Benefits of personal trainer

SANDY — Everyone wants to look good and feel good, but not everyone can discipline themselves to exercise and eat in a healthy manner. That is where a personal trainer comes in.

Enter Mindy Buxton, who plies her trade at the Life Centre Athletic Club in Sandy.

"People come to me to lose weight," she says. "The vanity factor gets them in. But a lot of people are in the mind-set that they can just run it off. Actually, you can lose more weight by lifting than by cardio. People really need a balance."

And she was not just referring to exercise. A balanced diet is perhaps more important than either type of exercise to lose weight. But the word "diet" is not a comfortable term for her either.

"We advocate a change of lifestyle eating-wise, not dieting," she says.

The world of personal training has taken on proportions that might be compared to the jogging craze of the 1970s and '80s. In an earlier time, jogging was the sport of choice to stay in shape. Today, it is much more complicated — and balanced.

"People feel like they have to make big sacrifices, but we see the best results with people making little modifications," Buxton says. "It's about changing their habits, little changes on a daily basis. You have to be committed."

One very committed pupil is Jeff Wilhelmsem. He has reached the point where Buxton checks his weight and body fat to ensure that he maintains the body weight he worked so hard to acquire by losing 30 pounds.

"It is truly the first time in 20 years I am not trying to lose weight," he says. "The way that I eat, I don't get hungry anymore."

Buxton told of a recent experience where she took personal training into corporations.

"We call it a 12-week boot camp," she says.

The company enrolled some 90 beginners at the start. Only 68 completed the training.

"They offered help in their cafeteria as well as their training facilities," Buxton says. "At first people were skeptical and didn't think it would work. By the middle of the 12-week program, people would come in and say, 'We're down a belt loop.' By the end they were going out and changing the size of their clothing."

The benefits of such a program are obvious. But even Buxton says, "The No. 1 benefit for myself is relieving stress."

She adds that many women benefit from "improved confidence."

"It improves the total quality of life," she says. "The only thing it doesn't do is make you rich."

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E-mail: wjewkes@desnews.com