Marine's Curiosity

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Dienokes

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I'm a US Marine Infantry Team Leader. I've deployed to Afghanistan and been through the rigors of a combat deployment. I'm a top performer on both the Marine Corps PFT (20 pull ups, 100 sit ups, 3 mile run 20:30, total score 285/300) and CFT (2:50 880 sprint, boots/pants, 100 30lb weight press, 2:20 various maneuvers course, 294/300 total score) I generally run 3 miles every day, and 30-50 pull ups per day, in 30-45 minutes depending on how motivated I am in the mornings. I enjoy cross-fit, and play sports (basketball, football) regularly with my Marines.

With all this said, I am 5' 11" and 185 lbs. I have a 25.8 BMI per hand calculation. I am displeased with the amount of fat on my body, and am looking for either what I am doing wrong, or what I am missing from my workouts.

I am married, and my wife cooks our dinners herself 5-6 times a week. We stick to chicken mostly, but I will admit that I am of an Italian family, and a pasta lover. Sometimes I get to eat breakfast, sometimes I don't, my job isn't very consistent, obviously. Same thing with lunch. This said, I don't think fat/calorie intake is my problem.

I'm trying to avoid resigning to "It's in my genes," as an explanation.

Tips, comments, point-of-views, experience, or questions. If this helps me, I can pass it on to my Marines as well.
 
You will find balancing intake and output if one of them is very irregular.
Evidently you are generally active, but I assume from what you say the job makes it impossible for this to be consistent.
I eat very high carb diet and never think BMI is a worry for people who are fit. Mine is high but body fat of around 15% based on stand on scales is fine.
I was brought up in a military town so have trained and trained with many of them, and of course known many more. The below is based on majority of those I have known, if it is way off please accept my apologies in advance.

Liquid diet. Most forces personnel drink like fish with their gills sealed shut, and there is a lot of pressure to be able to hold your liquor. I don't have to tell you that a lot of beer brings the inevitable beer belly.

Military diet. This is generally cheap, bulky food, pies oily curries etc. often high in fats, sugars and salts. Perfect for survival in the field not so good for the figure.

Need for mass. There is a certain amount of need to be big when your job is at least in part intimidation. Marines, army and other regimental forces are rarely lean and mean as the training is more about making them large and imposing.

I say a group of US marines when they came to meet some of our counterparts in the UK. Your training is centred more around building mass than ours, one of the guys I knew watched as he and his corps finished a run to the training ground to watch the US guests arrive on helicopters. There were definitely areas where your style was better than ours and I wouldn't want to mess with you but you have to do less stamina work than our guys.
 
CrazyOldMan said:
Need for mass. There is a certain amount of need to be big when your job is at least in part intimidation. Marines, army and other regimental forces are rarely lean and mean as the training is more about making them large and imposing.
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Pretty sure the main focus of spec forces training is functional fitness, not making their soldiers look big and imposing which can actually be counterproductive.

When a soldier is in the field clad head to toe in kit and webbing, you aren't going to notice their big triceps. And training consists of a lot of stamina training (pushups, pull ups, pack marching) that isn't an effective way to build mass.
 
Special forces are a group onto their own. They are trained to disappear into a crowd when needed then surprise the hell out of the enemy when needed. They are people you would think nothing of seeing them on the street, but would regret for a very short time being set against.
Infantry team leader is not the same as special forces, and neither side would appreciate being mistaken for the other. Front line infantry need to have a dominating presence, ideally to mean the fight doesn't happen in the first place. They are the most visible face of any force and will know it's much better for the enemy to run at the sight of them then attack.
They will also have to carry massive, packs, burgens, and weaponry. Basically they need to be built to carry large loads, and lean scrawny troops would not be able to do this, so they build up to cope. Not so much in the triceps, mostly in the legs and torso. If you have tried on a full kit and walked with it you will know why.
The training both groups go through is tough, but extremely different.
 
Well I seriously doubt that when they're on patrol in Timor or Afghanistan the enemy is going to go 'That guy's ripped, our automatic weapons will be useless against him. Retreat!'

And carrying heavy packs requires more endurance than sheer strength. Unless you're carrying the pack for 20 metres then resting.

