Where do you recommend old fat folks start?

[Jovan Dragisic]

It's not "carbs," it's Coke.

+++++++++++

[kr1980]

You got some good advice here, so if you can follow it, great! But if not, I'm gonna give you an easy way out that doesn't involve surgery.

Interesting idea! Will try it out, thanks.

There is:

The Nutrition Linear Progression with Robert Santana | Starting Strength Radio #30

Enqueued to listen to later, thanks!

The information is free at this point. The structure and behavior is where most people struggle.

The information might be free but putting it in a single place novices can be referred to would be helpful when first getting started. But I haven't listened to your appearance on Starting Strength Radio #30 yet so maybe that is such a place.

Lots of good information on this topic here:

Training the Emergency Weight Loss Trainee: Training the Emergency Weight Loss Trainee | Andy Baker

Starting Strength for the Obese Trainee: Starting Strength for the Obese Trainee | Nick Klemetson

Andy Baker - Coaching the obese part1: Coaching the Obese (Part 1) - Andy Baker
Andy Baker - Coaching the obese part2: Coaching the Obese, Part 2 - Andy Baker

Thank you again! I really enjoyed reading all four of those articles and watching some of the videos on Andy's YouTube channel.

[Nicholas Laureys]

Do not want to step on toes here but having done this, Rip's right.
It's not calories, it's carbs. Read up on insulin resistance and realize that nobody gets to 550 without being metabolically FUBAR.
I was also diagnosed with CIDP at the time and sitting my fat, injured ass on a bench and lifting was about all I could do. I couldn't squat to depth to start with, even. But you make adjustments. You box squat for a while. You maybe have to roll off the bench press bench because getting up is rather like a turtle on it's back trying to right itself. But if you do cardio you are going to be hungry all the time and it's going to suck. Lean folks find it hard to lift on a carbless diet. You won't. Not for a while anyway. You have all the energy you need right there on you. Think of it as the improved diet will get the fat off while the strength training preserves the muscle so you can still get off the toilet by yourself at 80.

Docs give people like us shitty advice. Some of it accidentally works for a little while (much like the novice effect in training) and then when it stops working they want to act like we aren't doing it right. I actually had one tell me if I didn't eat fat I wouldn't be fat. I shit you not. I proceeded to eat a diet that was about 8% fat and ended up on about 13 different meds for the CIDP. Then I found Coach's videos. I'm optimistic for you. You're here, asking. You got the book. You have the tools, you can do this. You've built a lot of bad habits over the years but change is more mentally daunting than physical. And lifting is damn sure less time consuming than cardio. Eat the steak, run the nlp.

Jenni just want to say thank you so much for sharing your insights and lessons learned on this topic in some of the very old threads in this forum! Tried to respond to you in those threads a few weeks ago after searching for this topic, but maybe my posts weren't approved, probably because they added nothing consequential to the argument and the threads were so darn old anyway.
I had been thinking of trying (and briefly tried) both the restrictive calorie and intermittent fasting approaches, and the slow/no results that I've gotten over the past six weeks or so just go to show (for me at least) that the ideal path for an overweight/"Obese" person (I'm male, 39, 5'10", was 109kg) truly is to just do the NLP with more careful attention to your diet, since you've got all these energy reserves. I can't imagine doing a calorie-restrictive diet as I was so damn hungry but a selective diet is not only doable but probably preferred: I was eating like crap during the NLP since I had mentally given myself "permission" that all this hard work, this weight training, meant that after counting Protein I could pretty much eat what I wanted. That was stupid and short-sighted of course, so when I re-start this NLP I will be taking all the comments and experiences of you and others into serious consideration! Thanks again for laying out your experiences as an overweight NLP trainee for others to learn from / build upon.

