my friend wants to be healthier

[ixoyc]

My friend wants to be healthier. he is basically a computer geek and wants to lose weight. He is running/biking to burn some calories. He hardly eats (no breakfast, rarely lunch sometimes a sandwich, snack after school, and sometimes dinner), but is still overweight

All/Any suggestions are needed and greatly appreciated.

[midgetcop]

A lot more information is needed before anyone can give specific advice, i.e. more specific details on his age, weight, height, daily nutrition, and his current activity levels.

But I can say right off the bat that if he's eating one meal a day he's not eating enough. Starving himself is only going to bring his metabolism to a crawl.

[ixoyc]

he's 16 years old, 175 pounds, 5'9''. he doesn't really have access to weights. but he is now running to do something to help. and that's about his only physical activity besides walking to classes

like what kinds of things should he eat for breakfast, a midmorning snack, etc.

he's not looking to put on muscle or anything like that. just lose fat.

[ixoyc]

any suggestions? anyone?

[LiftGirl]

Without knowing a bit more about what he typically eats, we're limited in how much we can help. But I can offer a few suggestions off the bat.

First of all, it's great that he's incorporating exercise into his life. He needs to build that habit so he can stick to it for life.

Now, he really needs to eat more times per day. He can start off with 3 meals and work up to 5 or 6. Like midgetcop said, starving himself will only slow his metabolism. He'll have to do some careful recording of everything he eats and play around a bit to figure out how to create a slight (key word is slight) caloric deficit.

The problem with a caloric deficit is that the body will break down muscle as well as fat to fuel itself. So how do we tell it not to break down muscle? We do resistance training. Since he does not have access to weights, would he be willing to try some bodyweight workouts or something like crossfit?

Hope that helps.

P.S. If he has internet, please tell him he's welcome to join us here.

[ixoyc]

yeah thank you , i looked up some meal plans at bodybuilding.com
he said fat loss is his main goal and doesn't care too much about muscle loss. i'll also look up some body weight workouts. (he said he does, pushups and sit ups)

[LiftGirl]

Originally Posted by ixoyc

yeah thank you , i looked up some meal plans at bodybuilding.com
he said fat loss is his main goal and doesn't care too much about muscle loss. i'll also look up some body weight workouts. (he said he does, pushups and sit ups)

Even if he doesn't care about muscle loss, he should be careful about it. Muscle mass loss will slow fat loss because muscle loss will slow down the metabolism. Push-ups and sit-ups are great, but he'll need to add exercises that target the entire body.