Addiction to exercise -> no social life

OK, so to put it simply, my best friend has become addicted to exercise. Generally his day to day routine is get up, go to the gym and do 2 hours cardio, go home and rest and eat, go to the gym and do weights for a couple of hours, go home and eat dinner, then go to work overnight, then sleep, rinse, repeat. He does this 6 or 7 days a week. He has a day or two off if he goes to see Man United at Old Trafford.

His goal right now is to bulk up (he's gone from being overweight to being very underweight), but the stupid thing is he's so afraid of getting fat again that he's doing too much cardio and not eating enough to gain any muscle.

Now I freely admit that part of my problem is bitterness at not really seeing him, especially since I'm quite bored at the moment. I've tried talking to him about it, but he insists he's eating enough (which he clearly isn't, or he'd be gaining weight) and he gets really touchy when I suggest he's become obsessive, and he says there's nothing wrong with him getting in shape (which I agree with, except it's at the point he's completely deprived himself of a social life). When you combine this with the fact that the amount of exercise he's doing is unhealthy without the food to feed it, and the fact that I'm pretty sure there's a psychological component to the obsessiveness, I want ideas of how to break him out of this pattern into a moderate level of exercise and an increased calorie intake.

I mean, what's the point of having a great body if all you do is work and go to the gym?

I'm open to all suggestions, guys! Thanks!

Reply 1

mogpot

Well it sounds like one of the forms of anorexia, but in guys that can often be mistaken at a physical level because so many are underweight naturally and the biggest criteria is having a BMI of below 18. But given your description of his touchiness and attitude to both food and exercise, it sounds something like an eating disorder, even guys get them after all. Don't immediately jump onto that bandwagon though, and don't get on his case constantly about it b/c you'll just drive him away. Keep your eye on him definitely, but there's not much a friend can do to help someone with a disorder like that, it needs psychiatric treatment. It only confuses the person more when they see how much they're hurting someone they're close to when they thought they were just hurting themselves, so resorting to emotional blackmail won't work either!

But if you want to be sure, things like always have an underlying cause, so if you could maybe get him to talk a little and open up? He could be a chronic perfectionist, it could have started out just as a diet, he may feel that everything else in his life is out of control and getting away from him, so it's a subconscious reaction to troubles like that. Make him feel safe and supported and just be careful about approaching touchy subjects. If you're really worried, ask a dcotor, or better yet try and get him in to a nutritionist who can show him the right way to diet to "bulk up" if that's what he wanted originally, and the best ways to eat and stay in shape in a healthy way.

Reply 2

theonehitwonder

2

You should try talking about the good times you guys had before he started to get obsessed with training. Maybe show him some pictures of what he looks like now. If you think that he looks really underweight, then he probably is!

I look at pictures of myself from 03/04 and see that I was really skinny and doing a lot of cardio. I'm glad that I'm eating more and doing (much) less cardio, I'm starting weights again and just feel much better. People have even noticed. So yeah, best advice is to just talk about the good old times. Hopefully he will soon realise what he is missing out on.

Reply 3

Squelchy

OP

That's the thing. I don't think it's an eating disorder, because he still does eat cookies and stuff here and there, although mostly he eats healthily, it's just he doesn't eat in anywhere near the quantity he needs to to bulk up with all the cardio he's doing.

He knows exactly what to do to bulk up, but somehow he thinks he's going to be able to do it without gaining ANY flab, and the fact is he's not going to be able to do that. He needs to stop worrying about getting fat again, because he's not suddenly going to gain 20lbs of flab if he's eating clean and keeping up his weight training and cardio, he just needs to eat enough to gain some muscle.

I think it's a mental block or something, but he won't talk about it.

We do talk about good times, but we both agree that things can't really be that way any more, for various reason. But even still, he doesn't do ANYTHING outside the gym. We're going out on the lash next Friday for the first time he's been out in ages.

Reply 4

LouE3D

I don't think it sounds like a disorder but I'm in know way qualified to make that kind of judgement, so if you are concerned about it being this extreme, perhaps you should consult a professional.

If he is eating and trying to bulk up but getting it all a bit wrong, perhaps you should support him by helping him alter his work out plan in order to gain muscle... cardio will burn alot of energy and will prevent any major amount of muscle being put on for sure, also building muscle requires a lot of protein - just eating won't allow him to muscle up, the excess energy will just get stored.

Maybe help him work out a bodybuilding style programme... so eating plenty of the right foods and carrying out a a gym programme designed for muscle building. BB's are dedicated guys so your friend will still be able to keep a lot of his focus, but it will be chanelled more effectively to produce the results he wants. If you are upset about not seeing him, which is undertandable coz he's your friend, then perhaps you could spot for him during one of his gym sessions? You can then catch up etc and encourage him to come out after... You could even try joing sports team together or play squash...?

