Thread: FIt2-Fat-2Fit

Have you all heard about this Guy?

I spent a good portion of yesterday reading about him.
Its crazy!

I think its great that he's doing it to get a better understanding of what overweight people go through mentally, physically and emotionally.

He's coming up on the end of his Fit-Fat stage, and will start the Fat-Fit trip next month.

Just goes to show how important nutrition is!

I feel about his endeavor kind of like this blogger does. I know in his mind he is doing something good to help himself better understand his clients but I do think he is missing the point
Personal Trainer Misses the Point « Dances With Fat

I can see where you and the blogger are coming from. But like you said, I think in his mind he thinks he's helping. And if nothing else, HE will gain a better understanding. Not to say he will "get it" completely, none of us gets it completely for anyone else other than ourselves. I think much more of his understanding will come in the next phase of trying to get it back off. That's where it will be most relevant to his job. Its going to be harder than he thinks it will be.

Being in the fitness fashion industry, Ive had the ideal of a rock hard body thrown in my face on a daily basis. Not only do we cater to the Top athletes in the world, its the fashion industry besides.

Myself, I was 127 pounds sopping wet until I met my now ex-husband. When we met, I started eating the things he did, and ate the average foods marketed to people. I went up to 200 pounds.
Its been struggle to get it off (granted I ended up having some medical issues that were not related to weight thrown in there). Im back down to 155. And the last 20 pounds have recently come off just by focusing on what Ive been eating. I had to get really strict with it, but it worked for ME. (and in the past year I went from 145, back to 175 and now back to 155 just from food)

So I think that he can relate to SOME people, and others not, but that's always how it is... lol

At least he's trying. There's many more trainers out there who wouldn't even have the guts to attempt it because they are too vain and full of themselves to attempt to learn.

Yeah, I give this guy credit for trying, but I also feel like he's missing the point. It's painful for me to read his site sometimes - as if every fat person doesn't watch what they eat or exercise.

I know lots of "fat" people who are very active and disciplined about their diet. Metabolism, medical conditions, genetics all play into how easily one can gain and lose weight. As someone who has always been thin and into fitness, he'll lose weight easily so it won't give him much insight into what people go through to lose weight.

(I hope Fencai is right and it won't be so easy.)

The idea isn't original

Originally Posted by Fencai

I can see where you and the blogger are coming from. But like you said, I think in his mind he thinks he's helping. And if nothing else, HE will gain a better understanding. Not to say he will "get it" completely, none of us gets it completely for anyone else other than ourselves. I think much more of his understanding will come in the next phase of trying to get it back off. That's where it will be most relevant to his job. Its going to be harder than he thinks it will be.

I think this is a good thing as I have seen far too many personal trainers with no understanding of what it is like to start a nutrition and exercise program from a low starting point.

I went on a fit to fat then fat to "not so fat" but all unintentionally over a period of years since 2002. So the short story is I did a 12 week Body for Life challenge in 2002. A month after I finished I was downsized at my company due to Dot Boom and shelved workout out while trying to find work.

When I finally found permanent work again after 2 years I had many, many false starts to get back into a regular exercise routine. It was mainly because I was going in with all this experience in my head but not respecting the fact that my body had not acclimatised to resistance training. Noticing overtraining was very difficult for me to do. I would only realise a day or 2 after training that I overdid it.

It wasn't until 2009 I left my ego at the door and did baby weights for a week or 2 to ease myself in that I was then able to keep a routine and use the type of weights I use to lift.

I see a lot of personal trainers who still don't get this because they have long forgotten what it is like to start from scratch.

For me I realised the reason why I was able to complete the 12 week challenge was because I started out lifting at home with limited equipment that prevented me from overdoing it.

If I was to give this guy some advice, it would be to fix the inner health first with detox, massage and some cardio to get the heart pumping again. Then ease into weights to let the body acclimatise, don't do sets to failure. Respect the fact that the body isn't use to the physical stress of lifting.

Originally Posted by Azraa

I feel about his endeavor kind of like this blogger does. I know in his mind he is doing something good to help himself better understand his clients but I do think he is missing the point
Personal Trainer Misses the Point « Dances With Fat

Thanks so much for the link to this blog. I'm now reading all her back posts!

This guy makes me nuts. Do you know how they find people to feature on many infomercials for fitness stuff? They find people who were superfit and then injured so they had to stop exercising for many months. Then they use the equipment and magically drop the weight quickly, voila!

I think this guy is teaching himself a lesson that is false. "Look," he says, "all I have to do is eat healthy and exercise and the weight is gone!" Well, no. I, and many of the people I met on Weight Watchers, ate healthy and exercised and lost weight... and the moment we stopped monitoring the exact quantity of everything we put in our mouths, the weight came back. For us it is an long-running struggle, stressful and depressing. HIS stressful and depressing part is putting the weight ON.

