TIME Magazine article - August 9, 2009

Recently an article was published in TIME magazine stating that exercise will not make you thin. It was written in the context of "the writer" (John Cloud) going to the gym, being trained by his trainer and not losing one ounce. Does he have to give his trainer a food journal and be accountable for his time away from his trainer? As a Personal Trainer myself, I am a bit appauled by this article. We get one-on-one meetings with our clients typically 1-3 times per week for 1 hour or so at a time. If my clients want to lose weight, I insist they keep a food journal either manually or on-line. If it was not for this tool, I would have no clue what my client was doing before and after their time with me. I can only do so much with a client that is unwilling to keep an honest food journal of some sort. Either this man, who claims his stomache "hangs over his belt", goes to the gym, works hard and then goes home and rewards his hard work with food or he has something else beyond the realm of exercise and personal training is going on with him internally. Therefore, he should seek another professional to help him, a nutritionist or maybe a therapist if his issues are emotional. Sleep and genetics could be influencing factors. The bottom line to me is that this is a highly visable magazine read by millions who could come to the conclusion that they are wasting their time exercising. It is actually frightening. On the side of health, beside weight loss, I wish I could name every client that has come to me excited because they are no longer on blood pressure meds or osteoporosis meds or they don't need oxygen when they sleep anymore or their LDL has improved or their mood has improved and the list goes on and on. I work at a gym that has almost 10,000 members and I hear these types of results frequently! I wish people would learn to exercise -and eat better- for their overall health, that way weight loss becomes more of a by-product than a goal. I will forever be searching for the answers....not excuses, as it seems the author of this article is doing....