Have his Mom get him a puppy. A fat kid can burn a lot of calories just walking a dog a few times a day, and he won’t have to deal with the discouraging aspects of being an obese kid exercising around other kids. After a couple years he’ll have burned off a lot of pounds and the dog will be older and have calmed down some.
one thing that i have not read yet in this thread is the general joint pain this kid is bound to have when starting up his routine. Speaking as someone who was once over 50% bodyfat, I think this is often over looked by people who have always been under 25% body fat. Remember, when he is walking that mile, it is the same as you walking with an extra 100 to 150 lbs strapped on you back. Now combine that with his current level conditioning which is poor to say the least.
I dont know if fish oil is safe for him, but fish oil and aspirin really helped me persevere and work through it. Once you get below 30% body fat it does not seem to be as much of an issue. Your lighter and your body is better adapted to the stress you are putting on it. At least that is how it has gone down for me.
[quote]lordstorm88 wrote:
Along with a basic program like rippetoe’s starting strength he should have no problem slimming down.
uhm i highly doubt rippetoe is for 350 pound individuals that have never had weightlifting before. (or has he? the OP didnt specify)
but if he can do it and wont have any medical problems (we all know how quickly a heavy squat or deadlift can raise your heart beat rate) then sure. i highly doubt he’ll have the mobility to start with to squat anywhere near deep enough or to deadlift without killing his back but if he does by all means do so.
i say start by telling him what to eat thats healthy. say… get in 4000-5000 healthy cals (the stuff that you eat when you bulk) and then ONLY if he gets those in in a day he can eat what he wants… later tell him to stop eating the crappy things too starting by the sugars, then with the rest. later try to reduce carbs, then the healthy fats too(meanwhile getting in some cheat meals to keep metabolism high)
im guessing the above should be done one by one every time he loses around 20-25 more lbs
if he cant do rippetoe now he should start it whenever he is able too to keep as much muscle as he can.
of course make sure he eats tons of protein at all times. if he isnt able to follow a decent program put him on a worse one that hes able to do and those two along with keeping the metabolism high by getting better food choices first and then slowly decreasing cals and carbs while keeping cheat meals every 4-5 days will let keep him from losing too much muscle.
im assuming by following something like this he’ll have heck of a quick progress till he drops to 250lbs or so
[/quote]
Nothing wrong with Rippetoe’s starting strength, as long as he has the mobility to bench, squat, and deadlift. His bench might stall fairly quickly if he makes gains in it then loses weight (increasing ROM).
The Starting Strength program is GREAT for someone who has never been lifting before! That’s the basic premise of it. Start him off with the bar if you have to, make sure he has form, then let 'er have it as you make him pop blood vessels in his eyeballs with 110 pound squats (with good form)! 
An important point to remember is that this kid probably has a ridiculous amount of muscle hidden under the fat. Hell, he carries 300+ pounds with him everywhere he goes! (Imagine wearing a 120 lb X-vest 24 hours per day.) Make sure he gets enough protein intake.
If the gym doesn’t work well at first, you might go out and buy him 8 bags of patio filler sand, at about 40-50 lbs. each. That’s about $25. Every morning he can carry the bags from the garage to the patio. In the evening he can carry the bags back from the patio to the garage. After he can do 4 bags, move up to six, then eight.
[quote]sniper1 wrote:
We weighed him today, he weighs 320… We did bar only squats so he could just feel the movement, that was fairly challenging itself.[/quote]
As an aside, this kid probably has monster leg strength, and the challenge from squats is most likely due to cardio-vascular and core stability issues.
Also, I give you a lot of credit for helping this kid; you are probably -no exaggeration- saving his life.
We’ve been at it for about a week and a half. I’ve got to give him credit, he’s sticking with it. Starting to see progress in the weight room. His movements are more deliberate and smoothe. He’s trying hard.
However, I grossly underestimated how hard it would be to teach him proper nutrition. He argued with me for a half hour that the “raspberry” in his raspberry jelly is a fruit serving. Same with “fig newtons”. I wrote him a detailed diet after that, he doesn’t “like” almost everything on the list. His tuna is about 1 part tuna and 10 parts condiments. Won’t eat oatmeal, only eggs on a bacon and cheese biscuit.
Then I got a breakthrough. I lost my temper a little bit. Talked to him the way I’d talk to my own son if he was being a complete moron. He liked that I got mad at him. I told him stop being a pussy and start eating the right way, and don’t ever bring me a food log that looked like what he had been showing me, what a joke. I don’t know if I should have talked to him that way, but it struck a chord with him. I’m reinvigorated to work with him, and see what the near future holds.
