Getting back up again

Like falling off a motorbike for the first time in Thailand (which I did on Christmas--right of passage in Thailand), getting back up again is extremely important in dealing with your fitness goals.

I have friends visiting from Korea, and with a visa run to Malaysia earlier this week, the biggest fight of the year tomorrow, three birthdays, Christmas BBQ, drinking seriously for the first time since Halloween and then later New Years and all the Western food in between this week such as Indian twice and two burgers, the most important thing is this: getting back up again.

I'm down on myself, but I should and shouldn't be. I shouldn't have eaten and drunken so much, but I did. Now get over it and move on and move forward.

Just get up again. And get up at of bed tomorrow, start the program over again with a 6:30 run before training. Keep it habitual and it will be perpetual. Practice doesn't make perfect. It makes permanence. You shouldn't take several days off, albeit legitimate reasons, but if you do, get back in the practice of having healthy habits.

Its going to be tough this week, however. The toughest so far, and not regarding training and a strict diet, but the possibility of straying from them. Monday is the big fight night--a K1 champion is fighting and three of our fighters as well; Tuesday is a going away and birthday party; Thursday is New Years Eve and then we are closed on the following days so I'll probably be touring with some friends.

Its cheesy, but I dig the quote from Batman Begins. "Why do we fall. To learn to get back up again."

To Detox or Not Detox

Like training Muay Thai, people detox for different reasons: spiritual, physical and mental. For many, detoxing brings about mental clarity and its a spiritual challenge. However, detoxing specifically for weight loss is highly controversial. Are people actually ridding their intestines of years of built up plaque? Are people actually losing fat or is it muscle mass or is it just water weight when they detox?

I don't know too much about the science behind it all. What I do know is this: last year, when I weighed 107 kilograms (235 pounds)I needed something to jump start me out of my sloth-like sedentary ways. I was overweight, I was lazy and I needed a kick in the butt, or a tube (see colema) in it. For that reason, I chose to detox at Atsumi's Detox Center in Phuket.


Atsumi is located in southern Phuket, near many beaches, shopping areas and Muay Thai gyms. Despite its accessible location, it is isolated as well, which is advantageous for detoxers. The last thing you want while you are starving yourself is the aroma of delicious Thai food in the air or the temptation of cheap beer.

I detoxed on an all water diet for five days and had two colemas each day. Like my calorie intake at the time, my 5 days were nothing. My friend detoxed for two weeks only on water, his reasons being strictly spiritual.

Surprisingly, not eating is lot easier than we think, especially in the heat. Humans have faced famines throughout our long history and our bodies have evolved to not eating, days and weeks at a time.

Again, I don't know much about cleansing plaque out of the digestive system, but I do know that I lost about 5 kilograms (11 pounds) in five days. Most of that was water weight in my opinion. However, westerners have a very salty diet and the excess salt in our bodies causes us to retain excess water, which is extra weight anyways. For me, a detox is like flushing a toilet: its mostly water going down the drain, but with some unnecessary shit from the body.

Many people questioned my choice to detox. And many of those people didn't lose as much weight as I did in the same amount of time. Other variables aside (motivation, exercise routine, diet), I feel I did much better than my counterparts who didn't detox, and I wouldn't have lost so much weight without restarting my engine with a detox. Lastly, I attribute my current aversion towards fast food to the detox.

So for me, the answer is To Detox.

Disclaimer: That is for people who want to follow my program: detoxing for a week, followed by 9-11 weeks of Muay Thai training. If you are only here for a week to a month and your primary purpose is weight loss, I would alter the program.

Weekly Cheat Meal

Most diet plans advocate the weekly cheat meal. Eat healthy during the week and have a decadent, yet a reasonable cheat meal. But they are missing a vital point: when to cheat.

If you are going to have a cheat meal, which you should, DON'T MAKE IT A DINNER. Have your cheat meal during lunch--sometime between 2-4 on a Saturday or Sunday, so your body has time to digest all that unwanted, unnecessary food.

