Extreme dieting v exercise and healthy eating plan - opinions needed please!

[43Today]

Hi everyone.

I am currently training to be a personal trainer, and when I have qualified one area I would like to work in is weight management. I do have personal experience of struggling with weight and went from post-pregnancy size 18 to size 10 following a 1500 cals/day diet and doing 3-4 gym sessions a week.

What I am interested in is - if you had the money, would you rather spend it on an ultra lo-cal diet (lighter life type thing) that could lose you the weight very quickly, or would you prefer to pay a personal trainer (someone like me for example!!) to work with you on creating a personalised exercise and nutrition programme - even if that took longer to actually lose the weight?

I must emphasise that this is not an attempt to get me clients, I'm not even qualified yet! But seeing as so many of us have trouble with weight as an ongoing problem I wondered how people view the exercise + healthy eating option. Does it all seem like awfully hard work? Is that why the extreme diets are attractive?

Any opinions would be very interesting, thanks.

Would rather pay you to oversee diet and shout at me to run around the park more - but I react well to that.

Very low calorie things are so tempting sometimes but I know I would eat the children's food as well, and then gain 4 stone when the course had finished.

I would love to have a personal trainer who helped with a nutrition programme. I think the two obviously go together and I would welcome the knowledge of leading a healthier lifestyle physically and nutritionally.

I think the reason extreme dites are attractive is because its a quick way for the pounds to shift. I would prefer to do it slowly with the hope that way they would stay off.

Personally, I think the personal exercise and nutrition programme is the way to go (and I think most people are aware now that weight lost rapidly usually comes back again ++).

But could you not offer both? Certain clients might just want support losing weight fast for a special occasion and then ongoing help to maintain it.

Definitely the latter. Quick-fixes never work. It's about long-term change - making dietary changes that are sustainable, and incorporating more activity into your every day life (as well as regular exercise). Extreme dieting is dangerous and rarely successful in the long term (although sounds like you are an exception to that rule!).

Think sgyms and personal trainers can be v offputting if you are either v overweight or not sporty AT ALL. Do perhaps you need to think about how te 'sell' this to those people who would be more attracted to the quick-fix option.

Oh and if you are looking for a particular "niche" to get you started, I think targeting older women 40s/50s/60s (perhaps those who haven't exercised before) might be a good strategy ... Most gyms are very off-putting for this age group and most of the information/products/classes/facilities are aimed at younger women ....

... I'd be your first customer

Having tried both I would say that regular exercise (quite strenuous rather than simply a stroll with the dog) is the best way. Along with a healthy diet. However as someone who has discovered her addiction to sugar my idea of a 'healthy' diet might not be everyone else's. I basically try to avoid sugar and processed foods - not everyone's cup of tea.

Obviously in the ideal world a personalised exercise and nutrition programme would be the ideal. But obviously this requires time as well as money which may lead to people using the alternative method. I am slightly hypothetical here because although I would like to loose a stone or so I am not a lighter life type weight and also have no spare money.

Thanks everyone, you've given me a lot of (dare I say it?) food for thought..

Countingthegreyhairs, you are so right about the image that gyms have. It really takes a lot of courage to go into a gym that seems to be full of slim fit types when you are feeling overweight and low about yourself. I am determined to remember how negative I have felt about myself at times in the past, because I know that these negative feelings are a real barrier to exercise.

Bozza, your point about time is spot-on. It hadn't really occurred to me that the thing with just dieting is you don't need to allocate any extra time to do it, just (!) shedloads of determination and will-power.

I think one area where the lighter life type thing scores is the counselling aspect. So you're not just struggling with hunger, but also trying to work on your motivation and how you got here in the first place. Of course for some the reasons are straightforward - I put on my weight during my pregnancies when I felt sick all the time and the only thing that seemed to help was eating and sleeping. But some find weight management issues seem to be related to emotional situations rather than physical ones or life stages, and a counsellor to offer support would probably be a real help. Maybe as a trainer I could aim to offer motivational help as well as physical jerks?

Feeling quite excited about the future at the moment; but I've got a project to do for my last module involving cash flow projections so that'll probably dampen my enthusiasm (only temporarily I hope).

You are certainly in the right field - given the rising levels of obesity around I doubt you will ever have difficulty finding work And having a trainer who has fought their own battles and won can only be motivating for clients. Good luck.