Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Tim Beery | Lt. Col Jesús Maldonado, Executive Officer to the Commanding General at Special...... read more read more
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The mission of the Preservation of Force and Family program is written in the name. Preservation is achieved by creating a holistic approach to address the strain of the high pace environment and mission. In a typical Special Forces unit, the focus is maintenance and rehabilitation from injury. At Special Operations Command Europe, the impetus shifts to cater to a more experienced workforce.
“We’re a little bit different here at SOCEUR because we have an older population,” explained Dawn Stottlemyer, POTFF Director at SOCEUR.
“Most of our team has been through some combat and had a lot of surgeries, so we are trying to keep them together as long as they wish to stay in the military or help them transition out successfully into the civilian world.”
Stottlemyer said the POTFF program was initially created during the Global War on Terror and intended for special operations forces service members to keep them in the fight. As operations have evolved, so too, has the program of the POTFF.
“We are no longer just focused on the operators,” she said. “Now we are able to help the enablers, the augmentees. As long as their orders say Special Operations Command Europe, we are able to assist them.”
The POTFF program extends beyond rehabilitation, however, and extends to mental wellness, physical fitness, holistic health, and spiritual health. The professional staff is dedicated to improving the lives of the servicemembers they see.
“I would tell people that when they come to SOCEUR as servicemembers, they have an opportunity of a lifetime because their next duty station might not have these resources,” said Stottlemyer. “Here they have access to 80 years of subject matter expertise ranging from nutrition and body composition to marital counseling. You just won’t find this at other locations.”
When Lt. Col. Jesús Maldonado arrived at SOCEUR, he was within Army standards but was more than 40 pounds over his ideal weight and made the decision to take action.
“I was about 40 pounds overweight when I got here in August, 2022,” he explained. “I started working with the POTFF program for about four months,” he said.
Maldonado, the Executive Officer to the Commanding General at SOCEUR, said he quickly dropped 10 pounds, but plateaued in his weight loss journey until he met with POTFF dietitian Rob Skinner to discuss his nutritional needs.
“I talked with Rob and he said I needed a catalyst,” he said. Working with Skinner, Maldonado created a program catered to his daily nutritional needs. Using a daily percentage of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, coupled with reduced alcohol consumption, Maldonado was able to shed 30 more pounds.
“We do a baseline body composition assessment that looks at your total weight, body fat percentage, and lean mass percentage,” said Skinner. “We dial it in to exactly what will work for the individual. As we take them through our program, we start to look at where weight gain or weight loss tends to be. If we are gaining muscle and losing fat, we are winning. If it’s the opposite, we have to figure out what that is.”
The program is effective, but it requires buy-in from the service member, said Maldonado.
“It takes some tedious work, actually counting your food, there are tools out there that help, but it does require some work. I would prep everything in the morning, and count my macros based on my body composition.”
Through Skinner’s program, Maldonado was able to obtain his daily values, thus giving him the answers to the test.
“Our nutrition is geared specifically to whatever the individual’s training stimulus is,” explained Skinner. “To be very general, nutrition should be based on what you’re training for, whether that be weight loss, physical performance, or general health. When you have a specific goal, we can tweak the nutrition from general health to whatever the goal is.” he said.
Maldonado explained that as long as he hit his daily protein intake goals, he was allowed a 10 percent variance on the other metrics, assuming he continued his daily workouts. Following this regimen, he was able to shed 4-5 pounds of fat per month for nearly 8 months.
“The tough part is when you are making meals,” he said. “My wife and I were both really good about measuring individual ingredients for recipes. If you can follow that, you can follow the workouts.”
Maldonado started individual workouts with the POTFF strength and conditioning staff, alternating strength and cardio sessions. Working with strength coach Brook Hamilton, Maldonado has been able to maintain his weight loss and physical fitness for over two years since coming to SOCEUR.
“We work with both SOF and non-SOF individuals to prepare them adequately for their positions,” explained Hamilton. “We coordinate with the dietitian and the sports medicine to get the results we want.”
In two years of involvement with the POTFF, Maldonado has changed his life both physically and mentally and said the program gave him the knowledge to accomplish his goals.
“It was a collective team effort,” he said. “The entire POTFF staff was outstanding. The lessons they teach you here can easily be taken everywhere you go.”
| Date Taken: | 08.05.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 08.06.2024 07:30 |
| Story ID: | 477856 |
| Location: | STUTTGART, DE |
| Web Views: | 210 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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