The Dietitian Vs. The Personal Trainer

Today I got my A*S kicked!! I had my physical assessment with a personal trainer from Urban Active.


Meet Vaughn, my personal trainer for the day. He's a great guy....even though he kicked my butt.


This is where all of the initial assessments are done (body measurements and questionnaire).


First he weighed me and took my body fat percentage. The instrument they used to measure body fat percentage was called a bioelectrical impedance analyzer (below).


I clocked in at 21.6%. I was happy with this number. It's in the range of "fitness and health". When I was anorexic my body fat percentage was 11%. Can you believe that??? No wonder I had zero energy and felt like crap.

After the weight and body fat measurement they asked me multiple questions about my medical background. Then they asked me questions about my dietary habits. They also asked me if I had any goals, and I had to think about this question for a while. I finally told them my goal was to get a bit more toned for bathing suit season (that's a reasonable goal, right?). He responded by saying I need to up my protein intake from 30% (about where I am at currently) to 40%. I laughed. Sorry, that's not going to happen. In my professional opinion a diet of 40% protein will mean I would loose weight. I don't want that. Plus, I wouldn't necessarily gain muscle by eating 40% protein, unless I am also eating more calories than I burn. I believe I can become more toned by eating exactly what I eat now, I just need to up the resistance training a bit. I didn't argue with him though, I kept my thoughts (mainly) to myself. It was good for me to hear this though, as I will be doing dietary consults with many of the personal trainer's clients. I needed to get an idea of what type of dietary advice they are providing to their clients prior to them meeting with me.

So after the questions were answered, I was asked to warm up either on the treadmill or the elliptical. I chose my favorite, the elliptical. I did a slow warm up for about 20 minutes.


Then it was time for me to go to hell. I was humbled by the next 20 minutes of the fitness assessment......

Even after this first exercise, I was ready to be finished. I sort of felt like I was on the Biggest Loser! I'm not sure what this exercise was called, but it was HARD!

I jumped up on the stepper (stacked three steps high), then squatted when I jumped to the ground. I did this for one minute (although it felt like five).


After ten minutes of some other stuff, Vaughn had me do push-ups on a stability ball (BOSU ball, turned upside down). I also had to touch my knee to my chest (this worked the abs).

I always thought this exercise (below) looked fun. HA! It was not fun. It was hard. I had to grab the rope as high as I could, then pull it down, for 2 minutes.


I found out I actually have some cleavage......

We worked with this 15 pound ball for quite some time. We did exercises for my arms and my abs.


After my last exercise, I thanked Vaughn for proving to me that I need to do more resitance training. Then I ran to my car and scarfed down a sweet potato and a string cheese. My body thanked me.

Question: Have you ever been to a personal trainer? Were you humbled like I was??

Coming Up

Tonight Nick and I finally get to spend some time together. Little does he know most of the time will be spent on him giving me massive body massages. Oh, did I mention that we had our house inspected today??? Yeah, the results were ok. There are definitely some issues, but nothing too serious.

On Saturday I will post a new recipe and a review of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution! Have a great night everyone, and thanks for reading :)