I'd been hearing about Amir Siddiqui for a few months now from a friend of mine who swore he was the best thing since sliced bread. Amir is originally Pakistani but has lived in America most of his life and after spending a couple of years in Pakistan, recently moved to Dubai. My friend had been training with him on her numerous trips home to Islamabad, and while was not consistent enough to see results herself, swore that her friends had completely transformed their bodies under his able supervision. I have been training (with mixed results) with various trainers for YEARS now and have recently unhappily watched my scale inch upwards, gaining back weight that I'd worked my butt off (literally) to lose a few years back (You may remember an article I'd written for Khaleej Times on the matter here?) Over the past year especially, I've been plagued with knee pain that have limited my cardio sessions, ensured no running and have almost eradicated my lower body workouts.. And while no squats and lunges make me happy, my body has not responded as kindly as my spirit. I was on the lookout for a new trainer who'd be able to motivate me and get me back in shape and that's when I succumbed and decided to give Amir a call. I will give you my disclaimer here- I've been training with him WAY too short a time to either see any results or even sing his praises, but I can narrate to you why I was sold on him after my assessment with him. Amir (and yes, that's a caricature of him above!) met me and seemed to understand my problem perfectly. On meeting him I'd been doing the famous Dukan Diet for 3 weeks that apparently Kate Middleton had been on before her wedding (and wowza.. did you see her bod? And her sister's butt?!) but had only unfortunately lost a measly kilo in that period. He explained to me that I'd dieted my body into an extremely confused state and messed up my hormones with my crash diets. After making me take a long questionnaire about my food habits, workout routines and most importantly, my attitude towards food, he turned to me and said, "do you realize that I understand your problem better than you do?" and I really did believe him. Then another thing happened- I told him about my knee issues that I'd been visiting a physiotherapist for for a few months now. He checked out my knee, made me do a half squat, made me show him where it hurts, pressed a few points for a few minutes (very painful few minutes!!) and just like magic, the pain was GONE. I think I did about 50 full squats without feeling even the slightest pinch of pain! Needless to say, I signed up with him that instant. His method of training is something I haven't seen before and so is his attitude towards a lot of different health and nutrition methods. He is EXTREMELY well read and confident and I wanted to be able to post about my workouts and progress with him and I leave for the summer in 8 weeks which is a great chunk of time to get some results if focused and dedicated. However, in the meantime I thought you guys may be interested in listening to him talk about busting a lot of the myths revolving around diet and exercise and may be hear his views on the same.
1) The favorite advice on nutrition and diet that has consumed the dieting world in the last decade is that carbs are the devil and protein, the body's holy grail! What are your views on that?
Can I just start off by making clear that I am assuming your blog readers understand that I currently don’t have the time to add all the proper scientific references but that I CAN back up ALL of claims with basic science and research if they'd like? Alright, let’s move on.Here’s the deal – being lean is about 2 things:
A - Your physical activity levels
B - Your total calories per day should be very slightly below maintenance
Meaning there is no way around it – you have to lower calories below your maintenance level (number of calories to maintain current bodyweight) to lose fat IF your metabolism is functioning normally – more on that later.
And the truth of the matter is that it doesn’t matter what you eat, as much as I dont like to admit it. As long as your calories are controlled you WILL lose fat. Kansas State University professor Mark Haub's Twinkie diet experiment proved this recently where he ate only junk food (mostly Twinkies and cookies) and dropped a substantial amount of fat and IMPROVED his blood profile.
My advice is to have an expert assess what your caloric requirement is first and foremost because if you go TOO low, your body will develop “resistance” – this happens to women that have done multiple diets over the course of years, and they end being unable to lose any fat despite how low they go or how much physical work they do -. I’ve had a client who was unable to drop fat on 750 calories per day with 2 hours of treadmill work (which I am against btw) per DAY! She was hovering around 97-100 kilos. I've had another client come to me with bone fractures, missed periods and an inability to lose fat even on 800 calories per day and she was only 60 odd kilos in weight and worked out for 8 hours per week profusely. She had developed The Female Athlete Triad - which is a combination of too much physical work and too little calories.
Now does that mean you should allow yourself to go on a junk food diet as long as its calorie controlled ? Not really. If you care about your appearance then know that the effect on your skin and hair appearance and health would be detrimental. Not to mention your organ function will eventually become impaired and you will develop nutrient deficiencies over time.And the most important part to me - that your workouts will not be of high quality due to your bodies inability to recover due to the nutrient deficiency - and there is nothing more important to an incredible figure than your workout.
Quality carbohydrates will also enhance mood, improve cognitive performance and enable you to achieve true intensity in your workouts – which is a BIG plus if you want to be able to consistently perform the kind of physical work that can change your body for the better.
In essence, a balanced diet with equal amount of carbs, protein and fat is can work just as well as any for most people, most of the time. The thing to focus on is calories - not just carbs.
2) Recently you mentioned to me that the personal trainers claim of diet being more important that exercise is in your words, "a cop out!" Please elaborate on why you think that's so and what other trainers are doing wrong
In a nutshell : What your body does with the food you eat depends on what you do with your body. Exercise programming has been dumbed down in the fitness industry. But there is an intelligent and scientifically valid method for designing workout programs.
