mystery client.

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
21

Nick: first of all, hats off to you for taking the heat so gracefully; I was a tad nasty, but you are obviously a stand-up guy. Now, with regard to your client’s lack of results, I would simply say this: if the ‘why’ is important enough, the ‘how’ will take care of itself. You can prescribe the ideal program and diet til you’re blue in the face, if she doesn’t have the necessary degree of discomfort with her present condition, she probably won’t make the changes you and she are looking for. I know you are getting paid for this, and she is paying, but still, you at least are on this site scrambling around for answers, but it’s her body…what is she doing? I suspect that her transformation means as much or more to you than it does to her…of course I could be completely off base. Making a dramatic change though, whether it be getting stronger, bigger, leaner, what have you, is always more a function of intangables than program variables. Ed Coan being one of the strongest men in the world using what most of us here would classify as a dreadful program comes to mind…so does schwartzennegger and his old routines.

My point, if you’ve followed me, is that she needs to be completely into this, and perhaps she’d ought to be the one searching for answers…you can lead a horse to water, etc… I propose that her falling short is not a function of your prescriptions, but her attitude and application. In any event, best of luck with everything!

22

good advice from Phil and Newdamage as usual, however…

“When current calories are already at a number that is at least near maintanance?”

If she is taking in a “maintenance” level of cals this could be another problem as well.

Sabrina - I appreciate your view, I personally think most personal trainers are a joke, and most should be beaten with a rolled up copy of T-mag.

But we T-people are the exception to the rule, we are freaks of nature! We love this lifestyle and do it for fun, that is way beyond the scope of the average person.

The general population has absolutley no idea what it takes to get the results that we get, we are just “lucky” or “were all on steroids”.

when one of the uninformed makes a venture to find out, and is presented with the truth they say “uh… uh… I cant do that” and get scared back to dexitrim land.

you must coax these people to come over to the “dark side” of the gym like a skittish little animal into the land of snarling T-beasts.

23

?One thing i did totally stuff up on here guys. Her soup at lunch contains a meat ie. chicken.?

-Well, okay, you were pretty adamant in your original post that it was just veg and water, but okay.

?Now Sabrina I have been reading this website for quite a long time, and have been in this game for even longer. All the knowledge is great, i read and re-read these articles nearly everyday?

-Now Nick, since this is the case, surely you should be able to answer your own question.

“I know there are more actions to take, but i would have thought that surely this would be strict enought to see body fat drop off nicely.”
?Now that comment is where my ??? come in. I know it’s not perfect diet, but I would have thougt the changes from where she was to where she is now would have made a significant change in body comp?

-As an avid t-mag reader and ultra experienced PT surely you know that without adequate nutrition the body will go into starvation mode and try to retain fat rather than utilize it. You must also know that there is more to increasing metabolism than simply eating 5-6 times/day. In order to build additional LBM (that?s lean body mass) the body must have adequate nutrient intake, particularly protein intake, so no, without enough protein and overall calories you will not see significant changes in body comp.

?As far as food logs, not everyday, but ill ask for maybe one weekday and a weekend (people changing their diet on weekend in social suroundings is typical). It seems pretty consistent. ?

-Kinetix offered you some excellent advice, did you read his post? If she is not keeping a DAILY food log, neither you, nor she has any idea if her diet is consistent or not. What exactly do you think you are going to accomplish by keeping a food log two days per week.

?Do you increase protein intake and a bit of everything else (fats) at the expense of adding those calories onto what is already being taken in? When current calories are already at a number that is at least near maintanance?? (I did this when she started and initially she put weight on, subsequently she came back to her starting weight once her body adjusted.)?

-Phill, NewDamage, Ramo, Jago 25 98, myself, Phill again, Vroom, NewDamage again, and Kinetix have all answered this question. YES! Several of the afore mentioned have even been kind enough to even prepare a sample daily meal plan for you. Increasing overall caloric intake means adding to what is currently being taken in.

?People are not robots, you can’t just punch in some numbers and wait for perfect results, you are dealing with humans who want to enjoy their diet, they want to go out on the weekend and have a drink with freinds, sit down to their fav movie and enjoy an unhealthy meal.

-No people are not robots and you can?t just punch numbers in and wait. You punch numbers in, plan, keep a food log, train, then test body fat percentages and see if desired changes are taking place. If not, you refer to food log and training protocol and make changes accordingly. As far as enjoying the occasional unhealthy meal, your ?mystery client? would likely benefit tremendously from doing this from time to time. But I bet you know already know that from reading t-mag.

