I’ve dealt with my fair share of personal trainers, and some of them are very very good! Some of them are trustworthy, friendly and genuinely want to help you, then there are the others! There is a group of personal Trainers that just seem to chat complete crap and spread complete lies! They make themselves look uneducated. In this article, we will be going through the crap these PT’s say to their clients, and correcting them! If your trainers have said any of these crackers, any of these lies to you I would have a look around for another one! Let’s dive straight in with the first one.
Eat less Fat to Loose Weight
The first of many lies they will tell you, “if you want to lose weight, you need to eat less fat.” They will put you straight on an almost fat-free diet. Tell you to eat loads of veg and stay away from high fatty foods. This is bad! There are a lot of people that swear by high fat low carb diets. They still use Macros but effectively swap their fats and carbs (Roughly, they still have to calculate their calories) so that they have a high-fat diet, and they see great results I have seen trusted PT’s swear by this. I haven’t had any experience with it, but am keen to give it a go and see how it goes. If you have had any experience with the Keto Diet please get in touch! We would love to get your opinion.
Anyway let us get back on track, You don’t need to be on a low-fat diet, in fact, low-fat diets do more bad than good. They mess with your hormones most importantly. So don’t cut the fats. If you PT trainers put you on a low-fat cookie-cutter diet, bin him off and have a look around for another one. Just telling you lies.
Cardio will Kill your Gains
This is one of those lies that is said by EVERY PT, I have heard so many personal Trainers tell their clients, “Don’t do too much cardio, you will lose your gains” or “Cardio eats into your Gains”. When in reality it just isn’t true, I mean just look at Rugby players or NFL players, Swimmers, Gymnast, All they do is run and do cardio, still huge, still strong. Weight loss is down to a calorie deficit, so if you want to maintain weight and still do lots of cardio, factor it into your daily calorie intake, basically just eat more. Simple.
I now hear you screaming, what about when doing a cut, will cardio burn away my muscle? No, if you eat a sufficient amount of protein, Which PT’s also won’t tell you about.
If you want to do a bit of cardio, be my guest go ahead, I enjoy a bit of skipping, finish most my workouts on it, but please don’t worry about it killing or eating into your gains. Just make sure you a count for it.
All you can Eat is Chicken and Rice
Now I don’t need to go into this one too much as we have written a whole article on Macro Calculating, which you can read here, but needless to say there are still a lot of PT’s out there that will still put their clients on a cookie-cutter diet of Chicken, Rice, Peas, Tuna, Potato etc etc. When in reality we know that as long as it fits you Macros you can eat it.
As far as eating green goes, from a micronutrients point of you they are amazing, hardly any calories and packed with so many nutrients, so we do recommend eating them as much as you can, but you can still go out for that evening meal, go to that wedding. There is no need to carry around 8 tubs of Chicken, Brown Rice and Broccoli with you. If it fits in your macros, eat it! Enjoy your diet, don’t hate it! I can’t stand the thought of carrying around 8 meals in plastic tubs and eating the same meal in and out for the rest of my life. Don’t let a PT tell you to want you can and can’t eat.
Some PT’s might give you recipes or tips, Like if you are cutting they might suggest low-calorie options or high protein option, this is ok, we like these PT’s but the ones that will write up a complete diet for you, telling you you have to eat 8 meals and telling you what each meal is, complete trash! Don’t follow the lies that are still spread by Personal Trainers and Bodybuilders!
Cookie Cutter Diets and Workouts
A good PT will design a new diet and a new workout for every client. Every human is different, every human has different needs. So a good PT will design a workout and diet to fit his or her needs. Therefore if your PT is sampling saying you should eat 1500 Calories to cut because you are female just isn’t right. Every diet that a PT puts someone on should be calculated and designed for that client and that client alone.
As said above there are some amazing personal Trainers out there that will design you a custom diet plan, but they will also recommend some foods to eat. They might suggest foods that are high in protein if you are cutting they might suggest some Low Carb alternatives. This isn’t telling you what you can eat, this is helping you get the most out of your diet. This is what a good personal trainer should do.
So be careful that the diet and workout plan you are receiving is the same plan that every other client is getting. There are a few warning signs that you can look out for to see if it is a cookie-cutter diet plan. Maybe we will do a whole blog post on how to avoid these.
Low Carb Diet
This is one that so many people believe in, you ask someone how they are planning to lose weight and they will say “I’m cutting carbs out.” What a stupid idea! Carbs or carbohydrates are our main source of energy. Carbs help you get through the day, carbs help you look full and pumped, Try working out without consuming any carbs, you will look flat, have little to no pump and most likely your work won’t be the best because you have no energy.
Now go have a workout and have a bowl of coco pop or a bagel or something, you will have a huge pump, great workout and be so much strong and fitter. Don’t skip carbs. Use them to your advantage.
If you enjoy Carbs, as i do, got to love pasta, Then when working out your macros you can swap fats for carbs, so you eat fewer fats and more carbs, or the other way if you prefer. As long as your macros and calorie intake add up then you will be fine. I don’t have a craving for fatty foods but I do have cravings for high carb meals, like chips…..pizza and as said already pasta. So I choose to swap out some carbs for fats. Suits me perfectly. Carbs are your friends, not your enemy.
As much Protein as Possible
So you have just hired a Bodybuilding PT, He has written you an average workout plan, most likely sold you a load of supplements at a stupidly high price and the last step is to tell you that you need to eat as much protein as possible. Every meal you need as much protein as possible. You should constantly be consuming protein. Let me into a secret you should only be consuming around 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. So again if you get a PT that tells you to eat as much protein as possible, bin them off. you will be surprised at how many PT’s still tell people this.
Effectively there are some PT’s out there that will put you on a stupidly high protein diet with very minimal carbs and hardly any fats. How much fun does that sound?? Not very. Remember a diet should be easy, simple and you should be able to live almost the same on a diet.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are some PT’s out there that are still teaching very outdated and stupid lies. I could have written more down, we didn’t even touch on the workout and routine side of things, maybe that’s another article, give us a tweet if you would like to see that article!!!
However, we don’t want to stop you or put you off getting a personal trainer. Having someone watching you and tracking you is great. Having that someone to report back to will keep you on track with your progress. Stop your missing sessions and stop you eating poorly. So, by all means, get a Personal trainer. Although before you spend your hard earn money on a PT, just ask them some basic questions see how they respond. Do they seem to know what they are talking about?
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Written by Kieran Blacker
Kieran is the CEO and Founder of Sets & Reps. He decided to make an application that helped people get a gym workout when not at the gym. He designed, Coded and built the application himself.