400 Lbs of Tragedy
January 9th 2007 11:44
Many years ago I read the very saddest thing in a bodybuilding magazine. Such magazines often have advice columns and in one of them a reader wrote in to tell the bodybuilder-columnist that he was the reader's favorite bodybuilder etc etc. Then the other shoe dropped. The reader admitted that he would like to be like the bodybuilder but the fact was that he was nearly 400lbs and wished he wasn't. The bodybuilder was genuinely kind, as I remember. He invited the reader to contact him via the magazine and promised to do whatever he could to help him.
I have thought about that exchange over the years. What would I tell this morbidly obese person who genuinely wished to somehow get himself out of such a predicament? Here's the advice I'd give:
First, go to the doctor and find out if there is anything that may have contributed to such weight gain that can be made right. Let's say thyroid problems or whatever-something not really confronted in the past. I would also ask the doctor's blessing on exercise. In fact, I would try to enlist the doctor in my pursuit. This would give me a objective observer to monitor my progress and advise me on the things I might encounter in an attempt to lose weight.
With the ok of the doctor I suggest the simplest of exercise programs:Get up in the morning and walk exactly one block from the house and return. Then do the same thing in the evening. As the days go by add a few extra steps every day. If all goes well just keep walking more and more.
Next, systematically add extra activity to every aspect of life. When he goes shopping I would instruct our friend to park at the extreme end of the parking lot and, once in the store, to carry two hand baskets with his items in them rather that push a cart. I would propose that he stand up a certain amount of the time when he would have been sitting in the past. This would have to be a progressive thing, but I think our reader friend should hold some weight while standing. In addition, he should make himself stand up from his chair every 15 minutes when he is relaxing. In short every possibility for movement and activity should be exploited. A body that obese is crying out to lose weight and success will come, I think, pretty quickly. If our friend can start to move more and more
he will soon see results.
Fullscale alteration of eating habits is a must. Our reader has to stop doing things to which eating has become a integral part. Sitting in front of tube etc has to be replaced with something else. If he eats voraciously at night he has to reconfigure his routine to avoid that situation. This is the hard part.
My advice is also to ignore the stuff people like me write about diet. We are worried about the margins of weight loss. Yes, if you begin to progressively exercise more and more and diet at the same time you will eventual reach a point where your weight loss will include muscle. If our friend is 400lbs he does not have the luxury to quibble about what he is actually losing. He needs to lose.
The same goes for diet. If our reader is eating two pizzas at a setting, he doesn't need to quibble about glycemic index or carb count. I suggest that he substitute two or three cabbages for that meal. At some point the fine points of diet can be considered but at first I say don't push it. A really strict diet carries the threat recidivism, so I clean up the junk eating first.
I do not suggest a gym membership for this person. Even lifting any weights is overkill. No, exercise must be slowly accumulated and the psyche must be massaged with little successes. At some point in the process the gym is a possibility.
Finally, I recommend that our friend cultivate the mind set of hope. Whatever progress should be allowed to exhilarate. Whatever he thinks fit people do that he can't should the content of his thoughts. Your servant, as always.
I have thought about that exchange over the years. What would I tell this morbidly obese person who genuinely wished to somehow get himself out of such a predicament? Here's the advice I'd give:
First, go to the doctor and find out if there is anything that may have contributed to such weight gain that can be made right. Let's say thyroid problems or whatever-something not really confronted in the past. I would also ask the doctor's blessing on exercise. In fact, I would try to enlist the doctor in my pursuit. This would give me a objective observer to monitor my progress and advise me on the things I might encounter in an attempt to lose weight.
With the ok of the doctor I suggest the simplest of exercise programs:Get up in the morning and walk exactly one block from the house and return. Then do the same thing in the evening. As the days go by add a few extra steps every day. If all goes well just keep walking more and more.
Next, systematically add extra activity to every aspect of life. When he goes shopping I would instruct our friend to park at the extreme end of the parking lot and, once in the store, to carry two hand baskets with his items in them rather that push a cart. I would propose that he stand up a certain amount of the time when he would have been sitting in the past. This would have to be a progressive thing, but I think our reader friend should hold some weight while standing. In addition, he should make himself stand up from his chair every 15 minutes when he is relaxing. In short every possibility for movement and activity should be exploited. A body that obese is crying out to lose weight and success will come, I think, pretty quickly. If our friend can start to move more and more
he will soon see results.
Fullscale alteration of eating habits is a must. Our reader has to stop doing things to which eating has become a integral part. Sitting in front of tube etc has to be replaced with something else. If he eats voraciously at night he has to reconfigure his routine to avoid that situation. This is the hard part.
My advice is also to ignore the stuff people like me write about diet. We are worried about the margins of weight loss. Yes, if you begin to progressively exercise more and more and diet at the same time you will eventual reach a point where your weight loss will include muscle. If our friend is 400lbs he does not have the luxury to quibble about what he is actually losing. He needs to lose.
The same goes for diet. If our reader is eating two pizzas at a setting, he doesn't need to quibble about glycemic index or carb count. I suggest that he substitute two or three cabbages for that meal. At some point the fine points of diet can be considered but at first I say don't push it. A really strict diet carries the threat recidivism, so I clean up the junk eating first.
I do not suggest a gym membership for this person. Even lifting any weights is overkill. No, exercise must be slowly accumulated and the psyche must be massaged with little successes. At some point in the process the gym is a possibility.
Finally, I recommend that our friend cultivate the mind set of hope. Whatever progress should be allowed to exhilarate. Whatever he thinks fit people do that he can't should the content of his thoughts. Your servant, as always.
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