I have a friend who is overweight and weak. I’d say maybe 220 on a 5’10" frame with no lean muscle mass to speak of. He struggles to get 5 good pushups or 10 bodyweight squats. He is interested in the vdiet but I wonder if his limited strength would prevent him from getting the most out of the diet. What do you guys think?
Tropicalshoes has had a lot of success on it and doesn’t have as much muscle mass as the typical male non-trainee but she does look to at least have muscular legs, so that, at least, seems encouraging.
He would do better in learning how to eat and starting a regular weight training program. The V-Diet is for people already in good shape. It’s not so much that it wouldn’t work for him but any diet is going to have a cost of loss muscle. Once the diet is over, since he hasn’t devloped sustainable habits, he’ll just put in on again with less muscle and more fat.
however, as pointed out by a lot of V-dieters, it does change what they crave. That said, learning to eat clean and lift heavy is probably a better choice.
I was thinking it might help motivate him if he saw visible results. He needs intrinsic motivation. I have been helping him since last November but he hasn’t made much progress and I feel that the inherent length of the process makes it seem as if he isn’t accomplishing anything and so that makes him feel its okay to skip the gym.
I agree that in an ideal world he would be better off eating clean and lifting regularly but he won’t eat clean (We are in college and the dining halls here are shitty. It’s tough to get good sources of lean protein some nights.) and he tends to skip the gym. I was thinking the V-diet might help him lose some weight and change his attitude toward body transformation. Yes? No?
Hit him, knock him out, then drag his ass to the gym.
Ok, maybe not that extreme, but motivate him. Do you two go to the gym together? If so, make him go, every single time. Don’t take no for an answer.
Gotta be tough to be kind.
Any reason he’s not motivated enough to do this research on his own?
I have linked him to the T-Nation articles and Physique Clinics. He hasn’t posted probably because he hasn’t though of it; I don’t really know or care to know.
I already have a regular training partner. To be honest, he needs to go with a partner of his own. I have him on a starting strength program now, doing 4 exercises on a 2 day cycle 3 times per week: squats + dips/deadlift + bench press/overhead press + bentover row/assisted pullups.
So we will see if he can stick with that and get stronger first. I found Prof. X’s and CT’s discussion on super-beginners over in the Bodybuilding forum interesting. I’m actually kind of baffled at how anyone could be this weak.