[Frost__2001]

Well Last night I went out with my Partner and we bought a gym membership at Goodlife fitness, I have to admit I feel really good about the fact I finally can afford to get one, it took me a while to get to the point to where I am now in my current money standings, so I'm proud of that too. (11 more focus payments and it's paid off!!)

But the question is when I was talking to the sale guy, he was personalizing our memberships and noticed I wanted to lose more weight (75lbs) and my time frame was 1-2 years (I'm realistic) and said it, showing me in the computer with a personal trainers help I can achieve my goal in a years time by meeting with a trainer atleast once or twice a week... So it got me thinking, is it worth the extra costs to have the trainer? I should also mention this is the first time in 12 years since I have been a member of a gym and I was more or less on my own back then and I worked out way too much then...

[NikiterZTS]

just come with me to YMCA...dude i didn't need no trainer and i was ripped.....its just that i didn't work out for over 7months cuz of u know my health...but im plannin to go back in a week or so
i'll show u good stuff :)

but the answer to ur quastion i hear that they(personal trainers) do help

[mo_focus]

well since you both got memberships, i dont see a reason why you need to have personal tranier. I mean its always a good thing to have if you have the extra$, but if you dont just go with someone who is going to be dedicated as much as you are. Most ppl join the gym and dont go after the first couple of weeks. So dont be like that :)

[Frost__2001]

NikiterZTS,Dec 8 2006, 03:26 PM Wrote:just come with me to YMCA...dude i didn't need to trainer and i was ripped.....its just that i didn't work out for over 7months cuz of u know my health...but im plannin to go back in a week or so
i'll show u good stuff :)
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YMCA is further away then Goodlife is from me, plus it's 24hrs at Goodlife which is great again because of the sifts I'm on.

[Frost__2001]

mo_focus,Dec 8 2006, 03:26 PM Wrote:well since you both got memberships, i dont see a reason why you need to have personal tranier. I mean its always a good thing to have if you have the extra$, but if you dont just go with someone who is going to be dedicated as much as you are. Most ppl join the gym and dont go after the first couple of weeks. So dont be like that :)
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Well I was thinking of the Personal trainer mainly because of the shifts I'm on, I'm on 12 shifts that change from days to nights every two weeks and my partner and I will not be going to the gym at the same time when my shifts change from his.. plus when I get off shift in the mornings I want to work out before head off to bed, and I know he'll be still asleep or getting ready to leave when I get home. Plus money is not a real issue anymore.

[Burnin21]

Honestly, in my opinion having a personal trainer not only shows you what to do, but its all about motivation. I've been goin to the gym for some time now and I started with a personal trainer and now Im on my own now. In the past 6 months i've managed to drop 30 lbs on my own. Those 30lbs where dropped through going to the gym 3-4 times a week and working hard for about 1-2 hrs. The best thing to do Phil is start with a trainer and see how it goes. Sit down together and work out a program that works and that you like and in no time you can work out without a trainer. Also, as I said before its all about motivation, you have to "Want" to loose weight/ Gain strength.

[darkpuppet]

The best thing to do for yourself is to draw up a workout plan and log your workouts.

Log everything. Caloric intake (don't guestimate, look that s**t up!), weight, mood, etc etc. It'll give you a clear picture of what your progress is.

Make some smart choices and keep at it, and you'll make the progress.

I dropped 40lbs and managed to bump my major muscle group strength by nearly 30% (ie, bench from 205 - 305lbin 6 months). And the only supplement I took was a 200 calories in protein shake after heavy workouts (and a much better diet too).

A personal trainer is handy for those that can't stay motivated on their own... they'll give the results you want so long as they're honest with you.

which reminds me.. I really need to get back on track here

[NOS2Go4Me]

I'm normally not one to brag, but I helped my wife lose (and keep off) over 30 lbs. She's been where she wants to be (and where she is now) for over 3 years.

We didn't follow as much of a regimented, calorie-counting diet insomuch as we just ate what made sense (proteins, healthy fats, carbs for energy, whole grains, fruits/veggies), started on a good multi-vitamin and ensured that she ate healthy three times a day instead of once or twice a day.

Her cardio fitness eclipses my own, although with 3-4 times a week ball hockey at lunch I'm catching up again.

A well-planned and executed workout regime that concentrates on high reps, 3-4 sets, lower weights will get you the losses you want. The idea here is to put your body in a position not where you're physically starving, but where your daily caloric "spending" or burning exceeds your intake.

I'd recommend a day of weights, a day of cardio and a day of weights again (alternating) for several weeks. Start with a few exercises you feel comfortable repeating, then build in some more as you progress. No one is an Arnie from day one.

Also, I'll second Puppet on the "log the workout" idea. It's a great way to track your progress and plot ways around difficult times.

One last thing - everyone has bad days. If you can't do your last set because you're just too drained, don't force through it or kick yourself for it. You're working out for you, not because you're being paid to. Forcing yourself and then either performing worse or injuring yourself can and will get you off the exercise bandwagon in a hurry.

Now, ZX5Chica oughta "weigh" in here :lol: I'm speaking from personal experience over the last 12-13 years or so, but she's actually educated in kinesiology and/or sports training if memory serves.