Reply 5

Squelchy

OP

LouE3D

If he is eating and trying to bulk up but getting it all a bit wrong, perhaps you should support him by helping him alter his work out plan in order to gain muscle... cardio will burn alot of energy and will prevent any major amount of muscle being put on for sure, also building muscle requires a lot of protein - just eating won't allow him to muscle up, the excess energy will just get stored.

His workout is fine (although IMO he needs more days off). It's his diet. He gets plenty of protein, he just doesn't eat enough calories. I tell him he needs to eat more, and I only get the reply that he eats loads. Well he clearly isn't eating enough or he'd be gaining weight. I know he has more than enough appetite to eat more as well. He's like me, he can always eat. He's deliberately not eating enough to gain weight, he knows he has to eat more, yet he won't.

LouE3D

Maybe help him work out a bodybuilding style programme... so eating plenty of the right foods and carrying out a a gym programme designed for muscle building. BB's are dedicated guys so your friend will still be able to keep a lot of his focus, but it will be chanelled more effectively to produce the results he wants. If you are upset about not seeing him, which is undertandable coz he's your friend, then perhaps you could spot for him during one of his gym sessions? You can then catch up etc and encourage him to come out after... You could even try joing sports team together or play squash...?

As I said, his workout is fine, and doing the amount of cardio he does would be fine if he was eating enough to compensate for the calories he burns, but he's not.

As for spotting for him at the gym... it's £5 per session there. I'm not going to pay that to hang out for a couple of hours while he's busy lifting weights. It's his problem. I go see him when he's working at the pub every Friday night, but he doesn't make the effort to see me outside of the gym, which is why I say it's becoming obsessive, because he doesn't see anybody outside of the gym.

As for the squash... we used to play TONS of tennis. He broke my racket strings, put it in to get re-strung, and hasn't picked it up yet because he's always at the gym. It's really getting on my tits, because I want my ****ing racket back. :mad:

Reply 6

MagicNMedicine

20

take a bottle to his kneecaps

Reply 7

CelenaGaia

Hiya hon, sounds like the guy's got something akin to what I have, though not so much the anorexia side of it :wink:

I'm scared of gaining flab myself but am still trying to put weight on, I know realistically I CANNOT gain totally muscle, just not physically possible....but I still workout hard as I can to ensure as much of it IS muscle. I get terrified if I can't exercise in case I put on fat, my dietitian's contantly having a go at me saying, "use this time to put on weight, that's what you're TRYING to do!!" And I just say, "yeah, but not the kinda weight YOU'RE thinking of!" Very complex, and not altogether rational, I know. But that's the way my paranoid little psyche works, and probably his, too. Like him, I too eat cake and other crap (low-fat, but still essentially sugary crap), but that's to get the cals in without seriously exploding my stomach, coz I used to just stick to low-cal, low-fat stuff as much as poss, all healthy stuff, but GOD it caned my stomach coz had to eat so much of it! Maybe thats' why he still eats what he does. But he does need to get in more carbs by the sounds of it...if not to bulk up, then to at least fuel this amount of exercise! Tell him that - that if he doesn't get enough carbs in, his workouts will suffer and he won't get any fitter, he'll just get worse. Might scare him enough to eat a bit more

Reply 8

squigaletta

IMO this does sound eating disorder-ish, are you in shape? Does he admire your body? If yes you have a great tool, tell him how you got your body and how he can do the same. Also does he fully know the science of how to build and stuff? If not then deffo sit down with him and tell him the science behind it, and then how he can apply it successfully.

Reply 9

Squelchy

OP

squigaletta

IMO this does sound eating disorder-ish, are you in shape? Does he admire your body? If yes you have a great tool, tell him how you got your body and how he can do the same. Also does he fully know the science of how to build and stuff? If not then deffo sit down with him and tell him the science behind it, and then how he can apply it successfully.

Yeah, I'm in good shape. I only weigh a few pounds less than he does and I'm 5'10", he's 6'3".

He doesn't seem to listen when I tell him to eat more though. He's happy as Larry to have lost all the flab, and he won't seem to accept that a pound or two is going to come back on if he wants to gain any muscle.

I mean, he doesn't need to be doing hours of cardio every day, it's counter-productive. It's not going to make him any fitter.

Reply 10

CJ

TSR Group Staff

21

what sort of situation is he in at the moment (sorry if u have already said and i missed it)... meaning is he waiting to go to uni? in a gap year?

Reply 11

Squelchy

OP

cjmcnair

what sort of situation is he in at the moment (sorry if y have already said and i missed it)... meaning is he waiting to go to uni? in a gap year?

Gap year.

Reply 12

Anonymous #1

I used to go to the gym every single day and row 6km in <16 minutes then do half an hour to 45 minutes weight training. Muscle gain? S*d all.

Now I do I lot less cardio and shorter, more intense, more structured weight training (with suitable diet) and I'm making excellent gains.

Addiction to exercise -> no social life

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