Later that night you can get some light exercise to work it off, be it jogging, dancing, playing with your kids or screaming at athletes on the television like my father.

What is better for you? Cheat meal in the afternoon plus light exercise vs. Cheat meal before going to bed. It is common sense.

What Not To Drink and Eat: My Guilty Pleasures

I'm not much of a beer drinker so that isn't my guilty pleasure. But here they are:

1. Soda: Raised on Cola, I struggle to break the habit. I can go weeks without it. Then, on a road trip, I'll drink two to three cokes, out of habit. In addition, my sugar levels drop so low from training I need the quick fix. Solution: drink a green smoothie, eat some fruit, have a fruit shake with no sugar or have a little honey. But most importantly, if you are exercising for four-six hours a day, make sure you are getting enough carbs, simple and complex. The Atkins diet works back home. It won't work here (unless you do it just at night.

2. Ice Cream: Same as the Cola. I need the sugar but I have to find natural ways of getting it.

3. Indian Food: I love it. Its my favorite. Chicken masala, with some basmati rice and two orders of nan bread. Grease, carbs and fat...mmmmmmm. Its my cheat meal (more on the cheat meal to come). That with a cola.

4. Bread. Like UPS, what can brown do for you? Everything! So when eating bread, stay away from the white brands.

My Controversial Argument

We lack self control in a world that increasingly glorifies the immediate satisfaction of our impulses.

Some people can resist the urge to swing by McDonald's drive-thru at 2AM or resist the temptation of an extra order of garlic bread and a free cola refill before the main course arrives at a dinner date. YOU AND ME CAN'T.

Food for us is like a drug. Last night I ate two huge dishes at our buffet dinner and later went out for a bag of peanuts, two yogurts and a peach soda before going to bed. Now, on my day off, I'll have to go running twice, weight lift and shadow box when I should be hanging at the beach in order to burn off those calories. Its an ongoing struggle.

If we had self control, we wouldn't be here in Phuket---at a Muay Thai camp---attempting to lose weight in the first place. We would be dieting and regularly exercising back home. Some people have argued that we need to learn self control while we are here, but that's much easier said than done. The same argument has been made about wake-up calls and mandatory training (which I strongly advocate): we need to learn to do it on our own. Again, great in theory, but unless you are extremely motivated, which you probably aren't, you'll hit the snooze button and sleep through training because of the slightest ailment or sign of fatigue. And given the option of an extra serving of food at dinner, you'll do that to.

For those reasons, this is my recommended diet while training.

Depending on the the length of your stay here, begin with a detox. Detox with a couple of days of a water diet, then a few days of green smoothies. Like Danny, I would prefer to see fewer people on a strict water diet for a long duration because it slows down your metabolism, causing you to gain weight after you detox. Stick with the green smoothies and do as much training and cardio as possible. If you can't group train, do some VIPs and join our swimming group at 9:30 AM.

Once you are group training and doing additional cardio, you should do the following AS A FITNESS STUDENT:

MORNING: Power walking or cycling or jogging. Muay Thai Training. Swimming

BREAKFAST: Eat at Goong's Restaurant. Have a bowl of the delicious rice stew and a bowl of muesli with fruit and bio yogurt. Eat a banana or two. Just drink water. You need the carbs to sustain you throughout the day.

Snacks and Lunch: Green Smoothies and fresh fruit from Goong's.

AFTERNOON: Some form of Cardio. Muay Thai Training.

DINNER: At this moment--which is highly controversial, I don't recommend that fitness students eat at Goong's Buffet, unless they have strong self control, which I didn't last year and still struggle with this year. There is just too much temptation with all that delicious, all-you-can-food. As a fitness student, the last thing you want to do is binge eat at dinner, right before going to bed.

In the future, I would like to see special plates at the buffet line, which will limit serving sizes, at Goong's restaurant for fitness students. Or, a special menu just for fitness students, and maybe, just maybe, a separate eating area for them.

If you are anything like me last year, you should be no where near a buffet at dinner. We are like recenetly widowed women at a funeral (according to Will Farrell in Wedding Crashers): we are at our most vunerable time.

