Training partners and the eating paradox
8 December 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Working with overweight people is weirdly gratifying. Unlike a lot of elite athletes, the heavy folks I work with have no preconceptions and totally lack a fitness frame of reference; when it comes time to train they do whatever is asked of them without question. This is nice for a change. A lot of elite athletes I work with spend as much time talking about training as actually training. I mentioned yesterday that five of the six trainees took to the progressive resistance training and cardio walking like ducks to water. Our sixth selectee decided to drop out after the third week. Id called him on a couple of issuessmoking a cigarette after a cardio session, showing up late. He was young and wanted to stay up late and when I refused to accommodate him he pulled out. He had been in an auto accident some time back and as it turned out could not squat or deadlift though he didnt tell me this beforehand. He was a young guy with options and had a doctor for a dad. I got the sense that he really didnt have the same sense of urgency the other selectees did. I kicked myself for picking him over another lady but Id wanted another male to balance out the group and wanted to a participant in their twenties. His demographic probably blinded me a bit but his dropping out made managing the group a lot easier. By the end of the third week everyone had gotten traction on the training the eating portion was much harder. My idea was to use proven bodybuilding nutritional tactics and apply them to the plight of the obese. In almost every instance the fitness and medical community prescribe chronically obese people slash calories in order to promote weight loss. I wanted body fat loss and simultaneously wanted to build new muscle to help obese people better power around their bulk.
By eating often yet eating only selected and approved foods, stored body fat is mobilized and oxidized. If the trainee subjects themselves to intense weight training, new muscle can be simultaneously constructed. Energy and vitality, always a problem when on a calorically restrictive diet, skyrockets using this multiple-meal approach. Eating more to lose body fat is counterintuitive. To succeed the obese individual must eat small, balanced meals spaced equidistant throughout the day. This eating protocol elevates the basal metabolic rate. The BMR refers to how many calories the human body burns while at rest and this caloric thermostat can be cranked upward using a combination of exercise and multiple protein/fiber meals. Five times daily our selectees were instructed to eat a portion of protein and fibrous carbohydrates - and not much else. I ran a couple of cooking classes and tried to empower these folks with the ability to prepare their own food. Being at the mercy of someone or something else for your meals is a recipe for failure. Our approach was to show folks that making the requisite foods is easy. The obese individual and the competitive bodybuilder both seek the same end result: increased muscle mass and decreased body fat. Bodybuilders are the absolute experts at retaining or acquiring muscle while melting off stored body fat. There is a general consensus among competitive bodybuilders on how to accomplish this: eat lean protein, protein devoid of saturated fat, eat fibrous carbohydrates (vegetables) and eat some starchy carbohydrates but only when eating protein and fiber; never eat starch by itself.
Lean protein and fiber both have a dampening effect on insulin secretions. This is used to counteract the insulin release that normally accompanies eating starch. Sweets, alcohol, refined carbs (anything manmade), junk food and saturated fat were placed on a banned list. Eating often is the antidote for breaking the starve/binge cycle most obese folks subject themselves to. From a pragmatic vantage point, eating something every three hours ensures the individual is full and satisfied and far less likely to binge on sweets. Taste is King and the key to successful eating is being able to infuse diet meals with taste. We worked hard to identify foods that each individual liked and that were acceptable. I showed them how to prepare the preferred foods in different ways, ways that enhanced flavor to the point that the person would actually look forward to eating the beneficial foods. All meal prep needed to be user friendly and optimally the balanced meal needed to go from conception to consumption inside fifteen minutes. We also shared methods on how to prepare mass quantities of food ahead of time. The pre-prepared foods could then be stored in the refrigerator and taken to work in Tupperware containers and sprung into life using a microwave oven. It was interesting that all five individuals wholeheartedly embraced the weight training and outdoor cardio but the eating, done at home and not within the group dynamic, was successful only to varying degrees. At the end of the 1st sixty days, those who embraced the food protocol made the astounding gains and those who resisted had less spectacular results.
My five heavy folks had taken the collective name, The Cat Herd as a result of my mentioning in one of my daily columns that getting a half dozen people of various ages, genders and physical maladies all synchronized and pointed in the same direction was like trying to herd cats. They liked that. One dynamic I hadnt counted on was how close they became as a group. There is something about being on a team with a collective mission that draws people together, despite coming from backgrounds so diverse that in regular life they would never socialize. Placed together in this strange environment, they grew close and took a genuine interest in each others progress. Genuine, not feigned, polite or pretend, genuine to the point that they would know what poundage this person would require on a certain set of a particular exercise before being told. They exhibited a genuine enthusiasm and encouraged each other at every turn. They would call each other to arrange walking times and a terrific camaraderie enveloped the training sessions. A group synergy took root wherein results exceeded all realistic expectations.
Tomorrow Ill introduce the quintet and share their sixty-day results.
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