Off Duty, Military Health and Fitness - Air Force Times

Weight-loss secrets of a born-again bodybuilder

For years, Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Herzog broke out every gut-sucking tactic in the Fat Boy Survival Guide each time he had to step on the scales with the Army looking over his shoulder for official weigh-ins.

“I knew every trick in the book,” says the air traffic controller who, at 240 pounds, was always riding the edge of body-fat limits.

He’d duck out for a quick change of clothes right after finishing the PT test to make sure his skin didn’t reabsorb the water from his sweat-soaked shirt. He knew just how to twist his neck to get an edge on the inevitable taping.

In 2004, Herzog decided he’d had enough. He tweaked his diet, discovered the magic of low heart-rate workouts and started hitting the weights. Now he knows a few new tricks, and sweating a PT test is just a distant memory.

Within a year Herzog weighed 170 pounds, transforming his body into a rock-hard machine.

Muscle-bound butterfly

“Some people were like, ‘Wow, you should get up and do some competitions to show off all the hard work,’” he says.

That led to a shelf full of bodybuilding trophies, and in April, he took first place in the men’s middleweight division at the Armed Forces Body Building Championship in Hawaii.

Eager to pass on what he’s learned, he’s also earned his personal trainer certification. That knowledge paid off for one of his soldiers during a recent deployment to Iraq; under Herzog’s coaching, he managed to carve off 60 pounds over 15 months. “He’s now in Special Forces selection and was able to finish a marathon in four hours and 15 minutes.”

Target: Belt busters

Like most in search of a leaner body, Herzog began his journey with a hard look at what he was eating. Rather than sign on for the latest fad diet, though, he targeted his two biggest belt busters by cutting soda and fried foods. The junk food was replaced with whole foods, like steamed vegetables, chicken and fish.

“You don’t have to go on a crazy diet,” he says.

The biggest shift came when he transitioned from the traditional three squares a day to smaller mini-meals throughout the day.

“I’ve trained my metabolism so that now every three hours, I’m eating something whether I need it or not,” he says. “Once I started training my body like that, the weight just started falling off.”

Cardio combustion

Herzog says he’s learned the value of ditching the hard-and-fast run in favor of a smooth-and-steady walk.

“Cardio is where a lot of military guys have the misconception that you should run as hard as you can for 20 minutes a day and be done with it. The secret to cutting body fat is that I will walk on a treadmill at a 15-degree incline at between 2 to 3 miles an hour for 45 minutes.”

The body has two choices during a workout: Burn mostly lean muscle or burn fat. Muscle is easier to turn into energy, so when workouts are fast and furious, muscle gets thrown onto the fire.

“But if you keep your heart rate low, you can actually trick your body into thinking it’s not working hard, and your body will actually burn fatty acids as opposed to lean muscle,” Herzog says.

To optimize cardio workouts, use this formula: Subtract your age from 220 and multiply by .65. A 25-year-old should shoot for a target heart rate of about 126 beats per minute.

“If you keep your heart rate right about there and go for 45 minutes to an hour, then you will lose the weight,” says Herzog.

Inner strength

As the fat comes off, new muscle can go on. Indeed, experts say weightlifting can help a person shed pounds. It did for Herzog.

“I’m a firm believer that if you train from the inside out and start from the core, the muscle on the surface is naturally going to start showing itself after about six weeks,” he says. That means incorporating a lot of abdominal, lower back and hip-flexor exercises into all his routines.

That doesn’t mean weightlifting workouts should take long.

“If you’re in the gym for more than 45 minutes doing weight training, you’re taking entirely too much rest time. I like to get in the gym and hit it hard. If I’m not sweating in the first 10 minutes, I’m probably dehydrated.”

Antagonistic workouts

To build muscle mass, Herzog will start with one light warm-up and then four heavy sets of six to eight reps apiece. “By the last set, I’m struggling to get the last sixth or seventh rep. I want that muscle group spent.”

Herzog is also a fan of “antagonistic workouts” where muscles in the same area — say, the biceps and triceps — are both hit hard in back-to-back sets so that the two muscle groups are fighting for the same blood and oxygen.

“They reach hypertrophy state [the increase in the size of muscle cells] much quicker and you get that burnout,” he says. “When they go through the protein synthesis, they will actually come back stronger.”