Confused by a personal trainer...

I posted this on the fitness and exercise board to see if I could get some help from some seasoned veterans. I wanted to run it by you guys and see what you think also. I joined a gym and they do a free assessment for you, checking your measurements, body fat, etc. I weighed 190 on their scale and my body fat was 35%. The trainer said I have 123 lbs. of lean body mass and 66 lbs. of fat. I told him my goal was to lose 60 more lbs. and asked if I would be left with no fat. He doesn't know anything about WLS, so I don't know how much weight I should give his statements. He says that I will lose muscle and I don't have any extra to lose. He says the only way to maintain what I have is to increase my protein to 129 g a day. I get 65 g now and you guys know how difficult that can be sometimes. He said my 6 days a week of cardio is way to much, I should cut it down to 2-3 times a week, because it will burn off my muscle. I told him that was why I was adding weights, to build up muscle. He said the more I work out my muscles, the more amino acids my body will use, and the more muscle I will lose, unless I get double the protein I am getting now. So, I didn't do any cardio today, because he had me freaked out that I was going to lose muscle that I can't afford to lose. After thinking about it and talking to my husband, I think I can drop my cardio to 30 min. a day (I would just hate to skip a day). My husband says to focus on getting to goal and then work on building or maintaining muscle. What do you think? Marcia

I'm definitely no expert, but I'm a self pro-claimed fitness fanatic (yes even in my fat body ) so I have done a ton of reading over the years and I agree with him that you need 129 grams of protein. However, I know that's hard to do. I upped my protein to between 100-120 grams a day by doing THREE shakes a day, but that's hard to do every day. If you can do it though, I'd recommend it because he's right about the muscle loss. You need protein to build muscle when you are working out and if you don't get enough, your body will eat your muscle! GOOD LUCK!! You can do it! Vi P.S. Don't know about the cardio though... I thought that was just for endurance and for your heart health... didn't know that would make use your muscle up too... I'll have to read up on that. Interesting point!

Marcia.. I just had a long conversation with the manager of the gym today about some of these things...she said not to focus on cardio rather just getting and maintaing my heart rate at a fat burning level...for me is 111-121 heart rate....so I tried that workout today and will continue till next week to see how things work.....she also said that cardio is more for endurance and the fat burning will do just that, shrink the fat cells in my body....the other thing is she said to mix up the workout routine and cross train as the body is smart and will get used to the same type of exercise and will stall....I had been trying to add a bike ride in twice a week and last week I swam...but now I am really gonna try to mix things up and hopefully get on the eliptical this week........ HTH!!! Jenn

I have to agree with Jenn I have talked to my exercise guy at the DR office and he says mix up your workouts, strength training 2-3 times a week and cardio 2-3 times a week. just not on the same days. And my nut said if I up my exersise to 5 days a week or more i need to up my water and portien by 25-35 g. I allready get 72-90. I cannot immagine 100 to 125 gr. Deb 392/308/225

I'VE ALWAYS HEARD THAT YOU ROTATE CARDIO WITH MUSCLE-BUILDING EXERCISES. SO, MON, WED & FRI ... YOU DO YOUR CARDIO WORKOUT ONLY. THEN TUES, THURS & SAT ... YOU DO YOUR WEIGHT-BEARING EXERCISES ONLY. THE REASON BEING THAT WHEN YOU EXERCISE, YOU ACTUALLY CAUSE LITTLE TEARS IN YOUR MUSCLES. IF YOU CONTINUE DOING THE SAME EXERCISE DAILY, THOSE TEARS CAN'T HEAL. WHEN THEY DO HEAL, THAT IS WHAT MAKES MUSCLES STRONGER, AS ODD AS THAT SOUNDS. SO, YOU GIVE YOUR MUSCLES 1 DAY OF REST & HEALING ... & USE DIFFERENT MUSCLES ON THE FOLLOWING DAY ... THEN, BACK TO THE ORIGINAL MUSCLES & SO ON. AS FOR LOSING EVERY BIT OF FAT IN YOUR BODY ... IT'S IMPOSSIBLE ... EVEN THE MOST EXTREME ATHLETE STILL HAS A FAT CONTENT ... A VERY LOW % FOR SURE, BUT STILL HAS A FAT CONTENT. YOUR GOAL WEIGHT & WEIGHT LOSS DESIRES WILL CHANGE AS YOU EXERCISE BECAUSE YOU WILL BUILD MUSCLE & MUSCLE WEIGHS MORE THAN FAT ... IT ALSO BURNS CALORIES FASTER. SO, WHERE YOU NOW WANT TO LOSE 66 #s, YOU MAY FIND THAT WITH THE BUILD UP OF LEAN MUSCLE, YOU MAY ONLY NEED TO LOSE 50 #s. AS FOR HIS FIGURES ABOUT YOU NEEDING TO INCREASE YOUR PROTEIN ... YOU NEED TO TALK TO YOUR SURGEON/NUTRITIONIST. BODY BUILDERS BULK UP ON PROTEIN ... BUT, FOR THE NORMAL PERSON (OR FOR WLS PATIENTS WITH REDUCED DIGESTION/ABSORBTION) I'M NOT SURE HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH PROTEIN. I'VE HEARD THAT THERE IS A POINT WHERE TOO MUCH PROTEIN CAN BE HARMFUL TO SOME ORGANS, BUT I'M NOT SURE IF THAT'S TRUE & IF SO, HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH. HOPE THIS HELPS SOME. LET US KNOW WHAT YOU FIND OUT ABOUT THE INCREASED PROTEIN, MS MARCIA. GOD BLESS DAWN & NICK