For dinner, you should have:

1. Salad, small amount of spaghetti and fish (I used to get this specially made for me at Cashew Nut)

or

2. Salad, small amount of rice and chicken or fish

or

3. Steamed vegetables, small amount of rice and chicken or fish.

or

4. Protein Shake

or

5. One of those meal replacement meals.

BEFORE GOING TO BED: Take a walk or cycle for a litte bit. I noticed the most improvements last year after incorporating a post dinner work out.

Ideas For Blog Topics

Here Are Some Topics I'll Be Writing and RESEARCHING about:

Fitness
1. My Detox at Atsumi here in Phuket
2. Losing 30 pounds in 10 weeks: Muay Thai, Cardio and Diet
3. Keeping Fit After Returning Home.
4. Dieting for Weight loss Vs. Dieting for Fight Training
5. Interviews with Students
6. Why Thailand for Weight Loss?
7. The Do's and Dont's of Weight Loss
8. Asians Are Right: We Are Fat--and They Are Getting Fat, too.
9. People with Mild Depression should be on an exercise and diet plan, not pills.
10. ADD and ADHD: Some kids are Huskies--they aren't meant to be sitting down all day.
11. Cardio Work Out that Incorporate Muay Thai
12. There is no such thing as the best gym: just the best gym for your needs.


Fighting
1. The Day and Life of a Muay Thai Fitness Student
2. The Day and Life of a Muay Thai Fighter: Farrang and Thai
3. MMA Conditioning VS. Muay Thai Conditioning
4. When is running too much running?
5. How to Weight Train while training Muay Thai
6. P90x vs. Body For Life
7. Rossboxing.com
8. Interviews with Fighters
9. Five Ways to Work The Bag: Fight Simulation, Practice Combos, Power, Speed, Cardio
10. What to do between working the bag and working with the trainer
11. Three Ways to Spar: Fight Simulation, Practice Combos, Practice Technique
12. Muay Thai for Self Defense Purposes
13. I'm Not a Fighter
14: Fun Drills for Everyone
15: THE IMPORTANCE OF SHADOW BOXING

Fun
1. Things To Do in Phuket

Your Parents, Your Past, Your Plan and Your Purpose

Most people are deceived by my weight loss pictures, and by weight loss pictures in general. They assume they can do what I have done just as easily and as quickly. Some can--and can do it with much better results, some can't, or at least in the same amount of time. Without work and family responsibilities, fast food joints on every corner and because of the weather, losing weight and getting fit is much easier in Thailand. However, there are other variables that will affect your success. Off the top of my head, I would say--and I'm not a Personal Trainer but your average sloppy Joe---a full body transformation depends on four factors: genetic makeup, athletic/diet background, your program and your motivation.

Your Parents (Genes): We all know him: he's the twenty-something who eats left over Chinese food, a beer and skittles for dinner and doesn't pack on the pounds and always walks around with a six-pack. I can't relate to him. So, forget him. He'll be dead by the time he's forty. And on the other side of the spectrum--probably a Samoan rugby player or a Polish farmhand---there is the one who can eat a pound of food and then pack on two pounds of fat or muscle, depending on his program. The rest of us are somewhere in between. Like a fat man on a bench, I lean towards the latter. I can easily put on muscle; however, I can just as easily put on fat. My weight fluctuates by several kilograms in a day. You must know your body type and train accordingly. Baukaw will never be as be as massive and powerful as Mighty Moe and Mighty Moe will never be as lean and quick as Baukaw. However, don't assume you can't transform your body into something different; perhaps you don't even know your body type or its potential. Last year, my personal trainer told me I could never have a noticeable 6 pack and my Thai trainer, Yib, told me I could never look like him: a little more than a year later, he now asks me for weight loss advice!

