<p>does anyone have experience with personal trainers?</p>
<p>i’m a somewhat slim but flabby individual. When i go to stores, i always get small or sometimes extra small sweaters and my waist size is 29-30. I’m also only 5 ft 7.</p>
<p>However, my body fat % is pretty high @around 19%. I’ve hired a personal trainer with good creditials, hes the personal trainer of the year. I’m able to lift more weights but my body fat % numbers aren’t changing and i look pretty much the same. </p>
<p>Not enough information. For example, you don’t even say if you are a man or a woman or how old you are (early 20s, right?)</p>
<p>Body fat percentages are not particularly reliable measurements. Are they measuring you with one of the electrical gadgets? Or skinfold calipers? I wouldn’t expect those numbers to change quickly, especially for someone who is not overweight.</p>
<p>The recipe for improving body composition (i.e. less flab, more muscle) includes both diet and exercise. Again, without knowing what you eat, a general direction would be to cut back on your carb intake (especially sugar, soda, fruit juices, and refined grains), increase your protein consumption, and make sure you are getting enough good fats in your diet. The ultra low fat low protein diets that some people think are “healthy” are not conducive to increasing lean muscle mass. It is possible that you would actually have to increase your calories to become more muscular, but that’s impossible to say without knowing what you are currently eating.</p>
<p>On the exercise front, you will want to increase your resistance strength training, with free weights (dumbbells, barbells, kettebells) instead of machines if at all possible. Two to four days per week. Generally speaking, you would want to cut back on long slow distance cardio (which tends to make it harder to gain muscle) and focus on high intensity interval conditioning. High intensity exercise (of both types) has been shown to increase the production of human growth hormone and decrease insulin resistance, both of which will make it easier to gain muscle and/or store less body fat. To maximize muscle gain, eating protein within a two hour window after your workout seems to have some benefits.</p>
<p>Without knowing what is in your workout, there’s no way to say whether your personal trainer is any good or not.</p>
<p>i’m a male in my early -mid 20s. I’m using a scale with a electric body fat measurer. It works by sending a pulse i believe. </p>
<p>Yes, my trainer asked me to increase my protien and decrease carbs. The exercise routine is fairly consistent with what you’re saying except that i’m going to the gym 4-5times a week. </p>
<p>i guess i’m just frustrated that the body fat % just isn’t changing.</p>
<p>They work by comparing your height and weight and “activity level” to a set of population tables stored in the on-board memory chips. The result is then adjusted slightly up or down based on the electrical current passing through your body – which is primarily measuring how hydrated or dehydrated you are.</p>
<p>The age setting has a significant effect. If I plug in 57 years old, I get a body fat of 19.6%. If I plug in 25 years old, I get 15.6% – both with exactly the same height, weight, and activity level. The look up tables assume that the older guy at the same weight will have more fat and less muscle. Which is “accurate”? Beats me. I’m not sure it really matters!</p>
<p>Anyway, because these things are based on look-up tables for height/weight, they really can’t change much unless your weight is changing. My scale actually says that my body fat has increased over the last six months, despite the fact that my weight has been stable, my waist size has gone down slightly, and I’m visibly more muscular.</p>
<p>My scale asks for age as well so maybe its similar. </p>
<p>“The result is then adjusted slightly up or down based on the electrical current passing through your body – which is primarily measuring how hydrated or dehydrated you are”</p>
<p>do you know if your body fat would increase or decrease depending on your hydration? i haven’t experimented</p>
<p>You mentioned that you don’t “look” any different. You may want to try Pilates for a lean, fit look - twice a week one-hour Pilates can really transform your body.</p>
<p>How long have you been working out under the direction of your trainer? Change happens, but it happens really gradually and over a long period of time. It might take a few months for your body to start showing changes.</p>
<p>The electrical resistance scales can give you some indication of trends over time (if you look at long term averages, not daily fluctuations), but the absolute number might be off by several percent.</p>
<p>They assume that body fat is higher resistance than muscle, but a confounding variable is bone density. Bone is also higher resistance than muscle, so they use formulas based on age and whether one is an athlete to assume levels of bone density (i.e. older non-athletes are assumed to have bone loss, so the same resistance indicates higher body fat than a younger person or athlete).</p>
<p>Hydration status is another confounding variable that can cause day to day fluctuations.</p>
<p>Re: 3% body fat… 3% body fat is extremely lean, usually seen only on body builders in peak competition/show state, or perhaps people in an extreme starvation state.</p>
<p>Yes. It changes throughout the day with different hydration levels. Body fat % as “measured” by the Tanita scale tends to be highest first thing out of bed when I’m dehydrated, and lower when I’m completely hydrated. It’ll vary a percent or two.</p>
<p>I also believe – but can’t prove – that it varies with the seasons. Around here, everything is dry in winter (including me!)</p>
<p>I just don’t think it’s a very reliable or helpful tool, to be honest. Especially when you are at a reasonable bodyweight, how you look is probably a better gauge.</p>
<p>If you’re a guy and relatively young, then google “starting strength by mark rippetoe”, do the workouts, and follow his dietary advice: 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. Drink milk and get some whey protein for post work out. You’ll gain muscle and lose fat at the same time if you do it right.</p>
<p>I think that may be reverse causation and self-selection. Kind of like saying that playing a lot of basketball will make you tall or playing on the offensive line in football will make you weigh 300 pounds :)</p>
<p>In reality, it’s the fact that tall people tend to play basketball, big guys tend to be offensive linemen, and skinny people tend to do pilates classes!</p>
<p>If someone is at a low bodyweight on the scale, but looks flabby, they need to increase lean muscle. There’s actually a term for this fitness circles: it’s called, appropriately enough, “skinny fat”. Bodyweight is low from a low calorie diet, but fitness and lean muscle mass is non-existant. A guy in his 20s could turn that around pretty quickly, I would say changes in as little as six months, although different people find it easier or harder to gain muscle.</p>
<p>Rippetoe’s book and DVD are great resources for learning proper technique in several of the standard powerlifting and olympic lifting lifts – deadlift, back squat, power clean, bench press. However, his overall approach is very “old-school” weightlifting oriented. Probably not the safest, or most up-to-date, or most comprehensive all-around strength training fitness program. He basically says that injury is an inevitable consequence of strength training and I don’t believe that needs to be, or should be, the case.</p>
<p>His advice to drink a gallon of whole milk a day and lift heavy will certainly produce results in terms of adding muscle and bulking up as would any super high calorie/super high protein diet in combination with heavy weight lifting (for a guy). The gallon of milk alone is 2400 calories, 192 grams of carbs, 128 grams of protein, 128 grams of fat, and 176 grams of sugar. That may be OK for a young guy who is working out like a beast (although nobody should be eating that much sugar each day), but even a young guy needs to be aware that eating like that over the long haul will eventually make them fat. Of course, there’s no reason to take it to Rippetoe’s extreme. Drinking some milk would certainly make sense for anyone trying to bump their protein and increase muscle mass.</p>
<p>I beg to differ, interesteddad, I don’t think I’m particularly “self selected” to favor Pilates. After reading more of the thread, it is clearly more of a gender issue. I’m lean, but toned - not extremely thin (5’7" 130 lbs). I’ve found that Pilates can build lean muscle quickly…it’s too bad that men are reluctant to try it, and instead assume that a weight lifting regime will give them great results. Not surprising; I haven’t convinced my own husband to try Pilates - yet, he’s also unhappy with his weightlifting/cardio results.</p>