I worked out hard for a good chunk of my highschool life and had 0 education on nutrition
In the 3 years I was working hard I saw 0 results… now that I’m 10 days away from my senior graduation, I have started to see loss (18lbs since April)… I attribute it completely to nutrition. I made MINOR diet adjustments and am now feeling it like I never felt it before.
Things that work for me:
Raisin Bran cereal (High in carbs, albeit relatively good carbs)
It superdrives your metabolism, or, it makes you shit a lot. Its also fairly tasty
Same goes for Special K.
Lunch… A ham/turkey sandwich with veggies on it, ditch 1 piece of bread and turn it into a roll. It tastes good and youve got a sandwich with half the carbs.
Crystal Light = Makes me drink a lot of water. Get him to get some of this stuff. I have doubled my water intake just because of CL.
I am not a nutrition expert but these are working for me until I get out of my moms house and start paying for my own groceries.
So if you want something he can eat/drink that he’ll like,while not feel guilty about giving it to him, there you go
Update: Things have been going very well. He’s lost about 20 pounds already. Strength is increasing steadily. He’s dropped about 2 seconds of his 20yd sprint. I’m starting to get a little more detailed with him on the nutrition front.
I have a question, what would be the daily protein requirement for this kid? He’s right at 300 lbs now. We’ve kind of been doing a WS4SB type of workout lately. I’m pretty positive the 1 gram per pound of bodyweight thing goes out the door in this situation. 300 grams of protein sounds pretty insane. Any good advice here?
I think it kind of depends on the total cals daily, and the macro breakdown.
For example, if you want a 33/33/33 split, at 3,000 cals a day, that would be 250g protein. I agree that 300+ g protein a day probably isn’t necessary for him. Also, I know some people give protein requirements based off LBM only.
I would think that you’d want to try and keep him on a 40/40/20% Protein/Healthy Fat/Carb split. The proteins and fats will help keep him happy and satiated while you decrease his carb intake. Also, it’ll make a transition to what will presumably be a pretty dramatic calorie decrease more tolerable. I would ballpark trying to keep him around 2500-2800 cals daily. 1 gram of fat = 9 cals, 1 gram of protein = 4 cals, 1 gram of carbs = 4 cals.
Based on that, his numbers (2800/2500) should look like: 125/110 g Fat, 280/250 g Protein, 140/125 g Carbs. This is very crude but I would imagine a good starting point. If we ballpark that he’s taking in roughly 3800 cals to maintain 330lbs @ 5’11" while lightly active, a drop to 2800 cals is a 25% decrease which should spark some solid losses and still provide the nutritional basis for him to build muscle (thus boost his metabolism even further).
I’m no nutritionist, so anyone else can feel free to disagree. I also would concede a set # of cheat meals a week (no more than 3), b/c he’s a teenager and he will not adhere to an inflexible program based on what you’d posted previous.
keep us updated. You’re doing this kid a great service that he probably won’t realize until many years down the road, looking back.
I was 100kg+ most of high school and by the age of 23 was 180-200kg… so I think I could probably comment here. Oh I have been 90-105kg for the last three years and am now approaching 90kg and am in very low teens BF%.
Anyway, I’d say what you’ve found is that young blokes respond well to being disciplined by people they respect. He’s come to you because he respects you and so like you’ve seen if you treat him with a bit of firmness he’ll actually probably respond quite well to it.
The problem at the moment is that he can eat the odd fig newton and have raspberry shakes or whatever the hell and as long as he cuts out a bit and does some exercise the progress will be good. However this won’t continue and at some point he’ll need to really knuckle down and learn good habits.
You’d probalby want to get an idea of his LBM to work out protein intake, so rather than 300g/day it’s more likely 200g/day which is far easier to obtain. That puts him at 30% BF which @ 300lb is probably fairly conservative.
He’s a teenager too with high BF so low carbing and all taht is more than likely pointless. Just low caloric intake will be enough with enough protein to keep most of his LBM.
At this stage diet doesn’t need to be spot on, just let him keep losing weight and seeing positive changes and I’m sure in a while he’ll be getting happier, addicted to weight lifting and maybe soon football like he wants to play. Then he’ll be a bit more conducive to your diet suggestions too After all your the one that helped him get to where he is, and now he respects you more.
it’s a great thing you’re doing, I sure wish someone would have taken me under their wing rather than tell me I was an embarassment. Ah well it’s all good now
Main thing i think to keep in mind is that small changes go a big way for obese people, nothing has to be spot on. The leaner you get the more dialled in it has to be and vica verca.
Good luck, don’t stress
[quote]sniper1 wrote:
We’ve been at it for about a week and a half. I’ve got to give him credit, he’s sticking with it. Starting to see progress in the weight room. His movements are more deliberate and smoothe. He’s trying hard.
