5 Common Questions

Since I became a trainer, I’ve been asked a lot of questions about health, fitness, lifting, diet, and supplements. I get quite a bit of variety, but there are some things that people ask me over and over. You might even be wondering these things yourself. To help clear it up a bit, below are the top five most asked questions and their relatively simple answers.

Perhaps human flight is possible…

How do I make this (either pointing to belly or shaking upper arm) go away? The real question people are asking is “How do I lose this fat?” Fat loss comes down to two main things: keeping muscle and cutting calories. Let’s start with the second one. Cutting calories makes your body start raiding its savings account (your fat cells) for energy. Just like how once your income drops, you’re forced to go into your savings. However, if you do this either too intensely or for too long, you’ll start slashing expenses. And guess what happens to be quite expensive. Muscle. So if your diet is too extreme or goes on for too long, your body will start breaking down muscle to try and balance the books again. That’s where exercise comes in. By doing exercise, specifically resistance training, you’re sending the signal that this muscle is important and don’t burn it. Thanks to that, your body will take more out of your fat cells to provide the necessary energy. In short, eat less and move more is how you make this (pointing to belly or shaking upper arm) go away.

What’s the best exercise for my (muscle group that I think will make me sexier)? This depends very much on the muscle group named and what the person means by “best.” Most of the time, though, it’s a guy asking how they can get bigger whatevers or a girl asking how she can take some of the fat off of her what-have-you’s. So this question actually breaks down into “How do I make X bigger?” and “How do I lose body fat?” For making X more bigger, do exercises that really hit that muscle for relatively high volume with decently heavy weights, eat a lot, sleep a lot, and repeat until massive. Most of the time this takes several months. As for losing fat, see the previous question. Eat less and move more. I’m oversimplifying, but you get the idea that there’s no wizardry involved. It’s consistent work that is in line with your goals over a long-ish time frame.

I’m going to do (insert whatever diet.) What do you think? First of all, people who ask this question aren’t really asking me a question. Most of the time what they’re saying is “I’m going to do this diet. Please validate my decision.” There’s nothing wrong with this at all. I think it’s a great idea to try things out and see if they work for you. So, by all means, try the diet. What it’s important to understand is that you need to find a diet that’s sustainable for you over the long haul. I’ll repeat this part: sustainable for you. Not the doctor you heard about it from. Not Jill in accounting. You. You know you’ve done a diet right when it stops being a diet and just becomes integrated into your life and you don’t really have to think much about it (and it keeps you in good health.)

What’s the best way to train? This is going to vary widely. To answer it, I’d have to ask you a series of questions. Train for what? How old are you? What level of athlete are you? How much experience do you have in other sports/endeavors? Do you have an injury history? What’s your lifestyle (work, sleep, social, etc. habits?) You get the idea. I wouldn’t answer a 40 year old mother of three who’s never lifted a weight in her life, wants to lose the weight she gained from pregnancy, and has two bad knees the same way I’d answer a former D1 football player in his mid-20’s with no wife or kids, who wants to get jacked, and has a steady 9 to 5 job. They’re completely different with different needs/abilities. To answer the question, though, find something you enjoy, learn how to do it well, and do it on a regular basis.

What supplement do I take? Oh boy, this is my favorite. It’s my favorite because most of the time it’s a moot point. I’ll ask them “Before I answer, how many hours of sleep do you get a night?” If they say anything less than 7, my answer is “Sleep.” If they answer 7 or more, my next question is “What’s your goal?” If the answer is some form of getting bigger or smaller (and 99% the time it is,) then my next question is “Are you tracking your food?” Most of the time their response is “Well, I eat really good” which is a euphemism for “No.” I think you’re getting the idea. I had one client who said he was taking all sorts of supplements. He slept five hours a night and ate a bunch of junk food. “I’m optimizing. The supplements fix all that stuff.” Taking something to fix what’s lacking in another area isn’t optimizing. It’s compensating. Supplement means “something added to something else to improve or complete it.” If you’re like this gentleman, you’re not improving or completing anything. You’re stepping over hundred dollar bills to pick up pennies. Supplements give you that last one or two percent benefit. All the supplements in the world won’t offset sleeping badly (or not at all) and eating badly.

There are plenty of other questions that I get, but these five are at the top of the list for sure. There’s a lot of confusion and just plain misinformation out there. Hopefully these answers will help you make better decisions about where/how to go from here. That said, if you’ve got a question that I didn’t answer, feel free to drop it in the comments or send me an e-mail.