Will I ever get a flat stomach?

Part of your job as a personal trainer is expectation management, or realignment. When clients come to you and say, my goal is x. They say, do you think x is possible. And with enough experience you will be able to give them an honest answer. 

But what about an unrealistic goal, or for that matter, the unhealthy one? Such as a six pack, a flat stomach etc. For some people, having their abs showing is a healthy condition to be in. For other people, however, it’s almost certainly unhealthy, and people are literally sacrificing their health to achieve a level of conditioning that isn’t right for them. 

Negotiating with someone who’s trying to achieve something their body is fighting them over, is delicate work. 

As part of your job as a PT you’ve got to sell them the dream and work towards that, even if it wasn’t the client’s dream in the first place. For instance, a client walks through the door and wants dramatic weight loss, but over the course of the sessions you realign their goals to a healthy body composition change, metabolic fitness and strength. That’s your job. 

Not every six pack tells the same story. We have been conditioned through media, advertising, social media, to believe that fat in and of itself is a sign of poor health. But the truth is that a minimal amount of fat is both healthy and desirable. 

And for most people, dieting down to revealing the whole musculature of the body is not sustainable on any meaningful timeframe, and not healthful. 

Eat sensibly. Train well, sometimes brutally. But never put vanity before your health. In twenty years time, you will not care what you looked like today, but you may regret not looking after your body more. 

Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash