This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s The Healthiest Year of Your Life, which can be found at http://thehealthiestyearofyourlife.com. In this excerpt, Craig Pepin Donat shares important information on gyms, fitness equipment, prescriptions and “scientific” studies.

The Healthiest Year of Your Life with Craig Pepin Donat, a certified personal trainer and author of The Big Fat Health and Fitness Lie. Kevin: Yes. Something these fitness professionals that I know who do operate gyms, they do have a contract and their reasoning and I think it’s valid, is that the longer that someone stays with them, the better and more tangible the results are going to be and so they, they want to do it almost to protect themselves from people, you know, trying it for a month and not, not sticking with it, you know.

Craig: Well, there’s that, but there’s been the other side of it you could look at, you know the consumer side of it which is, if the facility offers great services, great facilities and can, you know, get people the results that they’re looking for, then they’re going to maintain it anyway. So there’s another barrier, of course, when you have, you know the barrier to entry of contract. The decision that people have to make as opposed to if you say that you can join my club and it’s month-to-month pay as you go, stop when you want, no long term contracts, cancel whenever you want. We’re so confident that you can get the results and you’re going to like the environment that you can walk away at any time.

Kevin Yes.

Craig: And in fact, we can give you a 30 day guarantee.

Kevin Yes.

Craig: A money back guarantee. There’s a lot of clubs out there that are doing things like that and that lowers the barrier of entry for the average person that, you know, might say, “Well, I don’t know.” Because, I don’t know about you, Kevin, but don’t you just hate it when you go into a phone store to buy a cell phone and every time you upgrade they lock you in for another two years.

Kevin: Oh, it’s awful.

Craig: I hate that and then and then the service is bad and then you got to buy out of it. It’s one of the most frustrating things that I think it should be illegal, actually.

Kevin: Yes. You talk a little bit about fitness equipment and I, myself, am not a huge advocate about fitness equipment, but there is fitness equipment that does work. What are some of the things that you’ve come across that you like and some of the things that you don’t?

Craig: Well, first of all, the one thing that people have to know is that the majority of claims made for equipment and on infomercials and about the results they can achieve are defective or flat out lies. There’s so many unfortunate things, you know, I talk about, a lot about how there’s not only companies and industries that sabotage our efforts to improve our health there’s also government agencies, you know the Federal Trade Commission, for example that allows the disclaimers, the fraudulent disclaimers to be used on some of these pieces of equipment. It’s just unbelievable. It should be outlawed. So there are pieces of equipment, I’ll talk about the one area that I really, I have to get on a soap box and scream at the top of my lungs about which is the whole class of abdominal equipment.

Kevin: Okay.

Craig: That uses claims that trick people into believing that they can spot reduce inches off of their waist and reduce their waist line and get six pack abs, you know this is one of the biggest lies of all times. It’s fraudulent. You and I both know, Kevin, any health professional knows that spot reduction is impossible.

Kevin: Yes.

Craig: Your body physiologically does not have a mechanism to magically melt fat from a given area of the body. As much as we would like to remove fat from our midsection or from our butts or from our thighs or from wherever your problem areas are, the body does not care about that. The only way you can spot reduce is if you do it surgically, which, of course I don’t recommend.

Kevin: Yes.

Craig: So the pieces of equipment that are out there, you know the manufacturer’s that advertise for pieces of equipment like the Ab Lounge, the Ab Rocker, the Ab Roller the Ab Doer, the Bean, the Red Exercise, I’ve tried all of these pieces of equipment. They just use fraudulent claims and it’s deceptive, it’s a lie. They shouldn’t be able to do it. It should be illegal. Now, if you want to buy one of these pieces of equipment, some of them, not all of them, some of them can work. Hey, I have a stability ball. You can get a stability ball for 20 bucks these days.

Kevin: Yes.

Craig: I love this stability ball for doing ab work. The Bean, I tried that. I bought the Bean to review it. I don’t like it. I can get a better workout. For me, I can, get a better workout on the floor doing crunches, but it’s not bad and it’s great for my four year old. She can sit on my chest when I do it. She likes it. She has fun and I can get some exercise where I can’t do that if I’m doing crunches so I have all kinds of — even the stability ball is great for her to play with while I go off and do some other stuff. So if you want to use some of these pieces of equipment to supplement your workout know to build up strength in your abdominal area, that’s great, but it’s not going to magically burn fat off your midsection. You’re never going to see a six pack of abs through fat and that’s the reality, but there’s a lot of other pieces of equipment like, for example, the Red Exerciser. Well, I reviewed this piece of equipment and it is truly one of the worst pieces of equipment I’ve ever tried. I can’t believe people are actually buying it. You know, it simulates the motion of, you know, moving back and forth as if you were on an office chair. I think you can get the same end results — by using an office chair actually. Pieces of equipment like the Thigh Master,

Kevin: Okay.

