question for the professionals

[jimaug87]

How do you guys motivate clients? A lot of people have an intention on losing weight and getting in shape, especially this time of year. Wanting to lose weight is great, but a lot of people aren't ready for the amount of time and hard work it's going to take.

In high school I was headed towards morbid obesity, and now I'm standing 5'10 @ 185lbs. I understand what it's like to be heavy, and I know how much it sucks to start exercising and build a base.

I'm at UMass Amherst studying Kinesiology to eventually become a physical therapist, but first I'm going to try personal training.

A friend of mine who is obese, asked me to help her get into shape.... SURE! Experience for me, and fitness for her.

I told her a great way to start, being completly sedintary, would be to walk up to her floor ONCE a day. She lives on the 11th floor, so that would be a great leg builder to start off. Moving her weight up a couple hundred stairs. Just start there, start small. I know her muscles are severly atrophied, and we will need to start small.

She laughed... ?
Then I had her over my room to do some body weight exercises, and she quit on me.

She's in college too, she knows what it'll take to get into shape being as far off as she is.

She says she wants to lose weight, but she doesn't like to sweat.

Any advice on dealing with people leacking motivation, or not willing to put in the hard to work start off from scratch? I know it's the most difficult thing to do, start, I was there and I did it.

I just don't get the people that expect results without hard work.

and no, I did not make her feel inferior by saying, "well I did it." I do have a comforting nature when I'm talking with someone who is distressed.

 

[Phate89]

I'm not a professional, but i think anyone will tell you if they don't have the motivation to stay consistent with their exercise and diet then they don't really want to lose weight. You need to tell your clients up-front how much hard work its going to take, and if they can't handle it then they aren't ready.

 

[NBS 4life]

You need to tell her straight up that she will only get out what she puts in. It doesnt sound like she is very intrinsically motivated so you need to really work hard on that one. How good of a friend is she and are you getting any benifits other than experience. Otherwise Im sure there are thousands of other people that are motivated that would love someone to help them out.

 

[tonymcclellan]

She's in college too, she knows what it'll take to get into shape being as far off as she is.

She says she wants to lose weight, but she doesn't like to sweat.

Most people think they know what it takes, but really they have no idea.

Most people are at her level of thinking, they want to lose weight but dont really want to put in the effort. She hasnt really made a conscious decision to put forth the effort yet, and it may take her years before she is actually "ready." Being her friend, it will make it even harder for you to work with her as friendship and weight loss isnt something I think you should mix.

 

[NBS 4life]

Yeah it doesnt sound like her heart is in it man, it might be an issue that she is your friend as tony said friends are the worst people to try and teach anything. I had huge arguments trying to teach a friend to drive. I think the best thing you could do is sit down with the friend and spell it out, black and white

 

[Danger_Dave]

In high school I was headed towards morbid obesity, and now I'm standing 5'10 @ 185lbs. I understand what it's like to be heavy, and I know how much it sucks to start exercising and build a base.

Hey, so I am in a very similar situation as you were in. I was pretty overweight a year ago, I dunno about obese but it was 205 lbs of at least 28% body fat, and now I'm at 153 15% BF.
Motivation isn't something i think that a trainer can give to a client, people need to make their own commitments and have the personal diligence to stick with them, if they can't, then they don't really want the goal.

I wanted to lose weight, not only because I wanted to be healthy but because I was pretty tired of being called fat all the time. I guess that's an outside motivation but once I started I stuck it through.

Maybe suggest to your client something that I told myself. One of my most redeemable qualities is dedication, and one of the best things I've ever done is lose 52 lbs. I was never particularly athletic, but luckily for me, losing weight requires no talents, no God-given abilities, just work. In the end, it's just like doing math, (in it's most basic form...) use more calories than you eat=lose fat. Just tell her that all she has to do is work for it, you get what you pay for, but in this case it's what you work for.

 

[stroutman81]

I've focused a lot of my attention to obese clients and the psychological barriers are by far the hardest part of the job. They're hard simply b/c changing the way someone thinks and the things someone believes is never an easy task. Their minds have been programmed to behave a certain way for a lifetime and no amount of powerful words from a trainer is going to change those natural behaviors over night. They're also tricky b/c the psychological barriers are unique, on a case by case basis.

I agree with what's been said above, if someone isn't ready to make a change, even with a lot of persuasion and gentle forcing, nothing is going to work long term.

That said however, I also feel that it's the trainers job to learn how to help the process along. Simply kicking people to the curb who aren't mentally ready doesn't work. Most people are never ready... look how many people venture out of obesity... it isn't many.

As a trainer, I think it's our job to understand some of the inner workings of psychology. Things like cognitive behavioral therapy, neurolinguistic programming and the like. I'm not saying we should overstep boundaries and start practicing psychology. But I think it's in the clients best interest if we have some basic understandings of how these things work so we can coax along a process that otherwise probably isn't going to happen.

