Fat is as fat does.

This ridiculous "news" story appeared on Yahoo this afternoon:

Trainers can try to understand their obese clients or they can take it a step further like 32-year-old Aussie trainer and underwear model, Paul James. In an attempt to empathize and eventually inspire his chunky clients toward a slimmer future, James is on his way to packing on 85 pounds to reach a 265-pound target weight by the end of March.

He'll then gym-fight his way back down to his 180-pound starting weight. At least he's hoping he will. James has bulged his belly with deep-fried chocolate bars and creamy pastas, catapulting him into his fat-pants-of-choice - second-hand track pants. With the extra flab, his blood pressure has risen a bit, he's sluggish and finding it difficult to motivate.

First, gaining weight intentionally will do nothing to help him understand his clients. People gain weight over years, not months or weeks. Gorging yourself on food so you can train it off isn't a method. It's a science experiment.

To really understand his clients, he should have spent 20 years gaining 3 pounds a year until he went from 180 to 240 and found that those T-shirts he wore in college are now being used to wax the car. That's how it happens, unless you obsess over your weight and go into mild panic shocks every time you see an extra 3 pounds you weren't counting on.

"Underwear model" should tell you everything you need to know about the kind of person Paul James is.

Another thing he's missing is the fact that he's already a trainer and has experience exercising and controlling his weight. He isn't apt to pound down a bag of Doritos once he's up to his obese target weight. He'll find his motivation because he never lost it.

People who are overweight are that way for a reason. They think that mall-walking is exercise and consider a meal at Saladworks a diet plate. It's simple logic, and "understanding" his fat clients doesn't take as much effort as he's putting in.

The worst thing he'll tell his clients after he loses his artificially gained weight is how much work he did and how dedicated he was to losing it. It's nonsense, since the people he's talking to don't understand the trainer.

And that's the bigger problem.