[SliverSteeda]

Having been a gym nut...and i mean nut... i went 7 days a week.... like it was a religion... if your just starting out... and you have a goal like loosing weight, definity go personel trainer.


Not only do they show you how to do things but they will thing about how "You" can lose wiegth, cause everyone is different, cause you gained wieght cause of habit "you've" developed.... and a "good" personel trainer can figure out the best way to obtain your goals.... what ever they are.

but not all personel trainers are "good" personal trainers... i sugest you meet with him/her first for one consultation session first... a professional who has your interests in mind will do this for free... and discuss what and how they plan to help you, if you feel they're is a connection and this person sees what you want to do and seems to want to help you then yes they are worth it. If you feel they are trying to presure you or push you on their ideas ...well no they are not.


I went to the gym for 7 years... right from the bat i went in pushing my self as hard as i could every time i stepped foot into the place... made some good friends, mad some bad ones too. in the end i had to stop cause it eventually caught up to me... my body, mainly my left elbow couldn't handle the stress. i was doing shrugs, deadlifts and pressing the most i could every time i stepped into the gym and it cost me.

Eventually my elbow got so bad that i couldn't hold a can of pop with out feeling a sharp pain inmy fore-arm and i had to slow down... well after 7 year of pushing my self every day to slow down was unbearible and depressing. eventually i stopped going or found excuses not to go.

Now i bike... allot. and love it, i set up a gym in my house that serves it purpose but i not train for my health. i spend most of my time on a mountain bike ripping up what ever ski hill i can find or launching off silly things....

but if you have a goal perfect... but A "good" personal trainer is definitly worth the money.

[focusracer]

Good for you for joining a gym.

Most gyms include a free visit with a trainer when you first start going. If the gym offers that, take advantage of it, they'll go through a few things with you, show you the equipment etc. They should make up a plan for you that will help to be a guideline for your goals.

If you like the trainer, see about maybe once a month to start, then go from there. I would suggest a consult with a trainer every 3 months or so to adjust your plan/workout schedule so you have less chances of hitting a plateau and GETTING BORED, that tends to be a huge problem for a lot of gym goers.

I used a trainer at the gym I was going to a while back every 10 weeks. It was $60 for an hour session, $6 a week basically. He helped me a lot, I lost about 60 lbs in a year and a half, now we're pretty good friends and hang out all time.

I'm also lucky in that my best friend Amanda is a PT as well. She's also a sadistic cold hearted bitch who drives me harder than anyone has ever done to me before, even harder than my football and power lifting coaches back in the day. We also happen to be workout partners, and being best friends it has helped our relationship a lot too. We try to do a lot of exercise outside of the gym as well, a little more difficult in the winter months.

My 2 cents is to consult a trainer every so often to begin with and try to work out with your partner as much as you can, to motivate eachother and to help build your relationship as well.

[euro_zx5]

A friend of mine is a personal trainer, and a teacher of mine is a trainer as well. I can tell you first hand that a trainer will point out any mistakes you make, and show you the proper way to exercise. By pointing out the problems, you get a more efficient workout, targeting what you want to target, and not everything else to help you feel like your getting the results you want.

I can never follow a consistent schedule, so my workout plans always fall through. But the little workouts here and there keep me alive. :lol: Oh yeah, and with hard workouts (like DP said) I too take protein shakes. 100% whey protein powder is fine, like most protein powder mixes. Just don't get into creatine and that crap, it's not healthy in the long run.

[NOS2Go4Me]

euro_zx5,Dec 8 2006, 11:51 PM Wrote:Just don't get into creatine and that crap, it's not healthy in the long run.
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Agreed. I drink the GNC Whey ISO Burst in chocolate flavour - low-carb for after the workout.

[residentdud]

Ive lost 100lbs over the past little while just by eating right and walking the dog. For the past 3 months I`ve been hitting the gym to loose another 20-25lbs before I go to the military. I was told not to do any lifting if I was trying to LOSE weight, especially with all the running and chin-ups I need to do (making it harder). Going from almost 300lbs to 200lbs has left behind muscle that my body needed to pull my dumass around. Needless to say, I`ve lost the last 20lbs by running. Phil if you`re about losing fat, then run. Follow the Canadian fitness guide. If you can`t pull your own weight ( try running for 12 mins straight...then work your way to distance) why bother going overboard ( 21 push-ups, 21 sit-ups, 7 chin-ups, all consecutively) Thats a start and it worked for me...IMO.

Good Luck

[NikiterZTS]

^^^^i can't picture u being fat :blink:

[ZX5chica]

NOS2Go4Me,Dec 8 2006, 03:43 PM Wrote:Now, ZX5Chica oughta "weigh" in here :lol: I'm speaking from personal experience over the last 12-13 years or so, but she's actually educated in kinesiology and/or sports training if memory serves.
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Thanks NOS... my 2 cents --> First off, good for you for joining GoodLife. I have been a member there for a while now, and I must say, I love the variety of group classes they run, the equipment, etc. etc.

