Ask a Trainer
Two elite 24 Hour Fitness Trainers tackle your most burning in-the-gym questions.
I want to lose 10 pounds really fast. Any specific workout recommendations?
-- Natalie, Denver, CO
Unless you’re willing to revise your diet as well as your workout, you probably won’t lose 10 pounds quickly—and, in fact, I wouldn’t recommend losing a chunk of weight superfast as an appropriate goal for anyone.
I agree, fast is not always good. I try to approach everything from a long-term perspective and get my clients to do the same. I’ll say, “Let’s put you on a specific food intake program and do more cardio.” But you won’t ever hear me say, “You want to lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks? Suuuuure.” I suppose you could lose that much in water weight, but my job is to set clients up for the long term. And water loss is anything but long-term.
As a general rule, you can safely lose 2 pounds a week. But if you aren’t very active, it’s possible you may be able to safely lose more by increasing your activity level. Check with your doctor first—especially if you have heart or blood-pressure issues—then ratchet up your workout schedule. If you’re currently doing 3 days of cardio, bring it up to 5; bring the time from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. And consider increasing the number of calories you burn while you’re working out by adding interval training (alternating intense bursts with periods of moderate intensity exercise).
[sighing] We live in such an immediate society—we want to lose 10 pounds, and we want to lose it now. Well, you know what? You didn’t gain those 10 pounds in 2 weeks. It’s a simple law of thermodynamics. You take in more calories than you burn, you’re going to gain weight; you take in fewer than you burn, you’re going to lose weight. And it’s all going to happen incrementally, calorie by calorie.
Meet the Experts
Two trainers, both with impeccable credentials but very different styles.
Brandy Bachmeyer, 28, a former Olympic weightlifter, is a rare amalgam of brains, brawn, and perkiness. Sort of like a cross between MacGyver and a local TV weatherperson. In a good way. An elite trainer at San Ramon Supersport Club in California, Brandy regularly puts in 12-hour days, sometimes joining them as they train for half-marathons—even surveying the contents of their sub-Zeros.
Scott Nunes, a trainer at the 24 Hour Fitness in Escondido, California knows firsthand that getting fit doesn’t just happen. “I used to be a bona fide couch potato,” Nunes avows. When Nunes was in his mid 20s, he had back surgery, developed arthritis, and found himself weighing in at 260 pounds: “When my one-and-a-half-year-old son raced me to the top of the stairs and beat me, I started doing pushups and sit ups that day,” he recalls. Nunes, 37, got in great shape, which helped him raise his son, who’s now 14.
COMBINED WISDOM Step up your workouts for a couple of weeks and you can speed your normal rate of weight loss. But try to lose too much weight too fast, and you could end up exhausted or injured (or both)—neither of which is any good for your weight-loss goals. Better to go a bit slower—and steadier—and make it last.