Originally Posted by phillyraqs

I know lots of "fat" people who are very active and disciplined about their diet. Metabolism, medical conditions, genetics all play into how easily one can gain and lose weight.

I think the point Drew Manning is missing as well is that for some people the weight gain is a manifestation of other issues that might be affecting a person. Even if it is just as simple as putting someone on diet and exercise program, if the original cause of the weight gain, some kind of emotional trigger, isn't addressed then any progress made will be lost over time from a relapse. Any kind of change on the outside needs to start from within for that change to stick.

There are a small percentage of people with a predisposition to gain weight. I do know of one lady who is the wife of a bodybuilder. Even with all the support and knowledge from the husband she still couldn't lose the weight.

I have no idea if the "Dances with Fat" person, Ragen Chastain, really does have bad genetics and is really on a good diet and exercise program. She hasn't listed anywhere on her site what her diet and exercise routine is. She is asking people to take it on blind faith that she really is living a healthy lifestyle. I've learnt you can't help people who don't want to be helped and it seems very clear reading some of her posts that she has no intention of attempting to lose the weight.

As far as finding a trainer who "gets it", that isn't easy. I don't know about any other places but in Sydney it is scary how easy it is to start working as a Personal Trainer and how little they even know about bodyshaping. Worst offenders are ex athletes who have never had weight problems in their lives trying to work with people who do. They just don't get it.

One of the few trainers I would have confidence in sending people to is a new trainer at my gym, Lynne. She would easily relate to other people struggling with weight issues because she use to be 100kgs working an office job previously.

http://www.kickstartpt.com.au

Still looking around for a male equivalent to Lynne in Sydney. Only person that comes to mind is an ex contestant from the Biggest Loser but he is based in Perth I think.

I agree with the blogger that this trainer's approach is similar to putting on blackface and then behaving in a way he imagines a black person would in the hopes that it will give him insight into what it is like to be black. This guy's action has nothing to do with helping or educating himself about other people. It's a publicity stunt that draws on negative stereotypes and reinforces the prejudice that fat people are a result of laziness and bad habits. His goal is to say look! I can go from hunk to fat slob and back in no time, proving it is merely a matter of will, and therefore you have no excuse for being a fat slob! Perhaps he will experience some of the prejudice that fat people are often subjected to, but as he is starting out from the point of view of the prejudiced person to begin with, I don't believe it will teach him empathy for the individual whose body issues are rooted in personal history and psychology and have very little to do with eating and exercise habits. I used to be very fat and thought that being thin would take away my problems. Then I lost 130 lbs and discovered that the fat not only wasn't the real problem, it had been in some ways a solution to a lot of other problems. Being thin ended up bringing a whole new set of problems to light. Over the years I have struggled to deal with these other problems and my weight has become a secondary issue. If anything it is an indicator of my progress in other areas of my life. This is the kind of nuanced relationship genuine people have with their bodies. To my mind the only positive outcome of this guy's experiment would be that his lackadaisical treatment of his own body as if it were a machine will change his baseline metabolism, forcing him to deal with new issues that he had previously been blissfully unaware of; perhaps he will then be able to see over his own bloated ego and actually develop through experience a true sense of empathy for people who will never look like plastic action figures.

I think the point many fat activists are trying to make is that if they are reasonably healthy and active and can do everything they need to do in their lives, like walk up stairs and lift things and so on, then the fact that they are fat should be nobody's business but theirs. While it's got to be true that only a small percentage of people are predisposed to be fat - far fewer people were fat 40 years ago - the kinds of diets and lifestyles we have today do not make it easy for us to be thin, if we are predisposed, as many of us are, to hold on to our calorie gains. The global obsession with thinness as a sign of virtue and moral character leads to a lot of yoyo dieting and that screws with people's metabolisms, permanently. As an old friend of mine who was bulimic AND anorexic for many years told me once, "I can eat nothing now and still remain normal weight."

I like skinny, even though I am not skinny. But I don't think it is a failing if a person is fat. I'm fat. I don't eat as well as I could and I don't exercise daily. I am, however, a hell of a lot thinner than plenty of people who DO eat well and exercise daily, so who is the "good" one?

As for the price of diseases associated with obesity: I have a friend who is very lean, through a combination of genetic good fortune and not eating very much. He smokes like a train and drinks like a fish. He also keeps a very close eye on his health and, startlingly, despite his heinous lifestyle his heart is fine and his liver OK. However, should heart disease, liver failure or lung cancer kick in eventually, as they are quite likely to, that guy has paid a great deal of money over the years in taxes on his cigarettes and wine. That money pays for healthcare for all of us. So, you know, is this unhealthy-living person really a drain on society?

Food is taxed at 15 per cent already; I wouldn't oppose a higher tax on food that is made of crap, so that it costs people more to eat burgers and deep-fried lard topped with corn syrup than it does to eat food made of food. Right now it is the other way around.

But if people are fat that doesn't make them evil and I get tired of the constant implication that fat people are innately bad.