More specifically, I know that Berardi thinks that the way to lose weight and build muscle more efficiently is NOT to keep building a larger and larger caloric deficit but rather to feed the body more nutrients and protein to stoke the metabolic fire. Mind you, this caloric increase should be accompanied by additional training but not THAT much training.

Lyle McDonald agrees to a certain extent that starving a person will not break a weight loss plateau and that sometimes raising calories or adding in a controlled high carb refeed can restore the metabolic fire. Yet, there are trainers who will add on hour after hour of cardio because they are at a loss on how to get things moving again.

There are other trainers and fitness gurus that believe that fasting or protein pulsing can increase the body’s ability to increase muscle size by making it more primed for protein synthesis while other trainers think you will wither down to nothing if you don’t eat every two hours.

What is making things even more frustrating is that I am on trainer number four and with trainer number four comes a whole new set of rules and guidelines for both eating and training. But what I take from all of it, and what my now trainer tells me, is that you don’t want a lot of cooks in your fitness kitchen. You have to pick a recipe and stick with it. So for the time being I am giving his training methods a shot because he is an incredible athlete and has trained some of the best competitors out there.

You see, I have come up with all kinds of crazy business ideas that I thought would bring in money with little to no effort and absolutely no passion or stress. All these ideas fell flat within weeks or even days. They were all just ideas. But now I think the difference is that what I’m shooting for is a dream and honest to God money and profit margins have barely crossed my mind. All I know is that I have managed to put together a site that will bring all of the knowledge, wisdom and experience of some of the trainers I respect most in this world to one place, a place where everyone is welcome, and a place where like my dreams, their resolutions can become their reality.

For Fridays’ inspiration I found a quote that couldn’t be more fitting.

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. “

~ Henry David Thoreau

“As a newly certified trainer, feel free to incorporate the Official ISSA Trainers’ Logo on your new or existing business cards or forms.  Your future clientele will undoubtedly benefit from the hard work, dedication and determination you display in your own life and even more so benefit from your unbridled enthusiasm for fitness.  If you continue to live the fitness lifestyle coupled with your newly acquired knowledge then I feel your career as an ISSA trainer will be long and lucrative.  We feel fortunate to have a trainer of your caliber with your drive and ambition representing ISSA as a CFT in Hudson Ohio.”

The toughest part was dealing with the case studies where they give you clients with various backgrounds, abilities, disabilities, goals and levels of fitness and then you must TRAIN them! Imagine that! And train them I did. It took me several hours to create 12 week plans for each one but I think I did okay. I took my time and realized that there was no perfect answer. These were just people…very much like the ones who write to me on a daily basis. So I poured my heart and soul into it and hopefully my instincts were correct.

Thank you everybody who has put up with me and all of my stressing during this process. Now let’s all cross our fingers and hope that I pass!