Majoring In the Minor

I forget whom I've stole the basic gist of this from, I believe it might have been John Berardi, But none the less, this is a very important issue.

Some clients know it all.

Some clients know more than myself (pffft right :) )

These clients could tell you the absorption rate of Leucine versus isoleucine versus valine. They can tell you the exact moment your post workout anabolic window is at its optimum capacity. They can tell you where the Apple is in relation to the banana on the Glycemic index.

Yet they are overweight, have terrible training programs, or better/worse yet, have never yet set foot inside the gym.

huh?

That is right. I have a LOT of people say " Mega Marty, what do you think about the acai berry?" or " Mega Marty, I was reading today about ab exercises, and I know you should breathe, hold the contraction, and do a 6 second negative on the..."

wow.

I usually smile, and say "okay, how was your nutrition today?"
"errr... not so good BUT i found out that I need to do blah blah blah"

This is what I mean.

Most people like to Major in the minor. in other words, they know minute details that they don't even know how to apply to themselves, let alone what the big picture is.

This stems from friends, TV shows (I'm getting back to that awful topic soon), magazines, co-workers, or any other medium for that matter.

you wouldn't believe the questions I've heard even if I posted them. or, you might even blush and realize you were the one that asked it or something similar to your friends/trainer/nutritionist.

I have a couple clients, that shall obviously remain nameless, that are VERY very smart when it comes to nutrition. they honestly have a lot of things figured out that most people don't know about or don't care about. Such topics are calorie partitioning, carb cycling, various supplements and how/why they work, proper timing of foods/combinations etc.

yet they can't tell me how many oz of chicken they have at each meal. This is something that honestly happened.

where am I going with this? THIS IS WHY I AM HIRED FOLKS.

the reason I have a job is to teach you these things if you don't know them.

BUT

if you, for example, don't know how much chicken you've eaten at a meal, don't expect me to get into a 2 hour conversation about what the difference is between omega 3, 6, and 9.

Yes, I want you to learn. I want you to learn a lot. but I am NOT going to information dump on you. that means I'm not going to give you so much information all it does is confuse you. yes, i have gotten carried away in the past and have rambled on. I use analogies ALL THE TIME (thanks to Chris Aceto) to help clients that WANT TO KNOW understand.

once again I'm trying to beat into people's heads that the basics are needed.

even the intermediates people are shooting right past and going to the advanced stuff.

pick the easy stuff. get down the easy stuff. then jump into nutrition 4334.