“The whole “personal training” thing is one big game of balance and compremise. You want to give someone just enough change to work for them.”

-Well if you really believe this you are obviously not doing your job very well. You said yourself, ?I know there are more actions to take?, you have been training her for three months, your questions have been answered so what are you waiting for?

?do you know how much of this stuff is applicable to the average person???

-to the average person who has made a commitment to change and hired someone to provide them with the information necessary to change? All of it.

?I would say 75% of (diet stuff)it never gets a look in the door with my clients?

-I would say 100% of it never get a look in the door with your clients.

?And have a jovial go at body for life if you will, i know i am guilty of it myself from time to time.?

-I not having a ?jovial go at it?, I was completely serious. She would have been better off with Body for Life.

24

I hate to break it to some of the T-folk out there, but sometimes there’s more to it than diet and exercise. On rare occasions, there are other problems. If it really isn’t working you might try some other things, if she can afford them. My off-the-wall suggestions are:

  1. Check her hormones for estrogen and T levels, as well as thyroid
  2. Check her vitamin D levels, 25(OH)-D
  3. See that she’s getting enough calcium
  4. Get her out in the sun; if she doesn’t tan well, add some l-tyrosine to her diet.

For an office worker, some UV exposure can have a significant effect on metabolism. Melanin Stimulating Hormone and its precursor, l-tyrosine have a well documented positive effect on metabolism of fats. UV is fine as long as you adapt slowly and avoid burning.

25

Nick, I agree with those who say she needs more protein.

I also agree with you that after 3 months of increasing her calories and eating what you described, you would expect to see some improvement.

A daily food log at this point is a MUST. She should also record the times she eats her meals. I have, in the past, neglected my meals early in the day and then crammed them closer together in the evening. Just reversing the timing, without changing anything else, I started to lose fat.

However, there are other, less common, possibilities. I don’t know how long she was surviving on even fewer calories than this, but perhaps she had/has a serious eating disorder. Some anorexics eat just enough to survive and get by for many years, massively messing up the metabolism. If she has had an eating disorder like this for 10 or 15 years, it may take more than 3 months to see improvement.

Another thing to look at is any drug use, prescription or OTC. Maybe she hasn’t told you she’s on Prozac or lithium. That would make a difference!

26

Ramo-
I agree with everything you said, however, my point is that in order for the horse to drink, it must actually be led to the water in the first place. At that point it is up to the horse, but if a horse were to hire a guide to lead them to said water and instead were led to dry creek bed, the horse would have not even have the option to drink…He said this is the diet he put her on to increase her metabolism and that she is following it consistently so why assume that she would not follow minor suggestion such as “eat more protein”

K-train-
I also agree with your assesment of most PT’s. But I think that the good ones, few and far between though they may be can be invaluable to the uninformed as they take that first venture out. I think that a good trainer can be the difference between someone accepting the truth and crawling back to dexatrim land.

Plus, no-one has suggested anything compicated or extreme. Just that she eat a little more and write it down.

27

Sabrina: Wow!

28

I would suggest that getting that blood work is very imp’t to find out if its something more serious than “not enough protein”.

1 suggestion I would make is: have her do HIIT training for cardio.

If by skipping you mean jumping rope, then I would sugest having her do it interval style. Coach Davies, Matt Furey and others have recommended 3 minutes on, 1 minute off for at least 3 rounds.
Jumping rope is a fantastic exercise!

If she’s doing cardio on a machine, the Tabata protocols are fine. That’s 20 seconds Hi, 10 seconds lo, for a certain # of sets, with a warm up and cool down.

If you feel that may be too hard on her at first, alternate it with five minutes of warm-up, five minutes of steady state at about 85% of heart rate maximum, and a five minutes cool-down.

This is recommended by Dr. Winett, who pubishes Master Trainer, which is for older lifters. He’s found that Tabata may interfere with weight recovery in older or out-of-shape lifters.

29

Agree with everything Sabrina said. I love these types of posts. I’m a personal trainer, I read the magazine all the time, and I know what I’m doing even though I’m not implementing much of the knowledge given on this site but I’m going to go on here and ask questions and then be defensive and not take the advice given to me. And by the way, my client is now making no progress. She’s not losing fat for some strange reason even though she is probably way below maintenance calories but I’m not sure becuase we don’t keep a daily food log, so I wonder why she’s not losing fat. Maybe because her metabolism is a wreck becasue she is way below maintenance calories! I’ve been also getting paid the last 3 months for her results. Are you kidding me???

