Doha: Out of 1,000 applicants, only 120 were chosen to join the second run of the BeFit programme, organised by the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) and wellness solutions provider VLCC, this year.
Like the inaugural programme of 2013, this year’s programme also began on National Sport Day in February and would surely see daunting challenges ahead of the participants.
The participants are given diet and exercise advice from the VLCC panel of experts and are weighed at regular intervals. They have a year to lose as much weight as they can, with the winner grabbing a hefty prize of QR100,000 and the runner-up winning QR25,000.
While weight-loss is the deciding factor for determining the winner, the true success and challenge lies in inducing a healthy lifestyle change that last — in keeping with the spirit of National Sport Day. Being healthy, active, free of preventable diseases and truly engaged in everyday life is the goal of the programme.
While the goals may seem lofty, speaking to this week’s BeFit participant shed light on how the smallest things matter the most.
What bothered this week’s BeFit participant, Alaa Al Din the most was not his physical appearance but how being overweight was making daily activities uncomfortable and tiresome.
“Mundane things like walking for more than a few minutes or going up the stairs — all these things that were once so easy had become so difficult,” he said. “I would get tired so easily and I had to take regular breaks after something as simple as a short walk.”
The 45-year-old said he was unable to properly spend time with his children.
“My children are still young, so it is important for me to play with them but I would get tired so quickly,” Al Din said, adding that this was his primary motivation behind applying for the annual program.
By making small changes to his diet and physical activity, he was able to see big changes in his life, which he says is essential to sticking to the VLCC program.
Instead of trying to change so many things at once, making one minute change at a time is much easier to maintain, Alaa al-Din said — a claim supported by science.
Several studies published in various psychological journals over the years have examined what is known as willpower depletion; the idea that willpower is a limited resource and once this resource is depleted, people are likely to enact the very behaviour they are trying to avoid.
An example of willpower depletion would be coming home after a long day and finding your favourite soft-drink in the fridge, cold and enticing. You resist drinking it because you are on a diet and move to the living room. You sit down and notice a plate full of cookies on the table, your stomach grumbles, but you still resist.
You keep resisting all temptations until finally your willpower runs out. Defeated, you eat something which is outside of your diet plan.
The key to avoiding such disheartening slip-ups is to focus on making one change at a time. For example, first cut sugar-filled fizzy drinks out of your diet and just those fizzy drinks. Instead of trying to avoid a million different things all at once, just avoid one.
Once this becomes a habit, move on to the next. The cumulative effect of these small changes over time is undeniable, and one is less likely to relapse.
While diet is by far the single most important factor for weight loss, exercise is crucial as it reinforces the idea of a healthy lifestyle and releases feel-good chemicals in the brain that help combat the effects of willpower depletion.
Thankfully, QOC has numerous venues with state-of-the-art exercise facilities.
One such facility is Barzan Olympic Park. Inaugurated in 2012, it is the first Olympic park in the state of Qatar and offers the public numerous ways to get in shape. Located in Umm Salal, just outside Doha, the park includes green areas, two football playgrounds, two tennis courts, a basketball court, cycling track and walking/jogging lanes.
The world-class park also includes swimming pools, housed in a two-storey building.
Barzan Olympic Park is one of the numerous QOC venues open to everyone. THE PENINSULA