Craig: This is a multi-million dollar product that people have been tricked into believing it’s going to magically reduce inches from their thighs. Leg Magic, the Gazelle Freestyle, I’m not a big fan of. Because it makes people believe that it’s the emotion of an elliptical and it’s not, it’s more like the motion of a cross-country ski machine which is not the same type of motion. It puts a lot of stress and strain on the hip flexors and it’s not a movement that is sustainable for a long period of time. It’s kind of like the old Stairmasters. If you can only do it for five minutes well, you’re just not going to get a lot of benefits from it.

Kevin: Yes.

Craig: And then there’s another one. I love to talk about this one. It’s called the OCM Eye Gallop which is said to mimic the motion of riding a horse.

Kevin: Yes.

Craig: But it delivers the results of a donkey. It’s the most ridiculous thing that you could possibly think about. Then, of course, you’ve got electronic muscle stimulators, anything that people put around their waist. They think that there’s going to be electronic pulses that are going to magically reduce inches from their waist. The Slender Tone Ab Belt, don’t buy it. It’s been now FDA approved and they have taken out all of the deceptive claims because the FDA went after a lot of these companies and they litigated against them and they shut them down, but then they came out and they approved the Slender Tone Ab Belt. So Slender Tone now doesn’t use any of the same verbal claims, but they use all the same deceptive before and after images making people believe that they’re going to get these six pack abs from this thing. They’ve also come out with a pair of shorts that you can put on that will send electronic pulses into your thighs and your hip and your butt and make you believe you’re going to lose inches off those areas. I don’t know. Maybe it’s going to make you feel good but it’s not going to melt inches off your butt or thighs. That’s for sure.

Kevin: I remember recently looking at that Galloping machine or one similar to it.

Craig: Yes.

Kevin: I looked into some of the research about the claims that they made and I think that the focus group or the study group was like nine or fourteen people that they use over like a two week period. I’d have to check my numbers again, but the information that they’re getting their claims from is not very strong fact-based information.

Craig: Yes. Well, don’t get me started on these studies because it’s so easy to say you did a study. Nobody ever looks into the fine detail of that the study actually was. So it’s easy to say that scientific evidence shows or some college performed this test to prove that you would reduce 100% more calories if you did this than something else.

Kevin: Why do we put so much attention or so much credibility towards if a college did it or something like that. Why do we do that?

Craig: Yes. Well, people have been conditioned to believe that if a doctor says it, for example — that it’s true, but doctors for years told us that margarine was heart healthy and it was one of the worst debacles in the history of modern medicine. It was trans fat, hydrogenated vegetable oil and it caused probably more death than just about any other recommendation from a physician other than probably the recommendations to go on Vioxx or some other Fen Phen. Some of these other prescription drugs that killed tens of thousands if not millions of people and destroyed the health, certainly, of a number of people.

Kevin: When you mention the before and after pictures, now you and I both know that some of these people are paid.

Craig: Oh, absolutely.

Kevin: I still think the people like don’t like to believe that’s the truth.

Craig: Yes and it’s all the devil is in the detail and that’s where people aren’t looking. They’re looking at the surface level. They’re looking at the before and after and that triggers an emotional response. Everything, all of the buying decisions that we make are based on how we’ve been conditioned over the years and we’ve been brainwashed. That’s what conditioning is, to believe that there is a simple solution to get in shape, we want to believe it because, who doesn’t. I would much rather think that I can go on a diet for six weeks and achieve my ultimate health and fitness result and the truth of I’ve got to maintain an exercise and fitness regime and eat properly for the rest of my life and avoid toxicity and do all the other things that are critical, crucial in order to sustain a healthy and fit lifestyle. It’s just an unfortunate fact that there are a lot of people in industries out there that take advantage of the ignorance and insecurities of people who just want to feel better about themselves.

To read the rest of this transcript as well as access more information on creating and living a healthy lifestyle and hear from other health experts just like Craig Pepin Donat please visit http://thehealthiestyearofyourlife.com.