Not disagreeing with you that they are bigger than average because that's what happens when they train as rigorously as they do. But I doubt they have routines tailored specifically to them to bulk up over functional fitness.
 
The training is functional 100%. The functions they have to fulfil require mass, not ripped muscle.
A lot of the training they are doing also pre-dates common use of automatic weapons. As you say their size is less intimidating now than it would have been then but the need to carry heavy loads etc. is still there.
I went to school with a number who have gone into some form of infantry. Some where already built, others weren't. They are all above average size now because of the training. The carry a bit of excess around the middle but their functional training means they have core strength to spare, if not abs to show off. Function over form at it's very best.
 
This wasn't a thread to debate what the appearance of a unit does to the morale of the enemy. To settle the debate, I'll tell you that A: front line infantry (which I am) has necessity for both large build and high endurance. If you are a small man, carrying a pack that weighs as much or more than you is going to be near-impossible, and even Marines who have done countless kilometers in forced marches can tell you that each and every one of them is hard and require immense endurance. I intend to post another thread in a different part of this forum discussing a theoretical workout regimen I've conjured up geared toward combat effectiveness.

The point of this thread is to ask this question: if I am obviously not lacking in physical fitness and constant activity, how is my body still retaining this extra weight?

CrazyOldMan: I avoid MRE's like the Black Plague. Even in the field I will only nit-pick through them to find the least damaging in nutrition. I also am not a drinker, I've been drunk twice since I entered the Marine Corps, once to celebrate returning from Afghanistan, the second for celebrating my 21st birthday. As I said, I generally train in cross-fit type workouts, some added weight (running with packs, or combat gear) and generally in boots/pants. I've already got a rugged frame so I don't need to bulk to do my job.
 
Dienokes
I apologise for turning this into a debate. It was not my original intent, but I still did it none the less.

You don't drink and avoid the standard rations, which leaves only the variation of your life as the cause for not being as lean as you would like.

Having found the cause the news is not good. The body is designed to store for lean times and if you regularly have them where you are using more energy than you put in, the body will want to do so all the more. It makes good sense and will be part of the very thing that keeps you healthy enough to train as hard as you do, but is also preventing the aesthetics you want.
My body is pretty good at adjusting automatically to what I am doing and appetite tends to drop or increase according to what I need. Even still periods of inactivity see my weight rise mostly excess and overdoing it tends to burn this away, making me look very harsh and unfriendly due to my bony facial structure. Most people are not good at automatically adapting and rely on guess work, usually overdoing the eating when doing more, laying down stores or eating too little when less active, sending the body into starvation mode and encouraging it to store more later. Basically variance is a pain when it comes to matching input and output of energy.
I have the opposite to you in frame, a weedy pathetic set of genetics that I have built on but means I also tend to stay relatively lean regardless. I am not going to say accept your genes, to do so would be totally hypocritical from someone who has done everything to make mine impossible to see. Unfortunately the more powerful frame you have does mean you will have to work far harder than the likes of me for the leaner look, that's the price you pay for the easier power and strength you get compared to wimps like me.

Advice and guidance will likely be impractical but we'll see what we can do.

Try to get some level of base activity level. This doesn't mean every day being the same, but ideally a level that averages out over the week, fortnight etc. I know this will not be easy when you could be at a base near home today and on the frontline tomorrow, so this will involve a lot of contingency planning.
The good news is the exact activities themselves are largely irrelevant to this, only the level needs to be the same. So patrolling with a pack and gun could be replaced by having a child, if you have one, on your shoulders and a few bags to go on a picnic, etc. The daily run in your local neighbourhood may have to me repetitive laps of billets or some comparative circuit training when in combat zones.
If you can do this the next stage is obviously to find a matching diet, and of course monitor the differences dependant on where you are. At home it is easy to pick and choose in the field or on exercise less so. Food pyramid is where I normally direct people but in fairness there is not a lot there that looks remotely like rations and it's almost impossible to tell how much of the meals are in each section, when the pie or curry contains something from every group and a few not thought of before.

Making this work will be a lot of effort, planning and subtle shifts along with a bit of trial and error. Without living in your pocket there is no way I would be able to tell you exactly what needs to be done hence the broad brush approach here.
I wish you the best of luck and please keep us up to date on how you do, it will be interesting
 
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