Your Past: I was never much of a natural athlete, nor was my older brother. The running joke in my family is that my best friend, Perez, who moved in with me in High School, who later played Penn State basketball, and my younger sister, who won national champion rugby games and toured throughout Europe before hitting 22, are the sons my father always wanted. For people like them, who have a strong athletic background, getting back into shape again is far easier than getting into shape for the first time. Most of the 3 month transformation pictures you see on TV or on the Internet are perfect examples of such people. I'm somewhere in the middle.

Middle School through High School I played sports, but mostly in the neighborhood and not seriously like my sister Kelly or Karley. I wasn't much of an athlete. I spent a lot of time in the forest with friends, climbing trees, building forts and getting into some trouble. I was one of the least athletic among all my friends, many who swam or played organized sports seriously. My family of 9 and I ate military style: big portions made with big heart, but not the most nutritious. Drank lots of Hi-C, Soda and ate lots of pizza and burgers--like your average pudgy third generation American kid.

I've always done most things backwards. Inspired by Perez who was now living with my family, I started to study harder and work-out more. We played lots of basketball with friends after school and on the weekends; we all played in a local B-Ball league, many of us coached by my father and aunt. Did some weight lifting with some football players, lots of push ups and sit ups, and worked at UPS several hours a night lifting boxes. Graduated at a 179 pounds, but not too strong.

During my freshman year of University, I kept the motivation going. Staying focused mentally and physically, I dabbled in some martial arts, ran and kept a 4.0 average for the first two semesters. After our first year of university, Perez and I worked at a Tent Company, setting up big tents, tables and chairs for graduation parties and weddings. Packed on a lot of muscle, but drank too much. Surpassed 200 pounds for the first time: Freshman twenty. Later, I joined the university lacrosse team and got distracted with college life. I started to drink more, and got bigger and bigger. Lost my spleen playing lacrosse, and like the spleen, I gave up lacrosse. Yada..yada...yada... met a girl my junior year and we lounged around a lot eating and reading and talking about the future. My last year at UNI was my best: lived with my friend from Nepal, two women from Kenya, one from Ghana and a bunch of guys from India. Proper UN house, with lots of delicious food. Finished university at around 230 pounds.

After graduating from college I moved to Florida to live with my Grandparents for a few months, and that is where I learned one of my most valuable lessons: Train in the Tropics. In addition to spending many nights talking with my grandparents about anything and everything, I swam everyday, went running and ate lots of fresh produce. I lost weight and left Florida feeling much healthier. A couple of months later, acting on a whim, I moved to the Caribbean, where I then taught for nearly two years. And my experiences outside the classroom in the Caribbean reinforced my position on training in the tropics. The only whales people want to see at the ocean are in the ocean.

At 22, it was an exciting and exotic time in my life. My sister loves the Colorado mountains, my brother prefers small-town New England, my youngest sister loved her time in the Aussie outback and my second youngest sister is moving to Ireland. Me, all I need is warm weather and somewhere to run and exercise to keep me from bouncing off the walls.

I ran everyday through the hills or along the waterfront and did lots of push-ups. Towards my second year, I began everyday with 500 push-ups: a set of 100, then two sets of 50, then twelve sets of 25. I taught, played some sports with the kids after school, then ran home with my books in my bag and then went to the gym. I was a young white boy in a gym with lots of big locals and Dominicans and they taught me heaps about weight lifting and dieting. Them being mostly construction worker, we focused mostly on upper body, lifting for size and strengh. By the time the guys in the gym were done with me, I was benching 300 pounds and doing push ups with a 100 pound weight on my back. Like most Americans and the boys at my gym, I associated chest, back and arm size with overall strengh and even fighting ability, which I learned later that is a rule that Thais defy, as well as the Brazilians.

Planning to enroll in graduate school, I returned to the states. Like most plans, they changed. I stopped lifting as much, actually became quite sick for several months, got depressed, and fell back into drinking and began taking sleeping pills. My father, who is proned to misquoting movies but capturing the general idea, said to me "Nothing will happen to you here. You have to go where things happen." I don't know if he meant South Korea but because an English academy offered a job, housing and a ticket out of the US, I boarded a plane at for the city of Busan. I was 103 kilograms at the time, still muscular from push ups and lifting, but fat by Asian standards---even for Koreans, who are far taller and larger than any other Asian. And this background brings you up to date on my first posting. And sorry for all the details, but the point I'm trying to make is that your past exercise and dieting habits will greatly affect your plans.

Your Plan

"He's a man, with a plan....he's Mr. Know It All." --as some of my closest friends here in Phuket would teasingly sing to me. But you need a plan. Because as my Grandfather would say, "The Future awaits for those who plan for it". Don't just arrive here in Thailand and expect to lose weight. You will. But not as much as you would like to without a plan. I've seen many success stories here and an equal amount of disappointments. It won't happen just through a few hours of Muay Thai everyday; so don't blame the camp if it doesn't. It takes a lot more. Basically, you'll need to do your muay thai training, cardio twice a day (A MUST) and diet correctly (A MUST, MUST). Do your research. I'm going to provide as many tips as possible to help you out. And read through the Weight Loss thread on Rawai Muay Thai's Forum especially Mike's biography from England. Lots of advice there. I'll also be conducting interviews once a week here in Phuket to provide more insight into how others are doing. And stay off the weight loss pills here in Thailand. Its analogous to dropping ecstasy on a Buddhist retreat and experiencing enlightenment: Its ephemeral and its cheating.

Your Motivation

I call it functional fitness. You'll lose the weight and get fit here in Thailand, but what comes next? What will keep you motivated after you are back home? I used to
love lifting weights for size and strength because I'm an endorphin junkie and it gave me a false sense of security. Now I train because I want the Thai physique: thick legs, lean stomach, chiseled arms and a strong but compact chest and back. Vanity is an acceptable form of motivation, but I think most people need more that. For me, Muay Thai is also a fun and a very practical martial arts systsem. I also keep up the training when I leave Thailand because I'm interested in self-defense, I want to compete in amateur kick boxing and I feel better about myself when I'm in shape. For me, I need more than a treadmill and a weight room to sustain my motivation. And you'll need purpose, too. Or, truthfully speaking, you will put on even more weight after you return home.

In the beginning......

I came to Rawai in late August of 2008 primarily for weight loss and fitness reasons. I’ve struggled with me weight throughout my life. Several years ago I was quite active and healthy, but after falling while running one day, I tore all the tendons in my left ankle. As a result, I couldn't walk without crutches for a month and didn’t wear a pair of running shoes for more than a year. I unhappily went to work, watched TV, surfed the internet and developed unhealthy if not deadly eating habits for over a year.

I subsisted on fried chicken, Coke, pizza, McDonalds and fried rice. In a few months time, I lost significant muscle mass and increased by body fat by more than 15 percent, surpassing 30 percent total body fat. To make matters worse, the extra weight exacerbated the pains in my ankle, preventing me from reducing my weight with any form of aerobic exercise. I met several foot specialists and they all came to the same conclusion: I needed to drastically reduce my weight.

Prior to my injury, I developed an interest in Muay Thai in Korea, where I have been teaching for the past 3 years--but I didn’t practice seriously. However, because of the emphasis on weight loss on Tuk's Rawai Muay Thai's website, Danny Avison's advice and the detox program at Atsumi convinced me to train at Rawai.

Beginning with a five day detox, I lost around a kilogram a day. Then I trained Muay Thai twice a day--longer and longer every week. I power walked at night, sometimes went swimming in the afternoon, rode my bicycle and focused on eating healthy. When I arrived in Thailand I weighed 107 kilograms (235 pounds) and in two and half months, I lost 14 kilograms of fat, finishing at 93 kilograms (205 pounds)!

Then, I returned to my teaching job, but continued to train Muay Thai and lost an additional 12 kilograms, a total of 26 kilograms (57 pounds) in 8 months! Every one I know—coworkers, friends, students, people on the street---are all impressed by my continual transformation as a result of my experiences in Phuket. Everyone wants to know how I did it, and I love sharing my story with them.