To preface, this isn’t my first rodeo losing weight so you think I’d know better, right? Wrong! So, I just wanted to share my story of caution before you lose a bunch of money and don’t get the results from the client “progress” pictures that they recycle.
So, at the end of May, I spotted this girl’s Instagram that was relatively popular but not enough to where I thought it would be a ripoff. Probably around 100k followers. She had a great body and lots of videos showing what she did in the gym but of course, advertised that purchasing her program could do sO MuCH mOre !!
Unfortunately, I couldn’t start the program because I got a little (or life threatening) case of blood clots in my lungs and was not allowed to exercise for a couple of months until I was cleared by my doctor’s. So, time goes by and I’m ready to start! I’ve paid a bunch of money to see this magical program and I was excited. Low and behold, after filling out a questionnaire, she simply calculates my macros, provides me with an 8 page ebook of random recipes which many do not have calorie count or measurements to make the meal, and then an app for personal trainers she used with only FOUR videos of weighted exercises demonstrated by a beach body employee to be done in addition to only 10 minutes of cardio at the end for each day I was to workout. There was also a private Instagram where other women in the program showed off their meals, meaning they did the bulk of the work in providing recipes.
In addition, as an affiliate partner of a protein shake brand, she asked us to purchase from them and while I know protein powders are expensive, this site was CRAZY EXPENSIVE! We also needed to drink a terrible “greens” type of powder, which is $40 a pop for a small container. I think to myself “all of this is worth it to look like her, right?” Wrong again!
I’m a 5’6 female and started her program at 172 pounds. At the end of 4 weeks, using her macro recommendations, I GAINED 13 pounds! It sounds silly but while I thought the macros she gave me were high, I knew that you needed to eat more to gain muscle, but I was actually just gaining fat. She had me eating up to 1900 calories per day and eating tons of carbohydrates that literally could not be burned off with the minuscule workouts she provided. So yeah, I felt great because I was eating so much because I “had to” to meet the macros she set for me. It was only when my boyfriend expressed concern after taking my 4th week of bikini pictures to send to her that I realized the harm her program was doing for me when he told me “Baby, I don’t want to be mean, but this program is making you bigger. You were doing so much better on your own.” He showed me the picture comparisons from a few weeks ago to now and I was shocked. I had started off already not feeling confident but to just get bigger and bigger under her guidance when I had paid so much, especially as a college student. I also felt that something had to be wrong when she’d share a picture of a client who’d done her 12 week program and only have lost 10 pounds, which she would celebrate as some amazing victory. I’m sorry, but if I’m paying hundreds of dollars for your program, I do not consider it amazing to only have lost 10 pounds in 3 months! I would be disappointed if I’d only lost that much by myself in that amount of time. So, I decided to quit her program and am now blocked from her Instagram.
The moral of my story is, I know it’s fucking hard to lose weight. I do. But you can do this. Do not let yourself be bamboozled by someone on social media preying on your vulnerabilities. All the “magic” this trainer promised me about her program was either nothing I didn’t know before or nothing I couldn’t have found doing a quick google search. Many of the women who were doing her program all complained about the same issues I was going through with weight gain and she would just tell them to wait and give it time. She’d also use the same pictures of successful clients over and over again to keep shilling her business. Who even knows if they were hers?
I just want to add in that I’ve done other, more popular programs such as bodies by Rachel and it really all comes down to the same things: eat healthy, whole foods , calculate your macros, maintain a calorie deficit, look up different weighted exercises on google to compile into a guide to work out the different parts of your body and then throw in 30 minutes of cardio. Repeat 4-5x a week and adjust your macros, exercises and goals as your weight shifts. Proceed to watch the weight fall off.
And BOOM! That’s it! Am I a qualified Instagram personal trainer now? 😉
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