Please help with a Friend...

[lilmyth1]

All, please help, I am at my wits end and my friend is not feeling very encouraged at this point. I will try to summarize the situation. Please ask as many questions so that we can help him out.

He is a 40+ year old man who just started to change his lifestyle in the Summer of 2006. He was 280lbs, a smoker and a drinker. He has stopped both smoking and drinking, (these are victories in itself). He talked to another friend who actually got the info from me, to change his eating habits to loose the weight. He went from 280 to 266 but mid-September.. GREAT!!!
He went to my doctor at this time and had a full set of blood work done. The results, type 2 diabetes, higher than normal blood pressure, and low thyroid. The doctor put him on medicine for the diabetes, and the thyroid, and also informed him that all problems would go away if he lost 30 pounds, with the exception of the thyroid.

On 10/14, I gave him a good workout plan to help with the leaning out while toning. (high reps, full bdy plan. Since then, his weight was 252. We adjusted the diet to a balanced 6 meals per day with clean eating. Calories were changed to 1840 per day. I also switched to 4 days a week weight training and 1 day cardio.

On November 1, he quit taking his thyroid medicine, because the pharmacist said it was about the same as the DHEA pills that he was starting to take. (25mg twice per day.)

As of today, Monday, January 08, 2007 his weight is at 245.5.

The last 3 weeks went as followed:
12/10/06 - 246.5
12/17/06 - 242.0
12/24/06 - 241.0
12/31/06 - 243.5
1/7/07 - 245.5

His Bf% is approx 25%, (hand-held monitor)
Please chime in as I respect your thoughts and opinions. Ask any questions you need to help fill in any gaps I may have left open.

Thanks in advanced.

[davie]

hey bro, well donw to u for being a good friend....and to ur friend for wanting to make positive changes in his life!!

Maybe a reason he has stopped loosing is that his body is becoming accustomed to the workouts or the calorie intake?!

A few things could be tried, increase intensity of training e.g. move running machine fronm flat setting to an incline etc etc.
Also try different methods of training, runing,rowing etc are greeat forms of cardio, but mayb get him to take up a sport, especially one that gets him moving about alot and can be fun, something as simple as soccer (with friends), badminton  (with u maybe) etc etc.

Decrease calories further. Tho too be honest i dont really like that option, i actually think that maybe increasing calories might be a better option, this may sound a backwards way of thinking, but increased clean/energy giving calories might actually help to fuel his workouts better making each one more efficient and benificial. Less calories and intense workouts will probably only make him feel tired quicker and more often, and sluggish, leading to poor workouts and a loss of interest, and we deffinately dont want that!!

Just a couple of ideas off the top of my head.

Feel free to give more details on wer u live, types of activities available etc etc.

davie

[lilmyth1]

Thanks Bro, that is great advice. We are in Virginia.

[davie]

Thanks Bro, that is great advice. We are in Virginia.

Thats no problem, always good to see someone making positive changes in their lives.

I like the idea of mixing up the training i.e. cross traininig, like i mentioned before. If ur friend knows its just the treadmill today it might b hard to b up for it time after time, things like 5 a side soccer etc, can be a laugh and are good cardio, something that can be looked foreward to.

Things like adding an extra 1/2 to 1 cup of brown rice to pre-workout meal can giv a wee bit more energy to attack the weights hard.

Maybe split his training to an upper/lower split for a while to keep his muscles guessing....then go back to the full body after a month or so.

davie

[GET_BIGGER]

As with Davie, I think his body has just got immune to his diet, from what little information there is.  At 250 lbs I think anything under 2000 calories is to lil actually.  I would keep him around 2500, ranging from 2200 to 2800 daily, needs to mix up with a cheat day once every 5-7 days to keep that metabolism guessing.  Its simple math as far as losing weight, burn more calories than you consume. The tricky part is not letting your metabolism adjust to your calorie intake, thus stopping the burning of bodyfat.

Also you can get a good body workout in 3 workouts, I would hit cardio at least twice a week instead.   

Im not gonna recommend any supplements cause of his health condition, but if he adjusts his calories, has a cheat day.....it will come.  I have lost weight the day after a cheat day, thats how important I think they are (obviously try and stay away from salt as much as possible).   

Hope that helps.

Peace.

[lilmyth1]

Thanks for all your comments, I totally agree with you guys...

[davie]

Thanks for all your comments, I totally agree with you guys...

Our pleasure, let us all know if u want/need any more advice.

davie