Are You Too Fat To Be A Personal Trainer?

Are you wondering if you must be super fit to be a personal trainer? Or wondering if you need to be down to a certain dress size. In essence, wondering if you are too fat to be a personal trainer.

I’m around many trainers; I observed them, I’ve gotten advice from them, trained under them, and listened to clients discuss them.

From all this information, what matters most is how you relate to a client over your current size.

Society today is much more welcoming and understanding of people who are overweight. Many clients who want to get fit are not looking to be super fit and have under 20% body fat. Most want to fit in their jeans better, climb a flight of stairs without getting winded and generally feel better all over.

Those hiring a trainer can be intimidated by a super fit, perky personal trainer. Sometimes overweight clients are too embarrassed even to ask for help from a muscular trainer or one who has a shapely butt in a size small leggings.

That being said, you will always be judged by your body size as a personal trainer. How you are judged depends on the prospective client, mainly on what they are looking for in their own body size.

The average prospective client wants to

• Lose weight
• Get toned
• Live a healthier lifestyle

Far fewer prospective clients want to get ripped. They are looking for a trainer who is super fit and muscular to work with. Clients looking to add lots of muscle want to know the trainer they will be paying for can prove how to get there by how they look.

At first glance, you can visually see that a trainer is a bodybuilder if they have the muscles to prove it.

What Clients Don’t See

Clients cannot see that a trainer may have already lost 40 lbs, 80 lbs, or significantly more weight.

They can’t see that you are still in the process of losing weight if you still have more than 20 lbs to lose to be at a healthy body fat percentage.

Just by looking at you people can’t see that you have

• spent 3-5 days a week exercising
• been logging macros into an app
• getting your step count in daily
• worked previously with a trainer
• tried to lose weight many times over many years
• have successfully kept the excess weight off

This is where becoming a personal trainer comes into play, even if you think you are still too fat to be one.

People will get their first impression of you by what they see. If you can get a conversation going and share your story, their impression will quickly change.

You Do Not Have To Be Super Fit

Whether you have personally worked with a trainer or not, think about how they looked or your idea of what one should look like to attract the kind of clients you want to work with.

If you worked with a trainer before, what did you like about them? What did you dislike about them? How does that influence your self-image as a personal trainer?

What Is Your Client?

Now, visualize who your ideal client would be. What would they look like? How old would they be?

You may be thinking you could train anyone, and with the knowledge of being a certified personal trainer, yes, you can work with anyone.

But you will find that a specific type of client is what you gravitate more towards.

If you work at a gym and part of your job is to get clients from the gym floor, what type of member will you feel more comfortable initiating a conversation with?

Get Used To Sharing Your Fat Loss Story

People are always amazed when I say I used to be over 200 lbs. I’m in my early 50s, and people assume I’ve always been able to keep weight off.

I tried losing weight many times and have done all the diets, but it was not until I was about to turn 50 and tired of trying to squeeze into a size 16 that I finally hit rock bottom with my weight. It took just over a year to drop down to a very loose size 6. Post covid, I’ve been able to stay at a comfortable size 8, and I’m very happy with how I look.

Almost half the trainers I meet have had their own weight loss journey. We all share this with prospective clients. We all have a picture of us being too fat to prove that we understand how challenging the weight loss journey is.

Last Thoughts

Your physical size has nothing to do with the knowledge you will learn while studying to become a personal trainer. The shape of your body, your gender, and your age will all be judged at first glance.

Your job is to be confident in what you know, what you can demonstrate, the training plan you put together for a client, and the accountability you provide for them.

I got my Personal Trainer Certification and Nutritionist Certification through ISSA, and I highly recommend it

Other posts you may be interested in:

Am I Too Old To Be A Personal Trainer?

5 Helpful Truths For A Healthy Weight