Even Jillian goes to extremes

I’ve heard a whole lot of nonsense in my gym lately and you may be surprised to find that it was coming from the trainers.

“Whatever you do, avoid strawberries, peaches and oranges. Oh God, oranges. No.”

“I stopped at McDonald’s on the way here to get some fries. I was pressed for time.”

“Eat your PopTart.”

Yeah, those were three separate incidents involving three different trainers. The first involving the fruit about blew my mind. I came in to the gym yesterday (in the rain, which I hate… someone give me an award) to find this girl doubled over on the stairmaster. I’m not kidding you she was literally bent over so far her head was at times dipping below her waist. And she was gripping the bottom of the handle bars to keep herself up. Stairmaster: you’re doing it wrong.

Oh that poor girl needs a trainer to tell her to stand up straight, I thought. Imagine my horror when I learned the guy sitting at the desk right next to her was her trainer. And he didn’t say anything! AND then he told her to be afraid of some harmless fruits. Gah!

A few days before that I was huffing away on the stairmaster myself (standing upright and barely touching the handles, mind you) and a trainer was sitting at the front desk feeding his young daughters PopTarts and throwing down a pack of Nutter Butter cookies himself. Wha??

And it gets better (worse?)… I was outside the aerobics room a few weeks ago listening to a trainer reveal to her trainees that she stopped at McDonald’s right before class to get fries because she “didn’t have enough time” to get anything else. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Have you ever heard of a banana? Lightning speed, that little fruit.

The reason I went with a picture of Jillian Michaels is because she is easily one of the most well-known personal trainers out there. And I feel that even she is way off at times. I had her book Making the Cut (back when I fell for things like that) and she details a diet regimen she refers to as “peaking” which involves little more than starving yourself. She says it’s good for red carpet events and the like. What?

I know I’m not a personal trainer and I’m not a nutritionist either. But I do have common sense and I know that in a position such as personal trainer you are a role model. You are. Deal with it. And if you can’t set an example for your clients, you’re doing them a terrible disservice.

Do you ever wonder if the health, fitness or nutrition advice you’re getting is from a credible source? How do you weed out the bad from the good?