Quick info: I have set my goal for 130, my doc wants me at 120. I said no, but want to lower my BF which is 34% to 23-24%. Nat suggested weight training. I made an app. with my gym trainer to get info on machines. I usually just do cardio. Today I met with the trainer. She takes a look at me and says lets get you weighed, I weigh 63 kilos. She says that she will not give me a weight program until I lose 5 kilos. She then takes me to all the cardio machines and maps out only a cardio routine. She then went on and babbled about muscle on top of fat blab blab blab and how i would be happier thinner, because what i wanted to do will just make me thick and masculine. Is this true? i do not think so, i now have to find a way to figure out these machines on my own or buy a book. Has anyone had this experience???

thanks and cheers,
Judi

Find a different trainer.

You will not bulk up and look masculine unless you take steroids. Women are not biologically designed to pack on muscle the way men do. If she doesn't know this I would definately not work with her.

Muscle burns more calories than fat, too, so weight training is a wonderful way to get that lean look. Lots of cardio will increase your endurance, it will not give you a toned physique.

not only get a new trainer but inform management how bad she is. just imagine if you didn't know better and listened to her. I'm sure she's having a detrimental impact on lots of folks!

my would recomend a new trainer.. when I looked for a trainer, I was trying to find someone a bit older, that has done it for years, and has personal experiance in body duilding..
My trainer is 65, an ex body builder (25 years) and has trained all her life. at 65, she is stronger then I am, and she knows what she is doing.

Judi, not only would I get a new trainer, I'd complain about the old one! She's not an asset to anyone treating people like she is.

And to put your mind futher at ease, Iowagirl is right: Men are from the planet testosterone. Women are from the planet estrogen. Unless you inlist the aid of some illicit substances you're not going to look masculin, you just do not have the hormonal profile for it.

Nat

Ugh!! This is my pet peeve with trainers.

I just wrote the longest response giving personal experiences and victories - I'm saving you the reading.

In sum: weight-lifting works. Do it. Your trainer is/was wrong. Find a trainer who believes what you believe.

I'm losing weight so much faster now with weight-lifting as well as Atkins and cardio.

Good luck! It's great stuff, you're gonna love it.

Thanks for all the replies, I called the gym and complained to the mgr. and she said "I stand behind what the trainer said!!!!!!!!!!) I hung up. I then called another gym(same franchise diff. location) and asked for a trainer who spoke english. Got her, and explained situation, said "sure you can do weights and cardio", she will give me a program as soon as I see her next week!

so happy ending, I think, I hope, I did tell here exactly how much I weighed and how tall I am so that there is no misunderstandings and this whole youre too heavy thing starts again!

thanks again all,
Judi

Good job, Judi !

N

Keep us posted!

Judi: lifting weights burns more fat than cardio anyhow, good luck and good for you telling the trainer & the gym they're asshats!

I just had my appointment with a personal trainer this week and she told me to weightlift and cardio together with weightlifting--lower weights and more reps is the key to toning the muscles and high weights less reps is the key to bulking up. If you look at how much I weigh if I saw your weight correctly I weigh more that you.

Marion

Marion, you may want to look at getting another trainer - she's giving you bad information.

Lifting light weights for many reps is going to get you one thing - tired! To make a muscle develop 'tone' it has to move something that causes it stress. It had to tear. Tone is simply the tension that a muscle is under while at rest. It's a word that has been used and abused so much by the popular media and by people who don't know what it means that it doesn't mean anything anymore!

If you are female and if you lift heavy weights for less reps all you're going to get are toned muscles with definition. Women do not possess the natural hormonal profile to 'bulk up' like men do. We are from the planet estrogen.

Nat

On top of everything else, you body fat % can be high because of marbling of fat in muscle. You can be thin and have a high body fat % if you are not working out. The marbling will be much much less when lifting weights and using all the muscle groups.