Every single trainer that I’ve come across in Dubai uses random workouts. They actually train clients on the fly. No program, no progression and no method. I find this abhorring. The workout is the primary stimulus that activates and de-activates gene sequences that control how you look i.e body composition.
The way they get “Results” at all is by pushing the client to eat less and less and train more and more. Not understanding the negative feedback loops in metabolism which will inhibit and BLOCK further fat-loss. The body cant just be pushed and pushed without it pushing back. It has to be nudged and prodded according to valid biological principles.
People who exercise hard literally have an altered biochemistry compared to those who are sedentary. This completely changes the rate of what and the extent of how they digest food. Your workout IS the key. The food is just the fuel that is spent according to how the workout dictates it should be spent and used.
The issue then is that I end up having to train all these people who have been pushed so hard - in the wrong ways - by their trainers that they are now injured and "diet immune". So its a tough time all round. But Im up for it :)
3) The argument on Fats, ie: "Good" fats like olive oil and nuts... good or not so good?
Yes, there are good and bad fats. My top good fats would be fish body oil in supplement form and coconut oil for cooking. You might want to look into MCT’s to understand more about it. But heres the kicker, saturated fat has a whole host of benefits as well. I’ll actually write a blog post about that. Just keep in mind, there is NOTHING wrong with animal fat. Whether or not you “become” fat depends on – CALORIES. So enjoy your fatty steak as long as it's within your caloric range for the day.
4) If you could recommend one supplement for an average person to take, which would it be? Vitamin D about 30 I.U per pound of body weight and Fish Body oil a minimum of 6 grams per day going up to pretty much any limit they’d like – I’ve used 30 grams per day and felt GREAT. No doubt about it. The benefits of both supplements are all over the internet. But quickly speaking, one of the cool benefits of Vitamin D may be the fact that it is anti-cancer and some doctors claim it may be able to cure cancer itself or at least dramatically aid in the fight against it - if you know anyone with cancer, you need to know everything you can about Vitamin D.
Fish oil is actually AS effective as Prozac and is a potent mood enhancer. It fights inflammation - which means healther blood vessels and joints. And it also aids in fat loss. A must have supplement for sure. 2) Recently you mentioned to me that the personal trainers claim of diet being more important that exercise is in your words, "a cop out!" Please elaborate on why you think that's so and what other trainers are doing wrong
In a nutshell : What your body does with the food you eat depends on what you do with your body. Exercise programming has been dumbed down in the fitness industry. But there is an intelligent and scientifically valid method for designing workout programs.
The way they get “Results” at all is by pushing the client to eat less and less and train more and more. Not understanding the negative feedback loops in metabolism which will inhibit and BLOCK further fat-loss. The body cant just be pushed and pushed without it pushing back. It has to be nudged and prodded according to valid biological principles.
People who exercise hard literally have an altered biochemistry compared to those who are sedentary. This completely changes the rate of what and the extent of how they digest food. Your workout IS the key. The food is just the fuel that is spent according to how the workout dictates it should be spent and used.
The issue then is that I end up having to train all these people who have been pushed so hard - in the wrong ways - by their trainers that they are now injured and "diet immune". So its a tough time all round. But Im up for it :)
3) The argument on Fats, ie: "Good" fats like olive oil and nuts... good or not so good?
4) If you could recommend one supplement for an average person to take, which would it be? Vitamin D about 30 I.U per pound of body weight and Fish Body oil a minimum of 6 grams per day going up to pretty much any limit they’d like – I’ve used 30 grams per day and felt GREAT. No doubt about it. The benefits of both supplements are all over the internet. But quickly speaking, one of the cool benefits of Vitamin D may be the fact that it is anti-cancer and some doctors claim it may be able to cure cancer itself or at least dramatically aid in the fight against it - if you know anyone with cancer, you need to know everything you can about Vitamin D.
5) What is the single best tip you've ever received as someone in the health and nutrition industry? Well, I've learned mostly from my own mentor, Scott Abel to Focus on the human being and not the human body.
The client is a mental, emotional and physical entity and I need to be a biologist, physicist and psychologist at the same time. Luckily those are my 3 favorite fields of study.
6) What is the single best tip you've ever given a client trying to lose weight?
Stop the day to day analysis. You cant solve a 12 month problem in 12 weeks. You’ll only end up hating yourself.
Well, I’ve studied biology in college – but didn’t go for higher studies due to some financial constraints and 9/11 issues in the U.S – which is an interesting story in itself. Am certified by the NASM and Abel Bodies Fitness (one of only 5 in the world). But in essence I’m an omnological autodidact. I want to learn everything about everything. Which is why my “method” always seems so different to people who have been with numerous trainers. I recently moved to Dubai and hope to really surprise people with what I’ve discovered about human physiology and psychology. Big dreams. Always.
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Please do give me feedback on what you thought about this post as I would love to be able to do some more posts with him in the future, some Q n A sessions as well as maybe some video posts where he talks about different subjects or shows you guys some workout moves. So feedback on this one is VITAL as I need to know if you're interested in learning more about health and nutrition or even my own diet plan that he's put me on and my personal journey!
Amir has his own blog at www.geniusofthebody.com and can be contacted at amir@geniusofthebody.com
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2 comments:
Hi Kiran, this was really insightful n helpful. Fabulous tips! Thanks a heap.
Thanks for the feedback Sheldon.. Glad you enjoyed it!
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