Fitness Magic? Not Here.

In the 15 years that I have been a Personal Trainer, I can’t tell you how many times clients have mistaken me for a magician.  A fitness magician!   I’ve spoken to many trainers, and the one thing we can all agree on, is some of our clients think we have the power to magically make them lose weight or get in shape. They want us to wave our fitness magic wands and make them look like the people they see in magazines or on the big screen. Just say, “hocus pocus” and have them lose 30 lbs in a month right before it’s beach time.  Let me just say, we can only do so much.   As trainers we dedicate our lives to helping our clients meet their health and fitness goals, but if you are not willing to commit to the program, how can we help you?  You as a trainee must help yourself and remain dedicated to the plan we lay before you.  I am here to guide you; you must do the work!

A perfect example of this is with the clients I see once a week. In the beginning, this might be enough to get them off the couch, but it takes self control on their end to make health conscious choices the other six days of the week.  Either this means they will have to train with me more frequently or get motivated to do more on their own in between sessions. For those who choose to workout on their own between our scheduled sessions, it’s important to actually do it!  What If you went to work one day a week, what kind of paycheck would you have at the end of the month? It’s sure not enough to pay the bills. Basically, you get out of it what you put into it and that’s just the exercise portion.  Let’s talk about the eating aspect.

I don’t know how many times I get people killing themselves in the gym, just to go home and negate everything they just did with poor food choices. Diet and exercise go hand and hand and our diet is about 75% of losing weight and being healthy. Most people lack structure. They eat foods and don’t know why they eat them, when to eat them, or how much to eat. Most diets work in the short term because they give you structure, but not all of them are healthy. That’s the reason why I hate using the word “diet”. I like to replace the word diet with “healthy eating”. Diets sometimes eliminate essential nutrients that your body needs. For instance, the ‘no fat’ diet. We need fat for healthy hormone production and support cell growth. Then there is the ‘no protein’ diet. We need protein to build and repair muscle and bones. And of course there’s the ‘no carb’ diet. We need carbs because it’s our bodies number one source of fuel. Without it, our bodies would use protein from our muscle mass, basically causing the body to eat itself! So don’t follow these faddish, quick fix diets that will soon be discredited and give way to yet another new unhealthy fad diet. Small, achievable lifestyle changes are the key to your success.

Another helpful tip: Stop looking at those airbrushed and photoshopped celebrities in magazines!  When I hear clients mentioning they want to look like a certain celebrity or model, I tell them not to believe the smoke and mirrors.  You would be shocked to see they are the same as you, struggling with perfecting their appearance.  The most important thing to remember is to just be the best YOU, you can be!

Article submitted by Guy Cragwell, Certified Personal Trainer @MV Fitness and @FH Fitness