People aren’t realizing that Azam Khan is an “athlete” so juice diets etc aren’t the right option for him.
Azam khan’s official weight is not available as far as I know but if I were to eyeball it I would say he’s about 100 KG. At first I thought he should be more considering I was 100 KG a few months ago and looked infinitely better. But I realize that he is 5’ 7” and doesn’t have nearly as much muscle as me. So I would say 100 KG is accurate.
One thing we need to consider in Azam’s case is that he has a very high amount of body fat. Probably around 30%. This is actually a good thing. What this allows Azam to do is easily recomp. Recomping is when you lose fat and build muscle at the same time. An important characteristic of recomp is that the higher someone’s body fat is, the easier it is to do since your body can use your extra fat for energy while in a calorie deficit. Because the only way to lose fat is to be in a calorie deficit. This is something that unfortunately gets overlooked in our society with all the different myths and misinformation floating around. You can not break the law of thermodynamics.
Now keeping all these things in mind we need to realize that Azam needs to lose fat in such a way that he is able to train adequately while his performance improves because of the lower fat and increased muscle (recomp). Both of these things can be achieved with the right diet and non cricket related exercise. In terms of diet, both optimal performance and recomping will be enabled by a relatively small calorie deficit. (Between 300-500) calories below maintenance. Because of the amount of fat Azam has, a small calorie deficit will not impact his energy levels at all and provided he gets enough complex carbohydrates and micronutrients, I’m willing to wager that he will actually feel better on such a diet. Adequate protein is also important to allow him to build muscle. About 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight should be more than enough.
So what does this mean for Azam specifically? Let’s say Azam’s calorie maintenance level (with his cricket related training) is 3100 which I extracted by plugging into multiple calculators and taking the average for the sake of accuracy. Now to establish a 500 calorie deficit to start, we can get him on a 2800 calorie diet with 200 calories being burnt through added low intensity cardio. This is the type of diet I would get him on. 150 grams of protein (to ensure lean muscle gain). 90 grams of fat (to ensure proper hormonal function). And 350 grams of carbs (to ensure enough energy for cricket performance and added weight training). This adds up to 2800 calories.
When it comes to exercise (besides his cricket), I will have Azam on a full body 3 day a week weight training program and have him doing big compound movements to ensure maximum muscle gain without taxing his body too much since there will be no unnecessary extra volume that a powerlifter or bodybuilder would have in their program. The 3 days a week also ensures adequate recovery and minimal time in the gym so he can focus on other stuff. On the 3 days when he will go to the gym, he will burn around 100 calories using low intensity cardio considering he will burn around 100 calories through weight lifting and we established earlier that we need him to burn 200 calories through non cricket exercise daily, in order to reach that 500 calorie deficit. On non gym days he will burn 200 calories only through low intensity cardio. The reason I chose low intensity cardio is because it minimizes physical as well as mental stress and will have absolutely no impact on his cricket and weight training.
So Azam will be in a 500 calorie deficit per day. One KG is 7700 calories. So in around 15 days he will lose a KG. Our goal with Azam will be to get him to 85 KG. It will take him around 8 months to do this. It may seem like this is a lot of time but he is a very young man and rushing things will only cause problems that will result much more energy and time wasted in the long run. The beauty of this is that in those 8 months he can gain about 3-4 KG of muscle. So at that goal weight of 85 he will actually be at a relatively low body fat percentage because of the added muscle. He will measure his weight every morning and if it stalls for a few days, we will remove 100 calories from his diet by cutting 25 grams of carbs. Or we will add 100 calories worth of low intensity cardio per day. And this will be done till the goal weight is reached.
At the start I said Azam seems to be around 30% body fat right now at 100 KG. At 85 KG, without gaining muscle he would be at 15% body fat but unfortunately things aren’t that simple. A lot of water weight etc is lost so he would be at a higher body fat. But because of the added muscle he would most definitely be at 15% body fat which is very much in the ideal range for a cricketer.
f I were to coach Azam, and he were to follow my plan with honesty, I can guarantee an improvement in his cricketing performance as well as health. A significant increase in muscle while losing a good amount of body fat. All of this while ensuring mental improvement as well.
(A few of the numbers above could be off because I could not find some of Azam’s official statistics and had to eyeball them. But regardless of numbers, the general points and methodologies still stand.)
