[quote]Nikki9591 wrote:
[quote]riddle22 wrote:
[quote]Nikki9591 wrote:
Have you ever been 230 pounds at 5’1?
Because I’ve been over 200 pounds at 5’0 and I was able to do HiiT and lift weights.
[/quote]
Good for you then. You’re the exception to the rule. I heard about someone who went down Niagra falls in a barrel and survived, does that mean everyone should do it?
Just because you were able to do sprints at that height and weight without injuring yourself doesn’t mean someone else can and it is reckless to be giving people that kind of advice. I just think it is absolutely ridiculous that people on this forum (not you in particular) are telling a morbidly obese person that they need to worry about building muscle.
I wholeheartedly agree that weight training should be the cornerstone of any fat loss program. However, you must crawl before you can walk. A person doesn’t get to be that obese in that short amount of time by just eating a little too much. That requires a sedentary lifestyle and/or massive amounts of overeating. It is best to build up work capacity gradually, aka going for a walk. Yes, there are plenty of examples of people who go from sedentary straight to balls to the wall training and experience success. These cases are the exceptions though, and for every person who finds success doing that there are 50 who fail.[/quote]
I didn’t say that I did sprints, I said that I did HiiT.
You assume too much, just like you’re assuming that this guy can’t do anything because he’s overweight.
If the OP has the willpower and determination to do HiiT, why tell him “No, you should just walk.”
And thank you lia67.[/quote]
You’re right about assumptions, but we’re all making them. You’re assuming that he can do certain things despite his weight. The people who didn’t pay attention to his post assumed he was of average height and started talking about building muscle.
I have been training clients for 4 years now and I have seen just about everything when it comes to people who need to lose weight. I’ve seen plenty of extremely overweight people who can move perfectly fine and can do just about anything in terms of exercise. As I’ve already pointed out though, this is the exception. For every person like that, I see plenty of others who need to start off slow.
When making assumptions it is always best to underestimate someone’s abilities than to overestimate them. By underestimating, you’re simply going to start them off with activities that are easy for them. By overestimating, you’re setting them up to fail and putting them in a position to injure themselves. Do you see the difference? I think this article by Jim Wendler sums it up nicely: http://articles.elitefts.com/articles/training-articles/from-fat-ass-to-bad-ass/. Obviously he was capable of much more than walking, but that’s what he started with and guess what, it worked.
The OP just posted that he is capable of sprinting, so I’ll have to take his word for it. I still think diet should be the #1 priority, that he should start off slow (maybe not just walking, but sprinting 7 days a week is definitely too much), and that he should probably seek further advice about weight training in the beginner forum.