In February 2009 Felix Jaber joined ironguides after he had decided to make important and dramatic changes to his life a little over a year earlier. Tipping the scales at 130kg and facing health problems, Felix had committed to improving his health and losing weight. Along the way he realised that alcohol was part of the problem so he did something about it. Then he decided to become a triathlete. Working with ironguides coach Alun Woodward, Felix started with a goal to complete Cancun 70.3 in 2009. He did and is now training for his first Ironman. Here is his remarkable story.
Felix:
“On October 2007 I was tipping the scale on 130+kg and about to become sick as I was diagnosed with border-line high blood pressure and my blood profiles were off the charts. I knew something had to be done so I started to walk my dog and to go to the gym occasionally to ride the stationary bike as I still thought at that time that it could be done effortlessly and without major changes in lifestyle. Was I wrong. Like that I would go one week exercising and doing healthy things and the next doing nothing but drink and eat.
“At least something good had happened: I had decided not to be fat any more. I just had to find out the way to do it. The months went by and I would lose 2kg and then gain 1 1/2 kg back. In April 2008 I realised that I was not going to have a lasting weight loss until I stopped drinking as alcohol triggers my overeating and the laziness.
“So just like that on April 27, 2008, I stopped drinking with plans of re-starting down the road when I had achieved my weight-loss goals. In June I started to attend AA meetings where I found out that I had a bigger problem with alcohol than I thought. Meanwhile kilos started to vanish little by little as I would walk in the mornings and do some stationary bike in the afternoon before the AA meetings. After three months in AA I was starting to get depressed and I was eating more and more, besides the doughnuts in the meetings, for the same reason. I hit my first plateau. I was already down to 119kg.
“I like to think outside the box, so I started to investigate alternatives to my alcohol problem: I didn’t buy the AA claims that they are the only treatment to alcoholism and that you are forever an alcoholic and all their mumbo jumbo. I came across an internet page named Rational Recovery http://rational.org and it was as if they took a blindfold from my eyes. I just did what they said and, voila, I was cured and rescued from the slavery of going to daily meetings for the rest of my life. I haven’t gone back ever since.
“As I was feeling better I started to train a bit harder. In November I decided I was going to do triathlons so I ordered my bike. I even committed quite a large sum of money on my brand-new Cervelo P3C–I had neither ridden a bike in 20 years nor swum in 20 years. I was down to 112kg in January 2009.
“On January 3, 2009, I went for my first bike ride in 20 years after swimming my first lap in also 20+ years the previous day. I signed up with Mark Allen online for six weeks as a trial and with all the volume I started to lose weight very fast.
“Then, again me thinking outside the box, I started searching the internet for other methods of training until I ran across the ironguides page from which I downloaded whatever there was to download. I got in touch with Marc who convinced me of the merits of The Method so I signed on in February to start working with you. My weight was down to 105kg and descending. It started to go down very slowly and by the time of Cancun 70.3 it was down to 95kg. In the two weeks prior and after the 70.3 race I went back again to 98kg and there is where we started this conditioning phase. The addition of weight training and the beach sprints, coupled with the primal diet, have made a remarkable change: I’m down to 85kg and a size-30 waist.
“Now people are starting to tell me not to lose any more weight! I have also the problem that even if my waist is 30, most pants are made with slim legs so I have to buy 32s and reduce the waist as they are too big. I never thought I would ever have to do that! New wardrobe on the way.”
Coach Alun on Felix:
TRAINING JOURNEY
When I started working with Felix in February of 2009 the goal was to get ready for Cancun 70.3. That gave us a great 7 months in which to develop, gain fitness and lose weight along the way. This enabled us to perfectly adopt the BRICK by BRICK approach we use at ironguides and show just how effective it truly is.
Given Felix’s health and weight, our plan was to develop fitness with the swim and bike. We kept run-training to a minimum and the focus was on developing solid motor patterns and leg strength to reduce injury risk down the line as we increased volume. This was highly effective as we are now 12 months further and Felix has remained injury-free.
UPDATES
Through the whole process communication was very important. Getting a detailed weekly report from Felix allowed me to monitor progress and ensure all was well. Looking back it’s amazing to see that he improved every week, without stalling. It truly was step by step and it was great to see Felix finish Cancun 70.3 in 7hrs 23mins to achieve our first goal together. Along the way to finishing Felix has shown a great talent on the bike and his sub 3-hour bike split in Cancun is just the start!
FROM FINISHING TO PERFORMANCE
While the first goal with Felix was simply finishing 70.3, the aim now turned to performance. Felix has moved from back of the pack to mid-pack in his local races and this advancement is sure to continue on this race season. The past few months have been so successful that Felix is now entered and aiming for Ironman Cozumel, held in November 2010.
