Why?

A PT over-eats and stops exercising to try to understand his clients.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25170255-36398,00.html

Seriously? Why would anyone put their health at such risk by doing this ON PURPOSE?? Part of me is really mad at someone for even thinking about doing something like this. Surely studying psychology or talking to your clients would give you a better understanding? I wonder how hard he will find it to get back to his original weight.

Another part of me applauds him for making the effort and going to extreme's to understand his clients' needs and state of mind. This morning Rusty admitted he has it easy - his weight doesn't fluctuate at all and he eats what he wants. He is losing weight at the moment as he is training for a marathon. He's not even trying to lose weight - it is just happening. He runs alot more than me, but we are probably pretty similar in terms of hours of training each week.

I used to do my assessments with Dan and I always felt that he "got it". He used to be a fat kid (his words, not mine!) and is now a buff PT. I know that he struggles with his weight - he works really hard to look as good as he does. He cuts out starchy carbs at night, he goes without different things.

But does this make a difference to your results? On a personal level, yes - it is often easier to talk to someone you can identify with. But in terms of actual training and achieving your goals I don't think so. Any PT who is any good will have had goals of his/her own that he/she has had to work hard to achieve. The process is the same - set your goals and work out what you need to do to achieve it. Working out the correct formula is the hard part. It is not as simple as calories in vs calories out. If it was there would not be so many people out there struggling with their weight.

Another thought - can you actually identify with someone who is overeating and not training in order to get fat and understand his clients? He is not dealing with emotional eating, not looking at the triggers for overeating. He's not coming home from a really crappy day at work and binge eating junk food, then feeling the guilt after. He's not then eating more because your initial thought is that chocolate or toast (or whatever your comfort food might be) will make you feel better. Then guilty. And you enter the cycle! What is he actually achieving?