30

I agree with K-train you must slowly get the average person to become a T-man or women. If this women is 30 years old and has never really been in to health and fitness let alone hardcore training and deting its going to take longer then just 3 months for her to become a T-women. And I think Nick is taking the correct steps in that direction and from the sound of it she has already made big changes. Now Sabrina yes take the horse to the water but dont get the horse in a headlock and try drag it and stuff its head in the water.

31

but I’m not sure becuase we don’t keep a daily food log
-That’s a huge omission. You should know better!

so I wonder why she’s not losing fat. Maybe because her metabolism is a wreck becasue she is way below maintenance calories!

-Probably. So do something about it!

Best of luck to her

32

keep her protein intake high, try to get her to have at least 50g of protein by lunch. Increase her fiber intake and make sure she ups the fish oil intake also. She could stand to eat salads or veggies with every meal, she can eat till she’s full with protein and greens and willl probably be hungry in 3 hrs or so. As for workouts… HIIT is good and some people have already recommended good programs. Have her maybe do some Lactic Acid producing weight workouts like Charles Poliquin recommends or some of the other guys and modify the exercises to suit her needs. Also make sure she gets her daily multi-vitamin for anything she might be missing. It would help to also know where she is holding her body fat, this can tell you about her hormonal profile sometimes and it’ll allow you to further modify her food and workouts to see results… Good Luck.

laquino1

33

Thanks K-train, you make some great points in your post.

Thanks for the feedback Ramo and everyone else, much appreciated.
I completely understand your line of thought in your post.
I think she is determined enough, i think anyone is determined
enough as long as there is evidence that what they are doing is is having a positive effect.

Now the issue is, transforming her body to call on more food and to then use it as fuel takes a while.
And the hard part is (at times) she is still struggling with the overall amount of food intake that she is
currently at.
And when I originally increased food cunsumption (overall cals) she put on a few kilos.
So to see that for herself is not positive reinforcement that the extra food (especially protein) is working for her.

So to then increase again, means the quite real possibility of putting on a bit more weight.
Which when having a client is a big risk, if they dont see positive changes they then lose motivation, and can go downhill quite quickly from there.

Thanks Yorik and Sonny S for also responding.

Yes by skipping i mean jump rope, i am a bit stuck for doing much else.

Yorik i must address that yes she is pale skinned, but unfortunately it is near winter here and havn’t seen the sun out for a while.

  1. Check her hormones for estrogen and T levels, as well as thyroid
  2. Check her vitamin D levels, 25(OH)-D
  3. See that she’s getting enough calcium
  4. Get her out in the sun; if she doesn’t tan well, add some l-tyrosine to her diet.

Yorik, I will look further into these changes. Thanks for your opinion, great to hear some, as you called it “off the wall” suggestions. how expensive is the l-tyrosine ??

Sonny- yes she is doing interval stuff for skipping, but no machines are accessable at this point, i am trainging her at home.

To address the food log issue, the main reason i don’t get everyday written is simply because weekdays are pretty much always the same routine, but i should have been more dilligent there, good point guys.

Andersons- thanks for feedback. Yes i ask about all previous health issues and she didn’t express any, but i will ask again to be sure.

Thanks Laquino, i didn’t consider where she holds the fat, will look into that further too, thanks.

Sabrina- thanks for your responses.

-Now Nick, since this is the case, surely you should be able to answer your own question.

Well Sabrina, in 1 way, yes i can answer my own question, you are correct. I have never posted on this forum and more than anything just wanted to post something, in the process probably making myself sound a little neglectful and indiscernible. Or maybe just a bit ignorant.

I was interested to see what different suggestions were out there with guys i know have alot more intelligence than the average person.

-I would say 100% of it never get a look in the door with your clients.

All i can say to a comment like that is, i know my own clients, and the advice i give them, and that is simply a false accusation on your behalf. And if this was the case that 100% was not passed on, then doing the math would bring to light the fact that berardi type detail is not needed for the average person to drop fat and gain some muscle, since results are acheived with no advice from t-mag.

I can understand you questioning my knowledge, the way i expressed my first post was a bit negligent.
But why you are so insistent on calling bullshit on the fact that i read the same articles that you so proudly read is unnessacaruy.

