For those of you that aren't on facebook and may of missed my post yesterday, here's the YouTube clip that is so true its scary. If you've ever been a gym member prepare to cry with laughter.

I met a fantastic new client a few weeks ago (Hi Jane), and its been a pleasure seeing the shocked look on her face as I’ve taught her about nutrition and lifestyle changes. One question she’s had has been about a ‘bootcamp’ she’s booked on which involves a 1200 calorie controlled diet alongside 3000 calories worth of exercise a day.

Math wasn’t my best subject at school but the figures just don’t make sense!! Sure they’ll be a weight loss but it isn’t healthy and would no doubt me loss of muscle tissue than body fat loss. Why would the body release body fat under such extreme starvation. Metabolism needs careful consideration, not shock tactics.

Metabolism gets blamed when people put on weight or have trouble losing weight, people often say ‘I have a low metabolism, so its not my fault’. Metabolism is a constantly adapting factor in our bodies designed to help us in times of starvation. Nowadays we have an abundance of food and the metabolism ends up working in a far different way. 

Rather than helping us during food shortages (low crop yields etc) it ends up becoming confused by our erratic diet and lifestyle. One day we binge eat, the next we starve. I say ‘we’ because I did eat this way a long long time ago before I started studying nutrition. To balance out the metabolism and learn how to speed it up (bring it back to where it should naturally be), we need to eat smart.

Metabolism is a combination of physical and chemical processes called anabolism and catabolism. Anabolism is the constructive phase of metabolism in which body cells synthesize protoplasm for growth and repair. Catabolism is the destructive phase of metabolism in which complex substances are broken down into simpler compounds producing energy which is essential for the proper functioning of body cells. Together, these processes distribute nutrients which are absorbed into the blood after digestion.

Three factors determine your metabolic rate, which is the amount of calories your body uses every day. The basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the rate your body uses energy for vital body processes. The rate you burn energy during physical activity and the rate you use energy during digestion of food are the two other factors involved in your total metabolic rate. To improve your metabolic efficiency you only need to alter the way you eat and what you do a little bit to experience a difference in how you look and feel. If your expend huge amounts of energy and don't consume the necessary amounts of energy for YOUR body, you will be starving it which necessities your metabolic rate becoming more efficient i.e slowing down to protect its energy supply.

The best way to jump-start your metabolism is to eat with structure. By structure I mean eating the same amounts (calories) each day at similar times. Avoid yo-yoing up and down, skipping meals and having binges and starvation periods. Doing this alone will teach your body to trust you once more and the metabolism will reset itself. 

Exercise can help reduce body fat and increase lean muscle mass but you really do need to know what your doing. By increasing lean muscle mass, metabolism will increase and aid in the weight-loss process. Muscle tissue uses more calories than fat tissue because it has a metabolic need. Resistance or strength training increases your lean muscle mass which in turn increases your resting metabolic rate. This means you need to eat for the new muscle mass, otherwise your semi-starving yourself. 

Eat breakfast! 
Breakfast is essential. Your body has been deprived of food throughout the night, therefore your metabolism has slowed. If the cells do not receive sufficient nutrients they will begin to function less efficiently on smaller amounts, and they will actually store more fat to use during these times of nutritional deprivation. Eat five to six small meals a day to keep your body’s fuel supply consistent and keep your metabolism trusting in you. Consistency is important because your body metabolism adapts to your current weight. If you have been dieting or skipping meals your body’s metabolism slows down to compensate for the lack of nutrients. When lean people overeat their metabolism speeds up and when people diet their metabolism slows down. The key is a balance of exercise and diet, not a boot camp that restricts calories and forces exercise at insane levels.

As some of you know I started working on a freelance basis at a local gym recently which was based around functional training. Perfect for a C.H.E.K Practitioner to work within, or so it may seem.

Its long been a concern of mine that Gym Staff particularly Fitness Instructors get treated very poorly. Back in 2002 I found it bizarre that despite having a qualification they received less pay than the cleaners. This is despite the fact that most Fitness Instructors end up doing a lot of cleaning!!! The register of exercise professional has done little to help them, from the time it was set up, it seems to of been more about creating a position for some industry fatcats.