However, I grossly underestimated how hard it would be to teach him proper nutrition. He argued with me for a half hour that the “raspberry” in his raspberry jelly is a fruit serving. Same with “fig newtons”.
I wrote him a detailed diet after that, he doesn’t “like” almost everything on the list. His tuna is about 1 part tuna and 10 parts condiments. Won’t eat oatmeal, only eggs on a bacon and cheese biscuit.
Then I got a breakthrough. I lost my temper a little bit. Talked to him the way I’d talk to my own son if he was being a complete moron. He liked that I got mad at him.
I told him stop being a pussy and start eating the right way, and don’t ever bring me a food log that looked like what he had been showing me, what a joke. I don’t know if I should have talked to him that way, but it struck a chord with him. I’m reinvigorated to work with him, and see what the near future holds.[/quote]
If he had a single mother and I know this from experiance,he needs a strong and fim yet fair male role model.thats why he liked that you got pissed because it shows you care enough to get mad then you care enough to do right by him.
And I dont care what anyone says,I think us boys need a good firm slap in the head to set us straight sometimes.
I remember my male role models were in the form of gang members.ya they taught me alot of wrong but in turn they also taught me about respect and really took care of me.
They also kicked the hell out of me when I was acting like a total dip.
In the end we all need and want structure.
BTW you are doing a great thing helping this kid out,I wish I had someone to help me like that.
just getting him active is a huge step.
and with the foods,course he wont “like” anything hes used to eating crap. he will get used to it just keep on him remember how most all 16 year old boys are.
and yes I agree go off the LBM for protien again in this situation it isnt super important yet,as long as he gets around enough to help maintain mass while he is loosing weight.
another thing you have to remember you mentioned that his mom is a single mother I am assuming 1 income and the food bill whne he does get into eating healthy will skyrocket and she may make it harder to get what he needs. so I think better choices and activity will go a long way for right now
just a thought.
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Join date: Feb 2008
Location: Minnesota, USA
Posts: 119
I worked out hard for a good chunk of my highschool life and had 0 education on nutrition
In the 3 years I was working hard I saw 0 results… now that I’m 10 days away from my senior graduation, I have started to see loss (18lbs since April)… I attribute it completely to nutrition. I made MINOR diet adjustments and am now feeling it like I never felt it before.
Things that work for me:
Raisin Bran cereal (High in carbs, albeit relatively good carbs)
It superdrives your metabolism, or, it makes you shit a lot. Its also fairly tasty
Same goes for Special K.
Lunch… A ham/turkey sandwich with veggies on it, ditch 1 piece of bread and turn it into a roll. It tastes good and youve got a sandwich with half the carbs.
Crystal Light = Makes me drink a lot of water. Get him to get some of this stuff. I have doubled my water intake just because of CL.
I am not a nutrition expert but these are working for me until I get out of my moms house and start paying for my own groceries.
So if you want something he can eat/drink that he’ll like,while not feel guilty about giving it to him, there you go
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I can’t give him this advice, it would be contradicting some of the very first advice I gave him. I told him stay away from ALL boxed breakfast cereals from the supermarket. Besides, I’ve finally got him eating plain oatmeal, with raisins and walnuts added for flavor, every morning.
He has told me he wants to eat like my son, so that’s what I’ve been shooting for, which is pretty much Berardis healthy eating verbatim. We’re not there yet, but that’s what he’s “trying” to get to. He had no idea how difficult (at first) it is to really eat properly. I constantly remind him how nutrition is so important. I point out kids that have been working out for four years with basicly nothing to show for it, and tell him proper eating habits is why they don’t make better progress. I think he’s really starting to believe what he’s hearing.
One very positive affect this is having. Other kids are starting to take notice and listening. For the last three years, most kids assumed my son was on steroids, now they’re starting to believe it can be done. I’ve been telling them for years what they eat is why they don’t look like him, but they never really bought it. But when they see the way I have Ethan eating and training they want to know more.
[quote]sniper1 wrote:
By the way, I’m very hesitant to refer a kid to this website, especially such a beginner. I’ve done it a few times over the last couple years, they always come back to me with “can you order me Alpha Male” or “how do I get steroids”. They always gravitate to the wrong areas. Better to just print out some good articles and pass those along. When, and if he gets real serious and has “some” knowledge under his belt, then I’d feel okay doing that.
My sons friends all know this is where we get our protein, Surge, BCAA, etc. That’s not the stuff most teenage kids want to spend their money on, they want the sexy sounding stuff, Alpha Male, Carbolin 19…[/quote]
I might suggest that you buy him a copy of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto. The e-book does three things that will really help the kid. It starts by talking about the mental aspect – setting clearly definable goals and reading them every day. Next, it goes through a very good nutrition program that will help him make good choices. Last, it discusses how important it is to combine weight training with good nutrition.