As more and more food is available, let’s not forget about the people out there that have a difficulty with controlling their intake. We will take a look at a man who has been open and honest with himself and those around him. According to The Daily Mirror, Keith Martin shared that he has an eating disorder that lead him to a body weight of 980 pounds. Martin shared that he consumed about 20,000 calories a day in a diet that included six-egg fried breakfasts, lunches, dinners with pizza, kebabs, takeout food, and Big Macs. He also reportedly consumed 3.5 liters of coffee and 2 liters of carbonated drinks every day. That is an enormous amount of food to eat on a daily basis. Some of the worlds elite endurance athletes do not even consume 20, 000 calories a day but Keith did. Keith made a decision to help himself by getting a gastric belt. His surgeon shared some information about him.

“Keith, like many people, had some emotional issues, and he turned to food for comfort,” Kesava Mannur, the surgeon who fitted Martin with his gastric belt at Homerton University Hospital in London, told The Daily Mirror. “That type of behavior is nothing new, but what is new is how easy it is for people in that situation to buy a lot of cheap food,” said Mannur, who urged the U.K. government to consider a fast-food tax to help the morbidly obese.

Martin shared his story in a documentary that aired in the U.K., according to news.com.au. He said he lost his mother at age 16 to pneumonia and had struggled with depression and anxiety ever since. He began to gain a serious amount of weight in his 20s, when he was severely depressed. Martin was unemployed and spent his days playing video games and watching TV.

“I started eating to ease the pain, and before I knew it, I was bingeing every time something upset me,” Martin said during the documentary. “I’ve always been depressed. I am an agoraphobic, I’m afraid of public places, but it was never treated.” “I just want to be happy, without needing food to make me happy.”

This is a touching story about a man that found comfort in eating. The thing about Keith is that he is not alone. There are many people like him that suffer from depression, anxiety, and agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is an extreme or irrational fear of crowded spaces or enclosed public places. So what is another person like Keith to do? If the person has a fear of crowded places or enclosed public places how can the person exercise? How can the person learn the necessary balance between calories in versus calories out? How can this person control any of the emotional issues? We do our best to help in these situations from a fitness point of view and can work along with the medical team. Just as an example, this person may be under the care of a psychologist, nutritionist, behavior specialist, and cardiologist. The medical professionals would require this person to make sure he/she is physically active. This is where we would come in to aide in the process of helping this person regain control. We would go to the persons home and design an activity program to help with controlling the calories. This is where our backgrounds in sports psychology, exercise physiology, and biomechanics would come into play to help this person. We would have a mental preparation time to make sure that the person buys in to what we want to get accomplished for that day. Next, we have a warm up period to get the heart rate up, core temperature up, and warm up the joints time. The next step would be the fitness routine which would have different phases such as cardio, muscular endurance, and strength training depending on the goals. Finally, we would finish off with a cool down and stretch with more mental training on how to finish the rest of the day without over consuming. We would also plan for the next workout so that the person knows and is looking forward to the next training.

We take a systematic approach to helping people get to their fitness goals. In the story above 980 pounds is morbidly obese and it does take extreme measures to reverse that much weight gain. The mental game is critical in this persons life. If this persons mind is focused on ways to cope with his/her emotions without having to turn to a large amount of food, we have done our job. We have helped this person see alternative methods to help the emotional pain. The great thing about training with us is that we understand that fitness and lifestyle are not a one size fits all program. As professionals in this industry we are here to help. Make sure to reach out to us, 855-734-4878, for our mobile services if you are a person that does not like to be in public places. We come to you!

Reference:

Fox News Report