Despite often being concerned about the level of education involved in most gyms I was met at this gym by a few good staff who whilst not yet trained fully, were inquisitive and keen to learn (its a continual learning process), and a Gym owner who seemingly knew his stuff. From the outset I had concerns as the gym was so quiet despite the owners protests that his staff could easily earn £1000 a week!!! Quite why he would leave a £52,000 a year PT job to risk it all in an small gym that doesn’t have the huge membership quota just didn’t sit right with me. When he later bragged about driving a Ferrari and working in Law I again wondered again why you’d turn your back on that.

He continually ridiculed the fact that a fitness instructor may only earn £12,000 a year which I found shocking that he’d talk in such a manner about low wage earners. Then came the shock at the actual scam, I was required to pay £100 license fee to work in the gym, become a member of the gym, on top of this I had to pay £10 rent per client and had to buy my own staff T-shirts. I was even required to pay for a photo-frame in which to place my profile!!! One member of staff was even approached and asked to contribute towards a new piece of equipment as ‘he’d be using it.’

Despite all the payments required to work there, it was impossible to get a receipt and so today I left. I think they call it kicked out :-) but despite still being owed some work clothes that I paid for their is just no way I’d pay for things without a receipt so I’ve gladly left.

However, I was on a good deal compared to the actual gym staff. They open the gym up, clean the machines, floor, changing rooms, walk the owners dog/clean up after it, along with many other tasks for absolutely no wage!!!! Gym staff are signed up as part of an educational program in which they receive training instead of actual pay.

The training occurs through Lifetime which offers a range of work-based learning (WBL) programmes or apprenticeships based upon government funding in which they are supposed to ‘learn valuable new skills whilst enjoying all the benefits of paid employment.’

The company further state that ‘if you want to learn how to do a job, develop the skills an employer needs, gain nationally-recognised qualifications, and get paid, then work-based learning could be for you.’

Lifetime aren’t doing anything wrong in this picture, the woman who meets the staff to engage in training for their NVQ’s has no idea that they are unpaid and I’m sure she’d be horrified to find out. The courses are funded yet the gym owner is scamming them all with the promise of £1000 wages via PT once they qualify. Until then they are literally unpaid workers (think they used to call it slavery) who don’t even get spoken to with common decency.

I fell out of favor for refusing to be on a shift pattern, I work on a 1:1 basis so I attend when I need to meet with clients and understandable wasn’t over enthusiastic to take on a roll running the gym for no wages (who would), on top of this, my desire to have receipts for my payments seemed to cause too much anxiety for a poor but sneaky business model. Staff seeing me refusing to work for free was destabilizing the scam so I had to go.

The staff could get this training from any gym and also receive a wage (bonus) and I think they’re all starting to realise it. If your thinking of working your way into the fitness world, be aware that all is not what it seems. If your joining a gym, check that they treat staff well and maybe even that they get paid to work. Hopefully the staff working there won’t be too disheartened by their treatment and will continue to work (hopefully paid) within the fitness industry

Interesting first day at E3 today, I've already been looking into the possibilities of a functional or anatomical leg-length discrepancy, which seems to of caused a pelvic tilt.This then further causes a scoliosis of the spine which is the body's attempt to ensure that the head remains level. Remember that the eyes are our spirit level so must remain straight in order for us to maintain balance.

Looking forward to getting back in there on Thursday and working with some more interesting cases.

If you want to book in with me just use the contact page above.

EDIT: Having met my client for the first time today and performed some basic assessments it appears their is no leg length difference. To cut a long story short, the individual was involved in a motorcycle accident and received an impact to his femur. The fracture he suffered was a "clean" break and not shattered, so my first question to him as an engineer was "where has the 1 1/2 inches gone to?" If the bone had been shattered I may expect to see some loss of length but with a clean break it didn't make sense.

My suspicion was that walking in a cast with a rubber walker on the bottom (to protect the plaster) for a prolonged period had conditioned him to hold his pelvis in a faulty position and walk with a limp. The gentleman is question had been told 15 years ago that he had a leg length discrepancy and all he needed was some work to release the femur and hip.

***NEWSFLASH***For those that knew I was working at a new gym, I've left. The owner spun a few lies getting me in there, and after a month I've left and am just back working on my own again.***NEWSFLASH***