Weight Loss
The holidays do not have to undo the year, and January does not have to be a restart. Here is what a personal trainer actually does for weight loss, week by week, from early November to New Year’s.
Craig ChapinNASM Certified Personal Trainer
Every year, around the first week of November, the same thing happens. People who have been doing well decide the holidays are a write-off, and that they will start again in January. Then January comes, and they start from further back than where they stopped.
I have spent 20+ years training clients privately in South Tampa, and the question I get this time of year is a version of the one you searched: do personal trainers help with weight loss, or is it just an expensive way to be told to do squats? Here is the honest answer, and then a checklist for the eight weeks between now and New Year’s.
No supplement does this for you and no diet does it alone. When weight loss training works, it is because a few boring things keep happening at once, and a trainer’s real job is making sure they do.
“For 8 months I started my day either working out with Craig or thinking of how I was going to make Craig proud with my choices.”
That is what accountability looks like from the other side. It is not somebody shouting at you. It is a person you do not want to report a bad week to, which turns out to be a lot of help on the day of an office party.
Holiday weight gain is mostly a schedule problem, not a willpower problem. The food gets richer, but the bigger change is that the routine that was carrying you quietly disappears.
The second column is small on purpose. You are not trying to have your best training block of the year in December. You are trying to keep the floor from falling out, so January is week nine of something rather than week one again.
Eight weeks, from the first week of November to the first days of January. Each one has one job. If a week goes badly, do the next week’s job anyway.
Decide now whether the goal for the season is to keep losing at one to two pounds a week or to hold steady. Both are wins. Then get a number to measure against: a body-fat reading tells you more than the scale does, and it is a baseline rather than a verdict.
Put two or three strength sessions a week on the calendar now, at fixed times, like meetings. An early-morning session before work is the one the holiday calendar cannot get to. Thirty minutes counts.
Practise the rule before you need it: protein first, vegetables second, then whatever else you want. An hour of meal prep on Sunday means a long week cannot make your food decisions for you.
Get your sessions in early in the week. On Thursday, take a walk before the meal, eat the meal you actually want on one plate, and skip the afternoon of grazing. On Friday, go back to normal. Not a cleanse, not a punishment workout. Normal.
Trade up rather than opt out: go, and order the better version. Alternate every drink with a glass of water, and eat something with protein before you leave the house so you do not arrive starving.
Halfway through is the time to recheck against your baseline. If the number is moving, keep going. If it is stuck, change one thing (see the plateau section below), not everything.
The busiest stretch of the year. Sixty minutes becomes thirty, three sets become two, and three sessions become two. Travelling? Squats, push-ups, lunges and a plank in a hotel room is a real workout.
Enjoy the day. Then keep whatever session comes next, so there is no gap for “I’ll start Monday” to grow in. By New Year’s Day you are not starting a resolution. You are already eight weeks in.
None of these weeks asks for perfection. They ask you to keep showing up, which is the one thing a trainer is unusually good at making you do. The habits underneath them, water, meal prep and starting small, are on my personal trainer for weight loss page.
At the pace the CDC describes, eight weeks is somewhere between eight and sixteen pounds at the very most, and over the holidays most people should expect less. With consistent training, results normally show within four to six weeks. Holding your weight while getting stronger through December is a good result, not a consolation prize: you start January with more muscle and the habit intact.
It is also why the scale is not the only number I look at. Your body-fat baseline is rechecked as we go, and a month where the scale barely moves but body fat drops is a month that worked. Lifting to lose fat is where a lot of my continuing education points: “Lift Weight to Lose Weight” (2019) and “Nutrient Timing” (2019) are both on my record.
Plateaus are normal, and December is when a lot of them show up. Before changing anything big, work down this list in order:
Not to judge it, just to see it. Holiday eating hides in small amounts: a cookie at the office, a taste while cooking, the second glass. It is the first place I look.
More load, new exercises, a different order. I keep it fresh, with a different exercise each training session, so your body does not settle into a workout it has already learned.
Both slide in December. Running short on either costs you the energy you were counting on for the session, and makes the evening snack much harder to skip.
Water, salt and a heavy meal can hold the scale up for days. Body fat, how your clothes fit and what you can lift tell you whether the plan is actually stuck.
If all four of those are in order, keep going for another two weeks before you change anything else. Weight does not come off in a straight line, and a stall of a week or two is often just that.
A trainer is worth it if the thing stopping you is consistency, technique or knowing what to do, which is most people. If a trainer promises you quick weight loss, be wary. It is the easiest thing in the world to sell and the hardest to keep. Here is what to look for instead:
And the comparison most people are actually making in November:
What it costs with me. Every session is the same rate whether you buy one or thirty-six, and the full list is on the personal training packages page.
$960 for 16 sessions
Two 30 minutes sessions a week for the eight weeks of the checklist, at $60 each. The minimum that keeps the habit alive.
12 sessions · from $720
Three a week for four weeks: enough to carry you from now through Thanksgiving with the routine already set.
24 sessions · from $1,440
Three a week for eight weeks, which is almost exactly the stretch from the first week of November to New Year’s.
After 40, eating less and adding cardio stops paying sooner, and the holidays expose that fast. The answer is the same checklist with more weight on the strength sessions. I wrote the longer version in my guide to weight loss for women over 40, and the men’s side of it in personal training for men over 50.
If you had a baby this year, first things first: everything here starts after your OB or midwife has cleared you to exercise. That is usually around six weeks, and later after a cesarean (C-section) or a difficult delivery. Until then, resting is the training. After that, a first holiday season with a baby is not the time for an aggressive target. Shorter sessions, a deep-core rebuild and holding steady are the plan, and the stages are on the postpartum personal trainer page.
I train every client myself, in person at Empire MMA and Fitness, 5006 S MacDill Ave in South Tampa. Sessions run Monday–Friday, 5am–1pm, so a standing early session before work is the easiest one to protect through December. Private sessions are $60 for 30 minutes or $120 for 60 minutes.
The first session is free: a body-fat analysis, a fitness evaluation and a workout built around your goals. Book it here and I will call you within 24 hours to set the time, or call me on 813-590-7226. Bring a friend if you like: if they come in for a session, you get another personal training session free.
Start Here
Get a body-fat baseline and a fitness evaluation now, book the sessions that will carry you through December, and start the new year eight weeks in. There is nothing to buy at the end of the first session.
Keep Reading
Endurance & Strength
Most Ironman plans do not fail on race day. They fail in week nine, on a sore knee, a skipped recovery week or a long ride with nothing to eat. Here are the nine mistakes I see most, and the fix for each.
Postpartum & Core
A waist trainer changes your shape for exactly as long as it is laced. Here is what it actually does, the five claims it is sold on, and what changes your waist for good.
Training After 40
You eat less than you did at thirty, you walk Bayshore three mornings a week, and the scale has not moved since spring. Here is what actually works for weight loss after 40.
