Hardcore Weight Loss Required

Nutrition
1

Hi guys!

One of my clients (female, approximately 70kg, 175cm)says she NEEDS to lose 5kg until the end of the month.

Now she doesn’t care wheter this comes from water or fat or muscle, she just wants to lose 5 kg.

Although I usually wouldn’t help her on that plan but try to talk some smarts into that head of hers, this time is a bit different due to certain reasons.

Now that customer of mine doesn’t know shit about training or nutrition. In her gym they told her to walk quickly on the treadmill (you know, aerobic exercise to burn fat with no weight training or anaerobic exercises at all…) and eat little.

At this point, she’s living on 500 calories a day, mostly from yoghurt and fruits. Added to that, they talked her into considering carnitine, telling her that all other supplements might harm her.

When she told me about this, I lost faith in mankind. I mean, c’mon, this is like so shitty…

Losing 5kgs in 20 days will prove hard. However, I believe it can be done.

I’ll post my plans to help her get that weight off and call all of you out to comment and tell me what you think of it.

---------------Nutrition:

First, that gal needs to eat. If she keeps eating 500kcals, she’ll burn muscle and store fat in it’s place. So, I’ll put her on a high fat, high protein diet and all but eliminate carbs.

Also, I’ll cut milk and most salty things from her diet in order not to accumulate any subcutaneous water.

Hopefully she’ll agree to eat every two hours, but to be honest, I doubt it…

--------------Training:

Aerobics in low intensity just won’t cut it, i fear.
Rather than talking a walk on the treadmill, I think I’ll have her cycling. Intervals that carry her deep into the anaerobic zone will provide the constant energy deficit she’s aiming for.

Intervals will be 4 minutes moderate cycling followed by 1 minute of max speed cycling. She’ll do a total of 10 Intervals. Before that, 10 minutes of warmup consisting of mobilisation and just a couple of minutes on the threadmill (can’t take away the only tool she knows and is used to :wink: ).

In addition to this training, which will take place in the afternoon, she’ll do weighttraining twice a week before cycling her intervals. Every day in the morning, I’ll have her do bodyweight-exercises in order to put a certain tension into her body and phisically prepare her for picking up weights.

In the evening, she’ll do 30 minutes of regenerative running in order to burn lactacte, keep the caloric afterburner up and prepare her for next days training.

What do you say? Comments and remarks are welcome!

2

amputating the head may get you close to 5kg, tell her that.

when faced with clients that say they want to lose a certain amount of weight in a fixed time (usually twice the weight possible if everything was done perfect), i ask some questions to try to get them in the right frame of mind:

  1. are you making weight for competition that your income depends on or late getting ready for a photo shoot?

the answer is almost always no, so next question:

  1. why specifically 15 pounds (most common number), is it because you have gotten a DEXA scan (they haven’t, but i already know that) and know exactly how much fat you need to drop? or is it because you know its way more than ten pounds but afraid to put out a big number that you might fail at?

this is when i try to hit them with a pitch to do things the right way and sell the long term benefits while at the same time trying to scare them away with how close they will have to stick to a plan we devise together.

my experience is those who back down from the challenge do not have what it takes to be successful in the long run. don’t work with these people. they will ruin your reputation. these people do not want to change, they want results.

instead try to work with people who are enthusiastic about the challenge and come to you willing to change. because they are already open to doing things differently, they will do what you ask and get results.

people who are willing to succeed will always be looking for ways they can incorporate alternatives into the plan or what the next best option is making it enjoyable and fit their lifestyle, people who want results will be looking for ways that they can keep the same lifestyle with minimum interuptions.

make sure you know which one you are dealing with. if it is results at any cost, do yourself a favor and tell them to beat it. if you already have their money, refund it. if you plan on staying in this business, you will not be sorry in the long run.

3

I think nutrition wise if you take out most carbs the water loss alone should be 2-2,5 kgs and 2-3 kg is doable in 3 weeks.

You should tell her about the carb thing though and encourage her to go on 2-3 weeks after that because than she would really have lost 5-6 kg.

Maybe she has a highschool re-union or something, why not make her happy and agt the same time motivate her to carry on with it?

4

Thank you guys.

Your replies kinda attest my point.

As I said, usually I don’t work with those people and I’ll try to convince her to change permanently.

In this case, however, those results seem to be like really important to her - and she’ll do whatever some crazed fitness guy tells her to do in order to achieve it, even if it’s ephedrine or anything.

Now don’t get me wrong, supplementation in ANY FORM can be a good thing at a certain point, but not for somewhone who doesn’t know shit about training or nutrition and hasn’t taken any stimulant before. Added, those fitness guys don’t really have a clue what to “prescribe”.

Since that lady is quite an important client, I prefer helping her reach that stupid goal before she turns to someone else.

The Water-loss thing is a good thing in this case, I guess, so I’ll have her eat dried fruits in order to raise potassium intake…

5

You seem to have your head screwed on FW, good luck turning this woman around.

For the immediate challenge:
5kg = 11 lbs

Lets assume that she can lose approx 1.5 lbs fat a week for 3 weeks - 4.5lbs.

I think the rest may need to be water, which you could achieve with a low carb diet etc.

The first time I ever tried a <20g carb a day diet I lost 7 lbs in the first week, much of it water of course…

6

Hi Stuey,

thanks for your reply. As mentioned before, water loss is ok in that case…

Since english isn’t my native languagem can you explain the term “You seem to have your head screwed on FW” ?

Cheers,
Lukas

7

Cheers, guys.

I’ve finally managed to turn her around!
In the end, what most non-hardcore women want, is a bikini-figure, not any specific weight.

Nevertheless, I’ll have the training and eating routine as described, with the exception that we’ll do interval-training only 4 times a weak instead of 6, and instead on doing cycling- or running-intervals I’ll pull her out of the gym from time to time and have her attend my lessons at my dojo.

Not only can I supervise her training, posture, movement and progress there, the opportunity to train in a group will most likely give her a mental boost and put some motivation into that head of hers when things get rough.

Anyways, I’ll keep you informed.