[Jovan Dragisic]

Jenni just want to say thank you so much for sharing your insights and lessons learned on this topic in some of the very old threads in this forum! Tried to respond to you in those threads a few weeks ago after searching for this topic, but maybe my posts weren't approved, probably because they added nothing consequential to the argument and the threads were so darn old anyway.
I had been thinking of trying (and briefly tried) both the restrictive calorie and intermittent fasting approaches, and the slow/no results that I've gotten over the past six weeks or so just go to show (for me at least) that the ideal path for an overweight/"Obese" person (I'm male, 39, 5'10", was 109kg) truly is to just do the NLP with more careful attention to your diet, since you've got all these energy reserves. I can't imagine doing a calorie-restrictive diet as I was so damn hungry but a selective diet is not only doable but probably preferred: I was eating like crap during the NLP since I had mentally given myself "permission" that all this hard work, this weight training, meant that after counting Protein I could pretty much eat what I wanted. That was stupid and short-sighted of course, so when I re-start this NLP I will be taking all the comments and experiences of you and others into serious consideration! Thanks again for laying out your experiences as an overweight NLP trainee for others to learn from / build upon.

Have you bought lifting shoes?

[Nicholas Laureys]

Have you bought lifting shoes?

Almost a year ago.

[Jenni]

It's not "carbs," it's Coke.

I know what you're getting at and I don't really disagree but damn, man. Pasta is a gateway drug. lol But you aren't wrong. Steel cut oats are not the same as a Snickers.

Jenni just want to say thank you so much for sharing your insights and lessons learned on this topic in some of the very old threads in this forum!

You are very welcome! It's a battle for some. Not everything works for everyone and most of the data is sketchy. I feel like I had to become my own experiment and if anything I've learned helps someone else, hey, awesome! The focus on calories didn't work for me either. Even weeks I topped out at 1500 calories a day I wasn't losing and I was tired and hungry and pissed about being tired and hungry. I still fuck around too much. A little hanging with friends and eating tacos and drinking beer and poof I'm back pushing the damn sled. But mostly, I eat protein and fat and don't have anywhere near the problems I used to have. I hope you find that balance too, where life is enjoyable but healthy.

[Jovan Dragisic]

Almost a year ago.

What are you squatting and pulling?

[Darren Nelson]

Consider supplementing Niacin, (nicotinic acid, vitamin B3). It’s a trick dairy farmers use to prevent cow livers from being destroyed while consuming 50# of feed per day. This is illustrated by Rip’s comment a while back about the majority of beef livers in being condemned at the plant.

Diet, lifting, cutting out booze, walking, and cleaning up your liver with B3 can help you to your goal. Don’t drink and supplement B3.

[Nicholas Laureys]

What are you squatting and pulling?

*Sorry for the thread hijack OP, but maybe my answer to Jovan's question will be relevant for you since I'm 39 and also fat, but my squat PR is 20+ kg higher compared to three years ago when I was 10ish kilos lighter at 101.**


Jovan, I went on another break 3mos ago and my numbers then were:
Last 1*5 SQ was 152.5kg (ended the LP after a few successive failures/resets of 3*5 @ around 145kg, even after having switched to a light squat day)
And my last 1*5 DL was 180kg, after a few failures (not enough reps or only getting the 4th and 5th reps with shitty form).

I was excited to have reached these numbers and feel confident that I'll return to and exceed them upon resuming The Program.
But then, fuck, I saw Alsn Thrall's newer vid about losing/gaining weight, where he suggests your squat numbers may be going up only b/c you gained a bunch of weight (fat) and your "levers" simply improved, and so, did you really get stronger? I have no idea what the hell "improved levers" as you get heavier means, but it made me wonder how much stronger I had actually gotten with a repeatable 145kg 3*5 PR at 111kg BW @ 39, compared to a (impossible to replicate) 120kg 3*5PR at 100kg BW @ 36. 🤔

Who has experience or other knowledge about this; is the whole "improved levers" concept an exaggeration of the lifting benefits you get at a higher BW (up to some point of about 35%+ bodyfat, I presume)?

[Mark Rippetoe]

But then, fuck, I saw Alsn Thrall's newer vid about losing/gaining weight, where he suggests your squat numbers may be going up only b/c you gained a bunch of weight (fat) and your "levers" simply improved, and so, did you really get stronger? I have no idea what the hell "improved levers" as you get heavier means,

I don't either.