First let me preface this blog by saying that I am not calling people who eat cereal stupid. Nor am I suggesting that clowns are stupid either. But breakfast cereal is stupid. So don’t eat it.
OK, on with the blog…
I was speaking with a new client the other day and I wanted to share the conversation we had with you all. It might shed some light on how difficult it is for some people to understand what eating healthfully means. I hope it will also indicate how careful a fitness instructor or other type of health care provider has to be when attempting to educate a client and how important it is as a client to listen closely.
Let’s call her Mary. Mary just started the Serious Strength program a few weeks ago and was waiting to start her 15 minute, Serious Strength “Lite” training session. I created these short, sweet and powerful training sessions to accommodate people who found the 30 minute signature sessions too intense and who found the longer session too expensive.
She was looking at the low carb cook books we have out for people to flip through when waiting to hit the iron and I started a conversation with her. This is pretty much how it went:
“How are you Mary? How’s the training and eating going for you?”
“Good, great in fact!” she said. “I love the training, I feel stronger already but I wish I could lose this flab a little faster.”
Mary has about 30 or so pounds to lose. We do our best to teach all our clients that fat loss is 99.9% how you eat and adopting a low sugar, low carbohydrate, real food diet is the healthiest way to lose unwanted flab without having to count calories – and counting calories is an unhealthy and dead end road to fat loss.
I said “Well, tell me what your eating. What did you have for breakfast this morning?”
“Oatmeal!” she said with glee.
“Oatmeal?” I said – “But Mary, oatmeal is really nothing more than a bowl of sugar – a bowl of pure carbohydrate.”
“Oh.” she said with confusion. Her brow furrowed. “I had a bowl of oatmeal with a banana. I thought that was a healthy breakfast. You said that eating a low carb diet was the healthiest way to eat.”
I was struck a bit dumb for a second as what she said burrowed into my brain. And I realized yet again that I failed another client in educating them.
She thought that since a low carb diet was healthy, anything she ate that she thought was healthy was, ipso facto, low carb.
It continues to amaze me how nutritionally brainwashed people have become. And it starts early. Even in my kids school there are posters and drawings that display completely scientifically incorrect nutritional information. It’s going to take a long time and a lot of careful educating to get people on the right track.
So remember, what you hear may not be what was said and what you say may not be what is heard. Choose your words carefully. Listen closely to what your being told. It can make all the difference int he world.