As for the personal training.. it might be a benefit for you to try a few personal training sessions with some of their trainers to get some pointers, however I don't recommend you use trainers for the whole time you're working out. The whole point of a trainer is to get you back on track with what the proper technique is, and which exercises to do. If you continue using the personal trainer, the only thing you will be losing is $$... so I recommend you use one for a few initial sessions until you feel comfortable performing the exercises by yourself, and then start doing your own thing.

Remember.. in the grand scheme of thing, the whole point is calories in must be less than calories out, in order to lose. Although diet is a big factor, the word diet does not mean you have to be "on a diet"... all it means is that you watch what you eat. It's much easier to cut out eating one "bad" thing per day than it is to work out to burn off that bad thing... again, it takes about half an hour of cardio to work off a chocolate bar (depedning on intensity), but it takes about 2 seconds to say.. hey, I'm not going to eat this in the first place.

Another huge factor is alcohol... :) When I moved back home with the parents after finishing my undergrad this summer, I lost about 15 pounds (since the time of the bbq meet), just by not drinking. That's pretty huge if you think about it. It's not like I was huge to begin with, but apparently my 4-5 nights drinking per week were wreaking havoc on my body.

Anyways... could go on with more advice... PM me if you want a good exercise prescription.

[Frost__2001]

Thanks for the advice so far guys, and girl lol

I will say this though, I have been watching my diet since I have moved to Kitchener, and I have lost 20lbs over all, and alcohol is not something I worry about at all since I maybe drink one night every 5 months or so, and it's max 5 drinks or less. One thing about working for RIM is they have the things I tend to avoid the most as Chocolate bars and what not are like $0.50, I always opt for the $1 Yogert.

As for the Gym I have been doing good on my own over the last 3 days and I have been taking it rather slowly as I like to ride the bikes for about 20 minutes or so, and then do a small bit of weights all with in and hours time. I have been walking more at night usually for an hour or so everyother day and my job keeps me active since they highly encourage us to take the stairs, and I have to walk across the plant just to get to my locker and to the lunch room / cafe.

As for the Personal Trainer I have 8 free hour long work out with them, and I have yet to set one up just yet, Goodlife is going to call me to arrange them, but I'm still kinda wondering about should I have a meet with one once a week till I get into the rythem of things?

[ZX5chica]

Frost__2001,Dec 10 2006, 07:58 PM Wrote:As for the Personal Trainer I have 8 free hour long work out with them, and I have yet to set one up just yet, Goodlife is going to call me to arrange them, but I'm still kinda wondering about should I have a meet with one once a week till I get into the rythem of things?
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The 8 free 1 hour sessions should start you off nicely. Ideally, you would want your trainer to give you some good exercise options for certain days, making sure you work the muscle groups on alternate days. ie: day 1: legs, day 2: back , day 3: arms, day 4: shoulders and core... Doing this rotation twice with your trainer will give you two full sessions for each group to make sure you are doing the moves properly... during this training, you are going to want to incorporate some sort of cardio as well...

Basically, your body burns more calories both at rest and during exercise with the more muscle composition you have... and you also get a higher and longer *after-burn* with more muscle. So one way to build muscle is to lift (duh...), the other way to change your body composition is to decrease overall body fat, but whatever you do... DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR TRAINER ABOUT EXERCISING AT A LOW INTENSITY TO BURN FAT!!!!

This is a waste of your time! Although *technically* your body does use more fat as a fuel source at lower intensities, you are also using less substrate (ie: energy) in total... so, to up your amount of calories, increase the intensity and duration... this will really get you going... .for that, I recommend using the GoodLife Cybex machine... it's pretty easy to use and is a lot more enjoyable than running on a treadmill for one hour.

Anyways, I'm just going off on a tangent... I could talk for hours about getting healthy and working out....

Have fun though! It's a lifestyle that you'll get addicted to!!

[FocusGuy7476]

Frost__2001,Dec 11 2006, 12:58 AM Wrote:As for the Personal Trainer I have 8 free hour long work out with them, and I have yet to set one up just yet, Goodlife is going to call me to arrange them, but I'm still kinda wondering about should I have a meet with one once a week till I get into the rythem of things?
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I'd use that training time, it will get you in the groove of working out as well as showing you the proper ways to do the exercise. Your going to sore from your first few workouts but that will all go away. Also try to change to your workout routine everything 3months or so, you'll see faster results since you've been working out one way your body is used to using to muscles, and once you change it up you'll work different muscle groups and burn fat off faster. Thats what I've found from going to the gym.

[tdot-zx3]

I rarely come onto this site anymore but anyone who ever needs real world fitness advice from a real world athlete.. you can always ask.

90% of personal trainers arent going to do much but steal your money and its the sad truth coming from a fellow personal trainers mouth... they do a s***ty job most of the time motivating or anything else for that matter that will help you. Most just dont care, and when you have someone like that in that position not caring, it trickles down to you. Infact I dont even recommend gyms anymore to anyone, I think most of the time they are a waste of time. But if paying that gym fee is going to motivate you to do something, then by all means go for it since its better then nothing.

In the end, personal trainer or not, its all what you want to put into your goals and not anyone else. If you want to work hard theres a million ways to lose weight.