Dr. Mohit Chawla leads a very hectic lifestyle as a cardiologist. We began training together through the encouragement of his wife. I had been working with her for a few months and she was very pleased with my training style and her results. She knew her husband needed an exercise routine that was programmed to fit his busy lifestyle.
When I met with Dr. Chawla he stated that his goals were to add muscle mass, decrease body fat and increase his strength. He also stated, he wanted a program that was physically challenging, intense and customized to fit him. I told him I have the perfect plan for him!
We first talked about his nutritional history. Dr. Chawla informed me of his history of being overweight. I took the time to explain to him the benefits of my nutritional and exercise suggestions and the reasoning behind my approach. I encouraged him to eat more frequently and gave him some nutritional guidance. I needed him to be on a 1,800-2,000 calorie a day diet and eat at least every 2-3 hours. This was going to be very challenging for him considering his line of work. I gave him several ideas on ways to get better at preparing healthy food for his busy days. During this discussion he told me he was also leery of changing his diet and eating more frequently. Since he battled his weight previously, he had equated eating more frequently with getting fat. This, of course, is a common misguided perception that eating more frequently results in getting fat. The idea is to ingest healthy food and adequate protein levels. I told him that eating more frequently would help increase his resting metabolism rate (RMR), which is energy expenditure by the body at rest, increase energy levels, help with the task of getting lean and make him feel more satiated throughout the day. I explained that his food choices were the key to not getting fat with the frequent eating.
Then we began his exercise routine. The first month we worked on fundamental movement patterns, strength, core stability and total body exercises. These patterns were very important in him being able to use proper lifting form, which helps reduce the incidence of injury and maximize whole body muscle activation. Dr. Chawla has been very active in Tae Kwan Do. This martial arts experience helped him learn the patterns very quickly and made motivating him very easy.
We started with two separate series of exercises consisting of six exercises per series, plus two core abdominal exercises. His lifting repetitions consisted of three sets of ten. After his second month we then moved to split routines, which emphasize different body parts utilizing multi-joint movements each workout. The exercise routine consisted of four exercises with sets at 8-10 repetitions. We also utilized super sets (two exercises back to back for the same body part) to help with metabolizing and maximum muscle building, plus three core exercises.
For his cardiovascular workout we used high intensity interval training (HIIT). Dr Chawla had never performed this kind of cardio training. He used the old, not so effective cardio training of 30 to 40 minutes on the treadmill, elliptical trainer and bike. I explained to him that the HIIT was far more effective in burning fat and increasing his resting metabolic rate (calories burned at rest). He only needed to do this for 8-15 minutes maximum, warm-up to cool-down, and 3-4 times per week.
This type of training really appealed to him not only because of the shorter time required, but also he liked the intensity required to do it. Another benefit was the much broader exercise selection with HIIT to help prevent boredom.
Dr. Chawla is now weighing in at 140 solid pounds and is at 17% body fat. He is very pleased with his progress and current results. He ranks in the excellent category for the 30-40 year old peer group. At his latest physical he was very surprised by the drastic reduction in his cholesterol levels. Dr. Chawla was very impressed with how his program decreased his overall cholesterol by 30 points. He said that he has a family history and has never been able to get it to go down with other type of diets and exercise. He said that he cannot even get this much of a decrease in levels with medication on his patients.
“I have been working with Mark for almost one year and my results are proof of his expertise in personal, fitness training. As a cardiologist I understand and know the health benefits of regular exercise and have been physically active almost my entire life. Mark however has been able to take my fitness to the “the next level”. His personalized exercise and diet regimen has allowed me in less than one year to not only cut my percentage of body fat and increase my lean muscle mass but I have reduced my cholesterol level by 25 points and increased my golf drive by 30 yards!
I strongly believe that my improved levels of physical fitness are due to a tailored diet and exercise program developed by Mark. The program he has developed for me is constantly changing to avoid the “plateau effect” both mentally and physically. In addition, his attention to detail and form has allowed me to remain injury free. Having a personal trainer like Mark to develop a tailored, dynamic exercise and diet program is no comparison to the many generic, “off the shelf programs” designed for general use. If you are interested in safely and effectively improving your physical and mental fitness, you need to hire Mark Croy.”