Question: How to lose weight for rugby training?

Hi

I am just after advice on training! I am 19.7 stone and have recently started running/jogging again for the first time properly in around 2 years, I have set myself a routine, to run every other day, Monday, Wednesday, Friday etc, Today was only my third run into my new routine, I have been taking it easy as I am new to the training again and not going mad just a slow pace of around 3 laps around a rugby pitch and four on wednesday, and five today. The first two days went fairly well, taking it easy and getting the heart rate rising, I would walk for a while when tired and start jogging again after I regained my breath.

But today I warmed up with a walk for 5 minutes did some stretches, and set of on my jog, As soon as I started doing my laps, I felt my left half start to tighten, and cause my leg problems in moving proberly during my jog, it felt in a way like cramp but I am not so sure, I continued with the pain, but after one lap my joints esp around the knee's really began to ache, along with my lower back! This pain in my knees eventually made me stop and finish up as I was in so much pain, I couldn't even do my warm down stretches, without being in pain. This has really upset me because I am hoping to get my fitness back and lose weight so I can start playing rugby again, Years ago used to run for miles as I was only 13 stone, and I loved the freedom of jogging for miles, But this is a huge setback for me and I was wondering if there is anyway around it, jogging without the pain! Thanks for the help! - question by David Rogers

Our Answer

Hi David,

Thanks for your mail, I will try to address you concern to the best of my ability.

I understand that you took a break for 2 years from your training and you also piled on 6.5 stone weight during the interim. You've not mentioned your present diet, so I am going to assume that your intake is mostly Meat, vegetables and starches (bread, rice etc). The way I see it, when you are training on constant basis your diet can take a back seat (for a while!) as your body is extremely active and hence the organs stay healthy but once you stop training your diet becomes critical. An unhealthy diet will soon start to show its toll on your health. I think that's what has happened in your case.

The good news is that recovery is possible in a short period provided you are willing to get disciplined about your diet. Let's keep it simple for a while so that your body does not enter into too much of a detox while changing your diet. I would recommend that you follow the below diet for the next 30 days.

1. Cut down on salt as much as possible. Salt (table salt or sea salt) is extremely toxic to the living cells in a human body and hence water gets stored up in order to keep this chemical diluted. Most of your body weight could easily be the result of salt accumulation in your body. You can check it out for yourself, as soon as you cut down on your salt intake you will experience an immediate weight loss and some cramps (as the stored water leaves the body). This is an indication of the body healing itself from the toxicity of salt. If it possible for you to eat a salt free diet, I will highly encourage you to do so. You will be amazed at the beneficial effects of just this one change alone.

2. Eat fresh sweet fruits like bananas, melons, mangoes and grapes for breakfast. Eat only one type of fruit every morning, for example monday you can have a banana breakfast, tuesday you can have melons and so on. Make sure you eat the fruit whole and raw at room temperature, don't juice it or freeze it. Eat ripe and sweet fruits. Don't eat anything but fruit till 12 pm everyday. Fruits are high in calories but low in fat, so you will not gain weight on this breakfast. In fact you will lose weight because of high energy availability to body which helps in the elimination of toxic wastes. You are sure to be surprised at the loss of weight you will achieve by combining a salt-less (or low salt) diet with a fruit breakfast plan. Your vitality will increase as will your endurance. Fruits are rich in vitamins and minerals, so any lack of minerals in your body will be compensated for.

3. I hate to say this but you will need to cut down on your non-vegetarian food consumption to a good extent. High protein diet is a high risk diet. My simple guess would be that the reason why you have a knee pain is because of urate and calcite deposits along the joints, increased uric acid is directly responsible for this state. Consumption of high protein foods like meat, chicken and fish is directly responsible for increased uric acid and acidity of the blood in general. You can have your urine pH tested using a pH strip (easily availed at any medical store). If your urine pH is less than 7.0 that means your blood is acidic and that is a big problem. Human blood should always be alkaline, a healthy person has his urine pH along the range of 7.2 to 7.8. You can have non-vegetarian food only once a day (may be for lunch). Dinner should consist of steamed (or stir fried) vegetable dishes, raw vegetable salad and some rice.

4. Completely stop eating or drinking any processed foods like chips, soft drinks, noodles, pasta, ice creams, cakes etc. Reduce your intake of breads (they are rich in starch) and highly processed. Avoid drinking any beverage other than water (no coffee for you!). Avoid alcohol during these 30 days. Refined sugar is another disastrous toxin which should be avoided at all cost.

5. Stop your intake of milk and diary products completely. They do a lot more harm than good. Trust me on this. You will see a huge boost in your energy when you chuck out the diary from your diet. Human body has very little capacity to handle animal milk so it ends up gunking your digestive tract.

If you implement these three steps you will see immediate results. Detox will kick in quite severely, weight loss is a direct result of the detox happening in the body. You might get spells of fever, cold, body ache, cramps or even a feeling of nausea while the body cleanses itself. You can see quicker results if you cut down on meat completely for the next 30 days.

Personally my diet consists of 70% raw foods (lots of raw sweet fruits) and 30% cooked vegetarian food. I used to weigh 15 stone (with flabs around my midriff and thighs) now I am down to 10 stone with a very trim body and I am easily able to maintain this weight. Though I do only light training I've seen a huge improvement in my endurance. I had severe problems with joint pains and body ache in general when I was on an unhealthy diet of high salt, meat and diary, now its all past history.

Keep me updated on your progress. I would like to hear from you on how your body is reacting to these changes. Be aware that detox will set in, so don't be alarmed. Stick with the diet for 30 days. Once you finish with this diet we can plan your regular diet based on your body's reaction.