No losing weight!

I once had a client I trained for several months. Let’s call him George. After a few months of training George, I noticed the workouts weren’t resulting in him reaching his initial goal of losing weight. As his personal trainer, I knew weight loss wasn’t the only factor when determining success of a workout plan. For two months, I hadn’t noticed significant measurable progress. At the end of the 2nd month, I decided to schedule a session where we would discuss effectiveness of plan and future direction. During the session, I had suggested to George that another trainer would probably work better as he and I hadn’t been successful. He responded and said that he mentioned weight loss as a goal initially due to thinking it would please me as a personal trainer. George also mentioned his diet was poor daily, he worked a lot of hours at his job, and dealing with his wife at home was like working additional overtime. Lastly, he mentioned his “real goal” was to ensure he maintained his current weight and not continue to gain weight as he had been the past several years. While it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, it was refreshing to get honest feedback on his eating habits and other factors contributing to the lack of progress. More importantly, it opened my eyes as a trainer in understanding not everyone wants to lose weight or has the time to commit to an improved fitness plan. Some may simply want to maintain current weight or current fitness level.