NUTRITION AND WEIGHT LOSS
Training does play a part in weight loss. But especially in the beginning of a weight loss plan the nutritional strategy plays a much bigger role. With endurance training most athletes looking to lose weight miss the point that more training makes you hungrier, not less hungry, and this can work against continued weight loss.
With Felix my plan was a gradual, step by step process–TOTAL change from the start does not work as it is not maintainable.
STEP 1
This was simply structured training, no big changes in nutrition. The key here is to not over-stress the body as too many changes at one time can be too much.
STEP 2
Once a training regime was developed and moving along well we cut carbs from the evening meal to promote better sleeping and increased fat burning at night. This was a big step for Felix and the changes were amazing, in his own words:
“I would like to share with you now that you ask about the quality of my sleep, not just my sleep has improved but almost every part of my life: now I sleep better, I eat better and enjoy food more, my mental sharpness has become like when I was younger, I’m way more agile and stronger, even sex has become more enjoyable. My work has also become more enjoyable and I have become more productive as I have more energy throughout the day!
“When I was doing just endurance training I was always tired–I even had to rest one or two full days a week. Now I haven’t stop training for more than 3 weeks. I have traveled (me driving) more than, 3000km or 2000 miles, not sleeping in my own bed. As I’m writing this I feel very energetic and it is past 9:30pm. I know that when I hit my bed I´ll be asleep in no time. Our wake-up time is 5:45am every week day! Of course I have some aches and pains, but of a good nature–the kind that you have when you know that you had a great workout and that you will improve as a result of these aches and pains!
“The weight has been coming off at a rate of 500 to 750 grams per week and I haven’t been home much. I have been eating out a lot. The next three weeks I’ll be staying home so I’ll be more careful with what I eat so I’ll be more successful. Also I have to note I have been bulking up in my upper body so the fat net loss must be higher as I’m already starting to see some abdominal muscles through my still large layer of fat! Thanks for your concerns and I’m really glad I found ironguides!”
Back to coach Alun:
STEP 3
Using the off-season to maximum effect. After Cancun 70.3 and in the off-season we decided to take the weight loss on again as his weight had stabilized for some time. I added one more restriction to Felix’s diet, that of NO WHEAT, and I added highly anabolic sessions to his training to really boost growth hormone production. These sessions were beach sprints and weights.
BEACH SPRINTS – This is a great session and was always done fasted on a Sunday morning. This session of 8x 40 seconds ALL OUT sprints with 3 minutes minimum recovery is probably the most effective TOTAL body workout. Take into account I built Felix up for this with at least eight months of training first– jumping straight into a session like this is a recipe for injury. This session takes 40 minutes and gave Felix a full day with his family feeling great with hormones flowing through the body. On these Sundays the priority was to not eat ANY CARBS to ensure we did not turn off the hormone production!!
WEIGHTS – Again this was purely for the hormone effect over specific strength gains. As the sprints, it was a short session but with heavy weights. We followed a simple routine of 3 sets of 5 lifts on exercises that stimulated the central nervous system to ensure maximal hormone secretion. Dead Lifts,
Squats, Pull Ups are classic examples of such exercises.
The results have been amazing and we have seen another 10kg loss in just over two months. The elimination of wheat has further increased energy levels and resulted in a huge loss of stomach fat. One of Felix’s only worries with the weight loss was that he would need to have excess skin removed via
surgery but (you can see from the photos) this is not required. I think this speaks volumes for following primal nutrition and allowing the body’s genes to express themselves as nature intended. I loved reading Felix’s updates and he was always off to eat “HALF A COW” after his sessions!
THE FUTURE
So we have seen Felix go from more than 130kg to 86 right now and our goal is to get his weight below 80kg. As we approach the season we are working on our first true speed block with running and it’s great to see the progress. We are both excited to start racing and see the rewards. Our next big goal will be Orlando 70.3 this May and I will be making the trip out to see Felix in action and meet his family!
Alun ‘Woody’ Woodward, Certified ironguides Coach – UK/Hungary
http://www.ironguides.net
* * * Your best is our business.™
It was hard to decide which story should kick off our new Road to Kona series. Qualifying for the Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii is the ultimate goal for many and every athlete we have helped to achieve that has a special and inspiring tale.
However, Paul Duffy’s is among the most inspiring stories we could share and we thought it would be a good opener to our new series; he is no superhuman when it comes to athletic performance—you will read about these types later on. A combination of planning and luck delivered him that precious Kona slot. Paul is the family man, a working age grouper with modest athletic talent and little background in the sport who through hard work, discipline and patience accomplished his dream goal of racing in Kona.
Background
Paul qualified for the first time at Ironman China 2009, when he was 7th with the time of 11hr 12. Don’t let the relatively slow time fool you: the conditions on the day were very tough, likely the hottest day in Ironman history. Rasmus Henning won the race in 8hr 53 with a 3hr 38 marathon, whereas on a good day he can take almost one hour off these splits such as in Roth in 2010 when he won in 7:52:36 with 2hr 39 marathon.
