overweight personal trainer?

[taylorswift1989]

I recently joined a gym. It's one of a chain and it's great for what I need, but I've noticed that two of the personal trainers who work there are very overweight. All the female staff look fit and healthy, but the male staff look like they are in need of some personal training themselves.

(No one will be able to answer this, but I wonder if the standards are different for men and women. The women look exactly how you would expect fit and strong women to look - a variety of physiques for sure, but clearly they are fit and agile. I wonder if obese women would be employed at this gym, even if they had the qualifications?)

Is it unreasonable to think that personal trainers should look like they have the ability and discipline to achieve the goals that their clients are working towards? I know people come in all shapes and sizes, and a larger person may be very fit and skilled at certain sports, and/or an excellent teacher, so maybe I am being unfair? But we are talking about people who are obese and who do not look fit or healthy. Even if it doesn't affect their skill at training clients, does it make a difference to how much trust you would put in them to be able to help you towards your fitness goals?

YABU - It wouldn't make any difference to me as long as they were qualified and knew their stuff in theory
YANBU - It would make me wonder if they had the discipline or ability that they are trying to teach their clients

I would not care if they had the discipline or personal sporting ability, as long as they had the skills and knowledge to train others.

It might actually be less intimidating for people who are overweight or unfit to have a PT who looked more like them.

I’d rather have a trainer who had some insight into what it’s like to be overweight, than one who just sees food as fuel. I’ve had both. The latter just didn’t get the concept of finding food tempting or joyous or anything other than a way of ingesting protein and hitting their macro goals.

Thin isn't the same as fit.

It depends on your definition of overweight because I would expect most PT to have an overweight or obese BMI.

The PT isn’t there to exercise themselves but to support and motivate others.

I would just assume they are not taking their own advice , like much fatter than me nurses telling me to lose weight ( true story), doctors drinking more alcohol than they should and off duty police doing more than 30mph in a 30 zone ( i know who im talking about! 😆)

Yes, that's a good point about it being potentially less intimidating. Saying that, I don't find the fit trainers intimidating either - they are all really friendly and easy going from what I can tell. But yes, I can see that it might be a selling point for some people.

Well I don't know anyone's BMI so I'm going on looks alone. But you would not quibble to call them obese based on their appearance.

I know, and I'm not saying anything about being thin. None of the PT are thin, but the women are all muscular/stocky/visibly fit. I think it's hard to argue that you can be visibly obese and also fit.

It's an interesting one. I remember joining my gym years ago and was shown around by the slightly overweight manager. He was telling me how he had been obese and lost weight and still had a constant battle to keep on track. He said that exercise made him more motivated to keep his diet healthy and had a really grounded approach to the members. I thought that was refreshingly honest and less intimidating to someone new to a gym than someone super fit who potentially has never struggled with weight or keeping fit.

I would say their job is not them, same as i know doctors and nurses who smoke and wat unhealthy food, teachers who have trouble spelling, plumbers who put off jobs in their own house

I think my brain can separate their job and who they are

They know the theory but maybe aren’t applying it. As long as they know what they are doing it’s fine.

What I find so interesting is why they're overweight, and I am willing to hazard a guess.

Alcohol is the invisible calories of the UK.

It seems to be something very few are willing to talk about in diet and exercise terms.

Chances are that if these 'lads' like a pint or three then they're going to gain weight.

Quite.

I had a PT who knew I came direct from work at 5.30, knew my session/gym visits were an hour, and knew I got home at about 7 after.

He still gave the advice "try and finish eating by 6pm" like a broken record.

A later PT was far more able to understand and shape his advice to my lifestyle, AND although he was fit as a fiddle, he also knew that food could and should be delicious, even when healthy.

Fit depends on what you’re describing though, doesn’t it. World class weightlifters are often obese, marathon runners less so.

I absolutely agree you may have a point on the sex split here, would an overweight female PT be employed? Too small a sample to be sure but social norms would suggest no.

I’ve done a fair bit of PT, all strength training, so what I want is a capable, encouraging PT who knows their stuff. Weight wouldn’t bother me.

Fit and thin are two different metrics. If a man can lift hundreds of kilos and put in thousands of calories on the air bike that's more important to me than being 12% body fat. Or 20%.

At my fittest - I was 11 and a half stones. Which is heavy for my height of five foot 2. However I did boot camps three times a week. Boxing. Triathlons.

I was a size 12-14 which is overweight by some peoples standards. I'm a personal trainer as well. Even when I was heavier than that I taught ten fitness classes a week on average. Step pump, aerobics, spin, LBt, HIIT..

I'll never look like your stereotypical PT. My brother does but he trains much harder than me and much more consistently (I'm recovering from a serious injury just now).

I've also done Triathlons when I have been much bigger. I know PTs who are not massive (men) but certainly slightly overweight and their schedule is packed. I personally couldn't care less how someone who trains me looks - just that they know what they are doing.

This! I had a PT who had me do a food diary and when I’d had soup and salad for lunch she said ‘oops, looks like you’ve had 2 lunches there!’. She was lovely but that always stuck with me. She ran ultras at the weekend for fun and did not have a similar brain to me at all.

They might be power lifters?
The people that compete in that discipline at the Olympics look really overweight even though they are extremely strong.

People can be overweight for a multitude of reasons

I've just had a PT session with my PT who I have been with for over 8yrs. I can hand on heart say she practices what she preaches and she wouldn't ask me to do anything she wouldn't be prepared to do herself.

Well, they say that 6 packs are made in the kitchen, not the gym.

i would assume that whilst they have their exercise locked down, they just aren’t feeling as disciplined as they would need to be to be a muscular powerhouse body wise.

and that would be fine with me.

Far more ironic than this was the David Lloyd’s club where (at the time, a couple of years ago, may be different now) the entire sales pitch was based around the risk of diabetes, health risks of being overweight and unfit, how important a healthy lifestyle is etc.

The sales manager was morbidly, morbidly, morbidly obese, and a couple of the sales people were also obese.

It genuinely baffled me how they could deliver these in person speeches and not laugh. Over the phone, you can blag it, but with someone face to face, I can’t imagine how they were ever taken seriously. The sales pitch was intense!

I have PT qualifications but don't work in fitness because I'm also BMI 35 and tbh, cannot be asked with assumptions about my diet and or ability to train others. I probably won't come back to this thread either after posting as people saying it's all greed does my MH in and are really unhelpful.

One thing I do know is that my health and ability to do shit is way better than when I was less fit but the same weight as I am now. I'm also a few dress sizes smaller.

My diet is great but I don't process fat or carbs well, so to lose weight I need to live on veg only and life is too short. I'm too busy with looking after other people plus have arthritis/thyroid/menopause/adhd so to me, sleep is more important and not eating impacts that as I wake up starving...

Do inspire my DH tho, who is now late 50s, BMI of 21 and can scale mountains with no issue, so think that's all that really matters as before he didn't do much exercise.

Some doctors smoke.

If a personal trainer was out of shape I would find it difficult to take them seriously.