Great idea

I was talking to a dear friend just the other day and we were talking about this very subject, what motivates people to get in better fitness condition. After talking to her we came to the conclusion that a person can only motivate themselves. No one else can. Yes, as a personal trainer we may be able to fuel that fire and help them keep it burning, but in the end if you don’t want to do something you won’t do it. I remember once having a member who was told by several people that he was not going to live another 10 years if he did not get himself in better shape. His doctor said this and his spouse said this and then finally when I met him I told him this. This man had to lose a good 400 pounds even to be considered for gastric bypass surgery. I remember one day meeting up with him and asking him to come into my office so that we could talk. He had not been coming in and not doing his workouts and he was falling back into his old patterns. I sat there and listened to him for 20 minutes give excuse after excuse and finally when I could stand it no more I told him that unless he lost 400 pounds he would make it to his 40th birthday. He was 36 at the time. Even with me getting in his face, it didn’t matter. I could not motivate him to make the changes he needed to make. He is 39 now and in February he caught a bad cold and to this day he is still suffering from the effects of that cold. He has been bed ridden for three months now. I had a man come into my office and start complaining about the medications he was taking. He hated taking them every day and really wanted to stop. I asked him what his doctor told him to do to get off the medications and he told me that he needed to lose 50 pounds and get his cholesterol below 200 once his weight was under control his diabetes should be under better control. Well a few months later he is still complaining about this medication and in reality is doing nothing about it. He tells me that some days he wants to work out and sweat and some days he just doesn’t want to. Over the last several months he has not lost an ounce of weight. He has not followed my advice about his diet. Yes, he is one that eats at restaurants three times a day. He has not followed the work outs I have given him. What will it take for him to finally get this done… not even he knows. He says he doesn’t want to pass away, but he is doing nothing to help his situation get better. The spirit may be willing but in most cases, the flesh is weak. Outside influences intertwine themselves into our everyday life and that gets us to do things that we know we ordinarily would not do. I am working with a man right now and he has a food problem, he doesn’t understand portion control so I am teaching him that. One day while eating here at the Parkers Place a member notices what he is eating and asks me why I am starving him and then tells me that he should be eating more than what I have given him. I immediately chimed in and told that member to be quite and remember that they too were here because of their weight problem. At that this member looked at me and walked away. Here is a great example of outside influences. If I had left him to get his own lunch, someone would have told him to get more than he really needed and for no real reason. This man is now learning portion control and has lost a ton of weight. The person who told him that he was not eating enough and should eat more, well, they are still struggling and just the other day stopped in my office to talk about, of all things, nutrition (go figure). Now I know we all have people that we want to help get in better shape. We all know people that are 50 pounds or more over weight and getting heavier. I want to share an idea with you that my friend and I had discussed. How many of us think that if we buy our friends or even ourselves a treadmill or some piece of cardio equipment we would be helping them or ourselves out in a huge way. We would be giving them a way to lose those unwanted pounds. You know just as well as I what happens to those cardio pieces of equipment after a few months, they become places we can put out books and old cloths. The problem with most people is not bad equipment, it is accountability and what better way to have someone hold you accountable than a Certified Personal Trainer. We go out and spend thousands of dollars on pieces of equipment only to have them break down or we just plain lose interest and stop using it. However, what if you, instead of buying that equipment, bought a Personal Trainer for that person with those same dollars? What benefit would there be in you doing that for them. What a good personal trainer can do for you will not just be immediate, but everlasting. In my next blog I will be discussing the benefits of highering a Personal Trainer for the long term.----