What if TC and the gang wrote a new article stating the fact that some of the articles they had published were outright wrong???
You would feel a little silly, because you trusted these guys to the point where what they said was gospel and you rammed it into other people in a crude and what seems to me unnesacary manner.
People certainly won’t respond well to rude and aggressive feedback, im sure people would be more open to hearing your points of view if done in a more friendly way.

I am assuming that your breadth of knowledge comes pretty much all from T-mag ?? (correct me if wrong). IF so than following that path I would have a similar amount of knowledge, since i do read these same articles. I think thers no better place that i have found to do so than here, but nonetheless i always keep an open mind on all that i see and hear. And there is no better way than practical experience, seeing first hand how people react to the change of stimulus given. And i must say most can lose signicant amounts of body fat without really high amounts of protein, flax/fish oil etc etc.

Now I was very happy when i stumbled across t-mag, its the best thing i have come across along with brian haycocks HST and a few other small websites. I think they have the best writers here and love all the information provided.

But understand, training people for yourself, you realise that training average everyday people is worlds apart from articles written here. I must congratulate you on such great dedication in your own journey, as it sounds like you have a strong will and apply all you know to your own body, and im sure you have a picturesque glistening body to show for all you have learnt and applied.

You are few and far between. As it sounds adding a little more protein and writing everything you eat down on paper is no fuss for you, but not so for many of the average citizens.

Lastly thanks for all responses, i think i needed a kick up the bum just to make me realise that i do need to step it up. Some suggestions, i did think about previous, some i had no idea about. I will impliment what has been said, but still i am still a bit surprised that the original changes i made didn’t yield more results, as they would have with most.

One more thing, everyone always bashes on P.T’s for not knowing there stuff, I do it all the time. But I dont think they are any more inadequete in this industry than that of carpenters or accountants in theres. You get crappy service, instruction, advice in all fields. But of course that doesn’t make it excusable or right.

Thanks again for all the great advice, i will keep you updated on how she goes with her program.

34

The l-tyrosine is actually fairly cheap so it shouldn’t be a problem. Tyrosine is a precursor to melanin, and hence without tyrosine you won’t tan. It’s also a precursor to several neural enhancing compounds and it’s found in PowerDrive.

You can do a search on MedLine to find relevant articles on how sunlight, tanning, tyrosine, melanin stimulating hormone, vitamin D, etc. all affect metabolism. Search on various combinations of the above. That’s how I found many interesting articles, or at least their abstracts.

If it’s winter there, it’s only natural that her metabolism would be slowing down.

35

Sabrina, hope you have a hot body to back up that smart mouth of yours. Did you ever get below 200 lbs? Good luck with your client, Nick.

36

“I can understand you questioning my knowledge, the way i expressed my first post was a bit negligent.”

-Perfectly understandable, Nick, as you said yourself “I have never posted on this forum and more than anything just wanted to post something”

“What if TC and the gang wrote a new article stating the fact that some of the articles they had published were outright wrong???”

-They have, on more than one occasion revised their stance on previously published items. You already know that though, because you have read all the articles.

“People certainly won’t respond well to rude and aggressive feedback, im sure people would be more open to hearing your points of view if done in a more friendly way.”

-You were given a ton of friendly feedback that you responded to with with the same moronic attitude you exhibit now.

I am assuming that your breadth of knowledge comes pretty much all from T-mag ?? (correct me if wrong).

-You’re wrong. As you are already know this website and the people on it provide a tremendous number of links to other websites, as well as recommendations to books. I am sure you have noticed the “reference” section at the end of all the articles you read. Non-fiction books have a “reference” sections too. You do of course realize that health, fitness, medicine etc., are areas of constant growth and as such are constantly changing.

“I must congratulate you on such great dedication in your own journey, as it sounds like you have a strong will and apply all you know to your own body, and im sure you have a picturesque glistening body to show for all you have learnt and applied.”

-My goal was never to have a “picturesque glistening body”. As a competent PT you are surely aware that people have different goals and that during the course of training goals can change. I have a healthy, stong body that is increasingly lean and “picturesque”, as I continue to expose myself to available information, and apply changes as needed.

37

Odin-

Yes.

I am also beginning to prepare for my first powerlifting competition.

Thanks for asking.

38

Sabrina have you recently spilled your protein drink? Something has easily pissed you off and it looks like you decided to take it out on Nick who simply posted his first question here on the forum and just wanted some frindly opinions.