JLatimer

So this girl I know just joined a gym. One of these man-hating lesbian (women-only) gyms that mislead girls into believing that the iron in the weights at your typical gym will leach into your blood and cause you to look like Arnold in the span of a few weeks so join our gym to get that lean fit body. They sign her up for a 'free' fitness eval. and then tell her she is so fat she is on deaths door.

Now this girl is short and wears about size 4. Given her height, she could stand to lose some fat, but isnt terribly obese. The PT seems to disagree. She is convinced that she is horribly overweight for her age/height her health has already began to suffer and will only get worse. The PT tells this 18year old girl that the only way she can meet her goals is to commit to a 12 month PT program at a 'low fee' of $250 every 2 weeks. This girl says she isnt interested, cant afford it cause she needs to buy a car to get to work. The PT goes into a tirade telling her she need to get her priorities right, her health is more important, blah, blah.

I was glad to hear that this girl didnt fall for the high-pressure tactics used by this gym. It pisses me off to know that there are people out there who prey on people like this, rob them of their money and their dignity.

What a scam.

Cliffs Notes.
Girl joins gym
Gym tells girl she is fat and needs to pay lots of money to get skinny.
Girl tells gym no
Gym tells girl she will die.
I am pissed

RyeCL

Yes because there are enough stupid people out there that these people can keep doing it

is300eater

personal trainer here... (well, soon to move on to something else after 10 years of training, but anyway...) Yeah, the PT is full of shit, I would never stoop that low and tell someone that. Tell your friend to eat healthy (what to eat and what not? well I could go on for pages, but you know what I mean), Do cardio 4-5 days a week, start off 20-30 minutes, then up it to 45-60 minutes. As for resistance training (lifting), 3 times a week. There are tons of sites with guidance and plans... and drink lots of water!!! I highly recommend a multivitamin.

Pug

FWIW, all of the chain gyms (and maybe small ones too) have perfected the art of hard selling PT sessions and other crap, er, I mean "products". Telling the client she's sliding into the maw of death is a bit over the top, though.

Python2121

what a bunch of bs, glad she didn't fall for that.

$250 every other week, thats crazy. get on a treadmill

BubbaMarkTL

Why Are You 39 And Hanging Out With Portly 18 Year Old Girls???

Whiskers

Why not...

JLatimer

A friends daughter... It makes me feel too old to admit that it is a friends daughter and not an actual acquaintance of mine.

Mike 350Z

$500 a month

svtmike

Probably no local moderators to stalk, so that's the next best alternative.....

808havok_tsx

commercial gyms pressure their PT's to make money. working-out with a "trainer" at commerical gyms is pretty worthless IMHO.

what was used to evaluate this girl's fitness? what is her bmi? did they use fat calipers or hydrostatic underwater weighing? did they take her resting heart rate and active heart rate? did they measure her blood pressure? hell, did they even do a simple "jump and jiggle" test?

as a side note, there *is* such a thing as being skinny-fat. she could be a size 4 but her lean muscle-to-fat ratio might skew heavily to the fat side. there are a LOT of "skinny" women who are in fact, fat. google the term "skinny fat" and you'll see... btw, this applies to guys too!

i'll withhold my advice - without knowing what her fitness goals are, its hard to say anything that'll help her...

Street Spirit

I don't see how anyone who can fit in a size 4 would need to lose weight. I find it odd that just about every male member here who posts about a woman always says something along the lines of, "She isn't fat, but could lose a few....". Perhaps people's perception of a decent weight has gone out the window. Anyway, considering she can fit in a size 4, I would perhaps focus on the health aspect of working out, as opposed to the weight part of it. In that respect, health and fitness does NOT correlate to how much you weigh...someone who weighs 115 lbs can be just, or even more, unhealthy and unfit than someone who weighs more or less than that amount.

I'm glad she didn't put an outrageous amount of money towards personal training when she has other priorities. I agree that a personal trainer can be VERY helpful and useful to first-time gym goers, just so they can be shown how all the machines work and how to use proper form when doing any exercise. However, after all of that, it's all about personal commitment (to work out), and that doesn't require a personal trainer.

And sometimes women just feel more comfortable joining a womens-only gym for the sole fact that they won't have to deal with (the potential of) having men stare at them, disturb them, or criticize and analyze their bodies. I'm not saying all women care about that (once you're "in the zone" and focusing, you tend to ignore everything around you anyway), but some people just don't want the male attention when working out and wearing workout clothes.

amisconception

I'm guessing you're larger than a size 4

And some girls even at size 4 could stand to lose some weight. Skinny girls can have unattractive belly pudge that a solid regimine could fix.

Mike 350Z

Yeah that's really annoying. It just shows they're lazy and think they can get by on genetics for the rest of their lives.

I'll give more credit to a natually thicker girl that has a flat stomach. At least you know she tries.

Beelzebub

I went one of those "free evaluations" And had a PT tell me that I was overweight.

At the time I was up to a hefty 150, (i'm 5'6") and they told me I was sliding to dangerous weight levels. At the time my body fat was at around 12%

I just laughed and walked out but first told them that they were talking to someone who regullary does century bike rides. Then proceded to drop back down to my ideal weight of 138 in 5 months on my own, doing just as is300eater said.

agranado

too funny..