Just like most of our readers and Kona-wannabes, Paul works fulltime and during his preparation for Ironman China was holding a very demanding job as a Forex Trader in Singapore; 10 hours in the office starting at 6.30am and, due to the nature of the job, there were no training opportunities during lunch. In other words, there few options to get a second session done unless he was out on the road before 5am, which was his daily routine. After work, Paul would go straight to the gym for either a swim or a run before going home for dinner with his wife and their three daughters.
Training Overview
Morning and evening sessions were mostly 60-90 minutes. In the morning Paul would either ride or run, while he did his swimming in the evenings. On weekends, he was relatively free in the mornings; afternoon and evening was family time so training had to be done by midday.
To the specifics of each discipline: Paul is a heavy, muscular athlete. For athletes with this body type, a coach has to be careful with the amount of intensity work on the run as recovery time increases exponentially with the size of the athlete.
At the same time, we made the most of his natural strength by giving him a bike plan for most of his training blocks. We knew that our chances for performance were on the bike and Paul got to a level where he was riding very close to a 5-hour Ironman bike split even on slow courses and in tough conditions.
The swim was a tricky one. When an athlete lacks the proper swimming background, there is only so much you can do about it. It is hard to take an intermediate swimmer and get him or her to the front of the pack. While it can be done, it would cost bike- and run fitness. We decided to aim for efficiency, which means finishing the swim with a lower heart rate and enough energy to make up time during the rest of the race.
Plan of attack
Paul’s cards were dealt: he was an average swimmer, a very strong biker and a consistent though not a fast runner. This profile meant his chances were greater on a slow course, with little drafting and preferably hot weather. We came up with two options: Ironman Malaysia in February and Ironman China in April. Paul had also signed up for the Singapore half Ironman in between both Ironman races.
Ironman Malaysia went well, very well actually. Paul executed the plan and finished 10th in the M40-44 division in 10hr 42. We were pretty close but no slot.
The Singapore half Ironman was only 3 weeks after Malaysia. We raced that on a recovery plan, keeping his strength and speed, while giving his immune system a chance to restore. Singapore race day came and Paul had another great performance, finishing in 11th place in his age group in 4hr 57. The goal of a faster race had been achieved.
We then started our preparation for China. I knew he was tired from the back-to-back racing in hot weather, so the training plan was a lot more conservative and our goal was only to stay fit while allowing him to recover from those two efforts.
On race day in China, I remember following the event online; each time Ironmanlive.com provided updates on the temperature and conditions I had a smile on my face. It was his race, an absolute war zone as conditions were just brutal, borderline unhealthy due to the heat. This not only suited Paul’s running style (strong, rather than fast), but also his fighter mindset.
Paul had brain cancer five years earlier; that changes your fighting instincts and pain threshold to a level only some will ever experience.
The result? While everyone else was falling apart, Paul kept ticking off the miles, not at the greatest speed but fast enough to secure him a slot for Hawaii. The conditions in China can be described as a “last-man-standing”-type of competition, and when you combine a fighting soul, tough conditions and a well-trained body, you have a pretty good candidate for success.
Enjoy your training!
Vinnie Santana, ironguides Head Coach
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What is Road to Kona?
Road to Kona is ironguides’ dedicated blog to high-performance triathletes aiming to qualify for the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. The articles are written by the ironguides’ coaches who have helped these athletes make their dream come true.
Each article will feature the story of an ironguides athlete who made it to Hawaii. This is the perfect opportunity to learn about what it takes for regular age groupers with a job, a family and other personal commitments to make it to Kona.
Stay tuned for this series of articles to gather valuable insights on high-performance training.
Name: Bill Dobson
Age: 45
Nationality: USA
Training Since: 2005
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Relationship: Married with three kids (13, 12 & 2)
Coach: Vinnie Santana
Weekly Work Hours: 50
Weekly Training Hours: 15 – 20
Recent Races:
Lost 50 Kg (110lbs in 5.5 months when started training
Ironman WA 2009 — 11h12 (First Ironman)
Training Overview:
Bill was a triathlete and marathoner on his teens and early 20`s, then switched his priority to his career in finances and with that you get the long working hours and unhealthy lifestyle habits. A few years after turning 40, Bill decided it was time for a change and has since then slowly changed his habits and lifestyle, although working as a CFO is never a relaxing job, Bill has managed to organize his schedule which allows him a 60-90min workout first thing in the morning on weekdays, and he does his long workouts on the weekends.
The first big accomplishment was losing 50 kilos, which allowed him to participate in a few local triathlons, and the eventual progression to his first Ironman finish came in December 2009, when Bill went 11h16 in Busselton Western Australia.
Pictures:
1) Bill on his early triathlon days
2)With his wife at a Corporate dinner
3) On his win at Ironman 70.3 Philippines