 

[Chillen]

I've focused a lot of my attention to obese clients and the psychological barriers are by far the hardest part of the job. They're hard simply b/c changing the way someone thinks and the things someone believes is never an easy task. Their minds have been programmed to behave a certain way for a lifetime and no amount of powerful words from a trainer is going to change those natural behaviors over night. They're also tricky b/c the psychological barriers are unique, on a case by case basis.

I agree with what's been said above, if someone isn't ready to make a change, even with a lot of persuasion and gentle forcing, nothing is going to work long term.

That said however, I also feel that it's the trainers job to learn how to help the process along. Simply kicking people to the curb who aren't mentally ready doesn't work. Most people are never ready... look how many people venture out of obesity... it isn't many.

As a trainer, I think it's our job to understand some of the inner workings of psychology. Things like cognitive behavioral therapy, neurolinguistic programming and the like. I'm not saying we should overstep boundaries and start practicing psychology. But I think it's in the clients best interest if we have some basic understandings of how these things work so we can coax along a process that otherwise probably isn't going to happen.

Absolutely an "excellent" post, Steve.

 

[jimaug87]

I love this site. It's always helpful.

One of the reasons I wanted to badly to help her lose weight is because the way she looks makes her feel horrible about herself, and that's not needed with her level of depression.

She showed me pictures of herself in high school and she was skinny (not fit, just high bmr and low calories), and you could tell how much happier she was. I don't know what happened, she's just never exercised and it caught up with her.

She has started going for long walks with one of her friends into town, because none of us have cars on campus.

I'd like to work with obese people as well, but that may have to wait until after I have a ebtter understanding of the best ways to approach it. So far, all I know as far as training goes, is what worked for me.

For now I'll keep doing what i'm doing and bust back thru my little spare the winter left me with and find my abs once again for this summer.

Speaking of which, going for a run, the nike+ipod thing is great!

 

[stroutman81]

Training for obese is quite simple actually, as far as the actual programming goes. In the beginning it's a matter of finding absolutely anything they (a) are capable of doing and (b) can tolerate so some form of consistency can be established.

Diet is obviously number one and as with training, there's really no sense in muddying the waters too much with macronutrients and whatnot. That can all come later. For now, in the beginning, it's all about caloric control and finding ways to better manage it.

As I said before, it's really all about getting through to them on a mental level so the basic fundamentals can be adhered to consistently in the beginning. Once consistency is established and numbers start heading in the right direction, hope and belief are created. That goes a long, long way with obese individuals.

 

[illiniphase4]

Critical key is establishing manageable, attainable short and long term goals. With no way to gauge success, it is extremely difficult to motivate others because of the simple fact that there is no sense of accomplishment, and as a result, it all becomes a waste of time.

 

[beebleblog]

As a personal trainer of 8 years you have just experienced the tip of the ice berg. That common misconception from our beloved clients that just by having a personal trainer they are magically going to lose weight. The majority of my clients over the years have not wanted to workout and I have been the last resort (the story of my life). However that is our job as personal trainers to get them the results they want. As people have already mentioned some are just not ready to start exercising, but that doesn't mean that you should give up on them as this is part of the job you will be taking on.

Some tips:

You sound like you are a caring person who from their own experience understands the situation of your client. This is great however sometimes sympathy can fuel their desire to do nothing. Sometimes it helps to go to the dark side and act a bit more like a sergent major, not too much as you don't want to scare her off.

In my experience you have to push them to exercise for around 2 months before it becomes routine, and at which point you can let her go off on her own for some of the sessions. So for your sake you know there will be an end to the constant motivating.

There is also a theory called "transtheoretical model of behaviour change" or TMBC. This was invented in 1983 and states 5 stages that our mental state needs to progress through to complete a successful lifestyle change. They are as follows.

Pre-contemplation: not changing your routine and not intending a change

Contemplation: not changing routine, but intending to change

Preparation: making some changes and on the path to change fully

Action: achieved all the routine changes continuously for less than 6 months

Maintenance: continued all your routine changes for longer than 6 months

So your client will be at the Pre-contemplation (at a guess) and so if you give her exercises to do she will not do them, as simple as that. You need to get her to at least the contemplation stage to get started and to do that the benefits of doing exercise need to outweigh (excuse the pun!) your clients other options of television, eating the wrong foods etc. This can be done in many different ways and is really dependant on what your client is like as to which route you take. However the first thing to do is to get her talking and opening up so that she can takle the problems she has. Whether you want to do that or whether she sees a phycologist is really up to her. However it looks like your first few sessions will be talking and writing down the pros and cons of her lifestyle now compared to exercise and a more healthy lifestyle.

Sorry to go on about this for so long, I have not written everything on the subject as I don't want to put people to sleep. However I have written more on the subject on my blog if you are interested. Just don't give up on your client even if she wants to. Good luck and let me know how it goes.