Need Help with Younger Brother

[Slayerbtvs]

Hey Everyone...This is the first post that wont be about me...its about my brother who just turned 13...
Little background info about him:
Hes 13 and about 5'0-5'1 and ways a whopping 130...Hes pretty damn fat...this cannot be blamed on genetics as he eats about 4 foods all of them fried all of them fast food...
I have tried on many occasions to bring him to my side of the fence where you eat better but hes too damn stubborn. I want to help him as for the first time in my life I feel bad for him because he is always comming home saying how hes too fat to go to the pool or how hes getting picked on at school. To me weightlifting would be perfect for him to finally get his life moving on in a better direction. While trying this I figured I would put him on the same routine I am on as we are only a few years apart...however this failed miserably as my lack of patience and his lack of ability all went together in a huge mess... Basically I am comming to all of you for help..the gurus of the bodybuilding world for some answers to help this pathetic little boy.. ANy routines that will go with a standard bench/barbell/dumbell set would be very appreciated... Any over all advice would also be excellent... Thanks a lot in advance!!! You guys rock!
-Matt

 

[TheBandit]

I'm 14, and I have the same situation with my older brother. He's very self conscience and sensitive about his weight. He's 6'2, 250 lbs. Mostly fat. I've tryed to get him into weightlifting, but he doesnt have the discipline and patience to stick with the entire program...the training and the diet. I guess all you can say is some people love bbing, and its just not for some people, they can't grasp it and dont have the drive to do it...I guess thats the situation with my brother and yours...o well.

 

[thx9000]

I was in your brother’s position as a kid. Actually I was probably a little worse…

His biggest problem has got to be his confidence, or lack there of. It’s hard to motivate yourself when you feel like you’ve already failed. This is going to get much harder for him over the next few years. Being fat and an outcast at, say, 16 or 17 when all the other guys/girls are doing all kinds of…well, anyhow it gets depressing…

He can’t start with your program. It won’t work. He needs to just start, and it’s hard. He needs to straighten out his diet, but he’ll probably resist that most of all so, if you get a lot of resistance there just ignore it for now. Get him to start with at least some cardio. Start slowly, if he tries starting out with a goal of running for 30min he will probably fail and quit out of frustration. Just light cardio at first, 20min walking the first day, then over a couple of weeks slowly increment it up to maybe 15min light cycling and 20min of mod/heavy cycling. Figure out what he can do, start easy and push him as much as he can, but avoid pushing him to failure. Don’t let him fail at this point, save that for later…Let him see that over just a period of a couple of weeks he can make some improvement. He needs to see changes to feel like he going to get somewhere, this will help build his confidence and, more importantly, his determination to succeed. Stress to him, at the start, that he’s not going to loose any weight in this first two weeks, but that he will see himself be able to do something at the end of the two weeks that he couldn’t do at the beginning (ie: at least a short period of sustained moderate to high intensity cardio).

He will probably loose a tiny bit of weight in that two weeks, but not much. He then needs to get into a regular cardio routine of moderate to high intensity cardio for at least 25min, and 30/35min would be better, for 5 days a week. On the other two days, he needs to be doing something as well, walking or something…Personally, I’ve read all about the light/moderate cardio being better for fat utilization but my experience has been that the overall results are best from mod/high intensity cardio. Working up to this level take time, though. Anyhow, over a month or two he will definitely start to see some changes in his weight. Now would be the time to bring up that diet again. He’ll probably already have noticed some changes in his body and have already modified some of his fat intake, hopefully. Honestly, at 13 if you are active and all I’m not too sure how critical diet really is. I’m sure a good diets helps, but I’m not sure if it’s the most critical aspect. I was fat at 16, then chubby until 27. I’m 31 now, and have a great diet for about 8months. Before that I basically had a high fat, high carb’ diet that I spread out through out my day from 26 to 27 years old. That’s how I lost all my weight took my three big piles of fat and spread it out into 6 small piles of fat through the day with 35min of really sold cardio. It that worked all the way up to age 30, (probably still be working, but I didn’t want to live like that anymore) it’ll probably work for a 13y/o who’s gonna be growing like crazy.

Anyhow, to answer your original question, I would stay away from a weight routine for now. Maybe in a month you can do it (probably not) or more likely a better time would be in a few months. Cardio is hard, but trying to start by lifting will be a disaster, and it won’t help a whole lot with his body composition. Not right away it won’t.

