Hi Babette,
Yaaaargh!
This guy really cheeses me off! First of all, a personal trainer works for YOU! He's free to spout off whatever nonsense he likes about LBM, but that doesn't mean you have to listen to him!
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Do you really want to build lean body mass when your baseline is already 130 lbs?
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Um yes, I do. LBM is metabolically active. It burns calories just by existing (35-50 calories per pound, per day). Not only that, but a pound of muscle is about the size of a tennis ball and a pound of fat is the size of a grapefruit. I've also seen the statistic that muscle is 22% smaller than fat. If you added 10 lbs of muscle to your 130 LBM and carried 20lbs of fat (making you 160) you'd be the same size as someone who weighed 124 without much muscle (160X.78). Your trainer is trying to scare you off from weight lifting because of SCALE WEIGHT!??! It seems more likely that maybe that's not his area of expertise.
Quote:
He wants me to start at 40 minutes cardio 3x / week at 60-70% intensity ("This is where you will burn most fat") and says even athletes only do one anaerobic workout/week...
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He's right that cardio is better than weight-lifting at burning fat
during the workout but muscle burns fat 24/7, while cardio burns fat only during the workout and for a short time thereafter. Even "athletes" only do one anaerobic workout/week? Well, I'm glad that there's only one type of "athlete" in the world, with one kind of fitness goal. It's good to know that body-builders, jockeys, gymnasts, swimmers, sprinters, wrestlers, and sumo-wrestlers can all do exactly the same type of workout to reach their peak performance.
He thinks you should be doing balance and flexibility training? Does that suit
your fitness goals? Or is fat-burning your primary goal right now? Ketosis is muscle-sparing, meaning that as you lose weight, it will come primarily from fat rather than muscle. That's why professional body-builders use a ketogenic diet!
"Experts" can be wrong. Just look at the great low-fat experiment that's still being performed on America's population. 65% of the country is overweight or obese, yet the "experts" still natter on about reducing dietary fat intake. The Atkins Diet has been proven better than the American Heart Association Diet at reducing cholesterol, blood-pressure, and triglycerides, yet the experts still push low-fat. How could the optimum human diet be something you couldn't obtain if you were away from civilization, alone in the woods with just your own body as a resource?If you were in that situation, you could eat raw meat, seeds, nuts, berries, leafy green vegetables and the occasional raw, root vegetable (raw potatoes are poisonous in large enough quantities).
The best exercise is the one you will do. It looks like this guy wants you to live in the gym. Do you have time for that? It sounds like you're very happy with BFL and I think you're wise to keep up with the challenge and check your results at the end.
I'm sorry to have so much attitude in this post. It was directed at your trainer and not at you. It seems the guy isn't very interested in listening to you and is very interested in spouting the party line. It's interesting that he calls BFL a marketing gimmick since Bill Phillips donates all profits from sales of the book (and the video) to The Make a Wish foundation. There are lots of BFL support groups online with lots of transformation photos. Take a look at some of those and see what you think.
Good Luck,
Dig
P.S.
Here's a good, quick article, going over the benefits of strength training.