscle (160X.78). Your trainer is trying to scare you off from weight lifting because of SCALE WEIGHT!??! It seems more likely that maybe that's not his area of expertise.


He's right that cardio is better than weight-lifting at burning fat during the workout but muscle burns fat 24/7, while cardio burns fat only during the workout and for a short time thereafter. Even "athletes" only do one anaerobic workout/week? Well, I'm glad that there's only one type of "athlete" in the world, with one kind of fitness goal. It's good to know that body-builders, jockeys, gymnasts, swimmers, sprinters, wrestlers, and sumo-wrestlers can all do exactly the same type of workout to reach their peak performance.

He thinks you should be doing balance and flexibility training? Does that suit your fitness goals? Or is fat-burning your primary goal right now? Ketosis is muscle-sparing, meaning that as you lose weight, it will come primarily from fat rather than muscle. That's why professional body-builders use a ketogenic diet!

"Experts" can be wrong. Just look at the great low-fat experiment that's still being performed on America's population. 65% of the country is overweight or obese, yet the "experts" still natter on about reducing dietary fat intake. The Atkins Diet has been proven better than the American Heart Association Diet at reducing cholesterol, blood-pressure, and triglycerides, yet the experts still push low-fat. How could the optimum human diet be something you couldn't obtain if you were away from civilization, alone in the woods with just your own body as a resource?If you were in that situation, you could eat raw meat, seeds, nuts, berries, leafy green vegetables and the occasional raw, root vegetable (raw potatoes are poisonous in large enough quantities).

The best exercise is the one you will do. It looks like this guy wants you to live in the gym. Do you have time for that? It sounds like you're very happy with BFL and I think you're wise to keep up with the challenge and check your results at the end.

I'm sorry to have so much attitude in this post. It was directed at your trainer and not at you. It seems the guy isn't very interested in listening to you and is very interested in spouting the party line. It's interesting that he calls BFL a marketing gimmick since Bill Phillips donates all profits from sales of the book (and the video) to The Make a Wish foundation. There are lots of BFL support groups online with lots of transformation photos. Take a look at some of those and see what you think.

Good Luck,
Dig

P.S. Here's a good, quick article, going over the benefits of strength training.

Dig,

Thank you for your response. That guy really cheesed me off too! We'll show him...! I wish I had been able to rebutt him the way you did in your post... I guess revenge will be the best reward Too bad, because I thought he was kinda cute before he opened his mouth

Don't even get me started on his theory about how the body and mind want to remain in homeostasis and I should do my best to stay on an even keel, physically and emotionally... to which I believe I looked at him like he was from Mars and bit my lip to stop from screaming "What about love! Passion! Empathy! Grief! Challenge! Learning!" He must sound awfully Californian to some of y'all I imagine he lives a virtuous, balanced, and utterly boring life.

I do think flexibility & balance are important, and already do yoga & pilates a couple times a week and stretch before/after working out. I don't want to live in the gym, and feel like I get a lot out of my high intensity workouts, though my level of commitment had varied a lot over the past 3 weeks, more on the food than anything else... but now I find myself loooking forward to those workouts and hitting those 10s So that is what I will keep doing and he can just kiss my (hopefully) shrinking heiny if he doesn't like it.


Babs

ps- I forgot to say, he does advocate following the Shwarzbein principle, which I know virtually nothing about and will be doing some research on -- I already eat mainly "whole foods" and I think that is its focus.

Hi, babette: Honestly, there's been a little of that attitude at the gym where I go, but thankfully only a little. I've NOT hired any of the personal trainers there because I see/hear the attitude towards certain programs like BFL and know that to have to PAY them AND listen to it...well, what a waste of money!

One of the supervisors there told me one day, "It takes WAY more than nutrition and working out to get THAT kind of physique. Bill Phillips and his brother were and are both steriod users. No one can realistically---especially women---get there without 'help.'" Yeah. Right. Okay.

It's too bad you wasted your time with this guy. Nothing like an "expert" who tears you down every day you pay him to help!

Glad you're feeling better about things.

Ella