Personal Fitness Professional - October 2008 - (Page 21)

peer-reviewed scientiﬁc and medical journals. Being a credible and believable source of information on the current science of weight loss and weight maintenance will give your client the correct impression that you have the knowledge to guide them to success. Tools to Determine the Proper Plan Now that you’ve got the knowledge, there are some applicable tools necessary for training this special population. Helping your obese clientele determine their resting metabolic rate (RMR), their non-exercise activities thermogenesis (NEAT), the thermic eﬀect of food (TEF), their exercise caloric burn or their daily caloric need gives you the power to identify to the calorie a necessary level of exercise output and a necessary level of food intake to achieve a sustainable weight loss. Using indirect calorimetry, a method of estimating energy expenditure by measuring respiratory gases, you can measure RMR and exercise calorie burn. With accelerometry, the quantitative determination of acceleration and deceleration in the entire human body, you are able to estimate how much energy your clients burn when not engaged in exercise (known as NEAT). By utilizing these tools, you can advise your client to the calorie what her reduction of food, her increase in exercise burn, or both, must be to achieve a weight loss. If you’re depending on your clients to provide an accurate account of their meals, you may be misled. It isn’t uncommon for those with food issues to underreport their food intake. Add to your tool chest software technology, workable in even handheld computers (PDAs), so that your clients can track their intake of calories, macronutrients and even some micronutrients. Weigh your client every week. Track using a software spreadsheet so your client can see the date, the week, the goal weight, the actual weight, the week’s gain or loss, the cumulative gain or loss, the average weekly loss, the net exercise calories per day (for the week), the net exercise calories per day (from inception), the daily intake (for the week) and the daily intake per day (from inception). For extra impact, graph this data as well. Training Considerations Before you begin training an obese clientele, you must ﬁrst screen all your clients for health risks. With OP, you need to be especially tuned into coronary artery disease risk factors and signs and symptoms suggestive of cardiopulmonary and/or metabolic diseases. You also need to be mindful of the likelihood that your OP will have orthopedic issues, or you must be mindful that orthopedic issues can occur from weight-bearing exercises. If used at all, weight-bearing exercises should be of shorter duration and less intensity. While suﬃcient protein intake is essential for your muscle-building clients, it is likewise very important to your OP, but for diﬀerent reasons. First, adequate protein intake by your OP greatly reduces the loss of lean mass, which naturally occurs with weight loss (It’s called adaptive thermogenesis). Second, quality protein — skim dairy, lean meats, salmon, albacore tuna, protein rich vegetables, some grains — enhances a sense of fullness, therefore causing the obese client to eat less. Be especially sensitive to your OP’s self-image and sense of reality. Often, obese clients limit themselves due to their past “failures.” They often believe their “condition” is not their fault. And there will be a big disparity between their goals (set low) and your goals for them (set high with a plan to get there). Obese clients are generally down on themselves, have had a number of failures (not limited only to weight loss eﬀorts), ➤ OCTOBER2008 · WWW.FIT-PRO.COM 21 http://WWW.FIT-PRO.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Personal Fitness Professional - October 2008

Personal Fitness Professional - October 2008 Contents Letter from the Editor, Writers Current Controversies Combating with Obesity Pilates and Yoga for Athletes New! The Balancing Act The Top Prize Building a Base of Special Populations Datebook The Success Image The Anatomy of a Fitness Assessment Branding Training Ruts Product Profile New on the Market

Personal Fitness Professional - October 2008

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