I guess the most important part will be trying to make “this pathetic little boy” feel like he can succeed at this. You see, he already knows he’s pathetic, he already knows he’s going to fail. He already knows you and everyone else think these things. Why try? He’s waiting to fail. Don’t let him, be his friend if you can. Don’t get discouraged yourself, I know what it’s like to see someone give something a half-assed effort and then quit. If all he’s willing to do is half-assed (and he might do that just to try to make you loose interest in pushing him) make him do the same half-assed activity each and every day. Don’t give up on him, and don’t let it frustrate you. At the start here, every single accomplishment has to be encouraged/congratulated. Once he has his own confidence, you can then start harassing him into really pushing himself.

 

[Slayerbtvs]

You hit the nail on the head.... He has NO confidence...and I dont help that much by putting him down on occasion (hey thats what older brothers are ment for)...I should try and be more of a friend though...
SHould i try and get him doing pushups,crunches,and some basic movements at first or will that just completely ruin his confidence more because I doubt he can do more than a few of each!!! AHHHH Life is soo confusing for some...

 

[Phemomena]

why don't you take him out and play some sports with him... field hockey, touch football even just biking or rollerblading are good... try to make being active fun and include him (don't just let him sit in the sidelines)... sports and activity are not only good at boosting self esteem but will also give him some exercise... after the sports, just give him a gentle shove to eat the same after workout meal that you'll be eating...

 

[thx9000]

Yeah, confidence is tough, but at that age, and yours too I bet, kids are looking for ANY excuse to be cocky/confident/etc. He just needs to be nudged in the right direction. I’d also be realistic, there’s no way that an older brother’s going to stop picking on his little brother. Likewise, it’s unlikely that you two are destined to become best of friends. I’m just saying that in this ONE area it would be better to layoff and just be supportive. I’m sure you can find many other things to harass him on…

Again, I’d concentrate on what you are positive he WILL succeed at, at first. Let him see himself do something right for a little while. Then throw in a few things he may/may not succeed at (mixed in with all the thing/things he is already succeeding at). Then, eventually, start helping him come up with all kinds of challenges that are truly tough for him. Once his confidence is built up, he will probably take over a lot of the initiative. I think cardio would show him the biggest changes in his body, and I think that is what he is looking for. He needs to see that he can succeed, and if he goes from doing 6 pushups to 15 pushups but still looking like crap he might be disappointed.

I don’t think that a lot of kids loose their confidence because they get fat, but rather they get/stay fat because they don’t have the confidence to get away from it AND because it helps them avoid all kinds of other things that they are afraid of. This is the great thing about sports. I mean, if you could get him to get involved in something that would be great, because he needs to be engaged with kids in his class/etc doing physical things with them and socializing. It’s basically a fun version of cardio with positive interaction with his peers…Unfortunately; this is probably the thing he’s afraid of so that might be a hard sell. I don’t know your brother…

Play it by ear, find out what he thinks he could do regularly, and help him set the goals. If he thinks he can start out doing a little cardio, and maybe benching a little, and then start there. If he thinks he should start out with squats, and lunges, and a whole bunch of isolation exercises, then maybe you should push him in another direction. You remember how you started right? Slowly, I bet. Simple exercises/movements that eventually led to where you are today…

The problem here isn’t that he’s heavy, it’s that he has no confidence. You can be in great shape and still have no confidence and you’ll still feel like an outcast in school/etc. You can help him get into better shape and all, and this will probably go a long way towards building self-esteem, but it’s all really up to him…

 

[Enock]

Actually Think you should start him with weights only NO cardio. I know he could use the cardio and at the same time, hes only 13 but my reasoning behind this is.

Hes just starting cardio sucks ass, you gotta get him hooked on going to the gym and weights are much easier to get hooked on than ihhhh cardioo ~shiver~.

Specially in his current condition cardio will suck doing, Let him burn some cals pushing weights. Unfortunealy because of his age I don't know how weight lifting will effect him. But I do know you need him to want togo to the gym and its soo much easier to get him togo when your not asking him to do cardio while he is there, Get him hooked on the weights first its like candy, then introduce the cardio after hes into the weights.


For the weightloss obviously his diet is going to make a much bigger difference than the few calories burned in the gym.

Start by removing his liquid calories besides milk. There easier to say goodbye to than tasty foods since they can be replaced with verylow cal alternatives that also taste great.

beyond the only thing I can think of is, to have the foods he likes (fried) simply not available as much. Hes 13 I don't know how much access he has to these food but alot of that must be from home, convince your parents to not just stock the house w/ healthy foods but to GET RID of the bad ones.

(your parents will probably need some input on what to get, non lifters perceptions of healthy foods are often way outa wack. My parents are, Its kielbasa for supper again (wtf is up with that spelling) umm no thanks I already ate damn damn damn damn damn