Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Welcome to the Iron Paradise

Welcome to the Iron Paradise! The blog where the frustrations of 50-something physique transformation are hammered and forged into a new body and a new hope. Behold, the ramblings and insight of a Christian garage gym warrior!


The Iron Paradise

I am not getting any younger, and time is not on my side. I am in my early 50s and a former powerlifter enthusiast, and long distance cyclist. From those days of glory, I have a damaged shoulder, and yet have adamantium bones, and knees with no cartilage (how did that combination happen?). My lifestyle in my 50s shifted from physically active to pain management. I lost the physique I developed in my 40s and ballooned up from 215 solid pounds to 270 fat pounds in weight and probably had 35% body fat (diabetic type 2 and high blood pressure). 


I am a Christian counselor and ordained minister and I work with people who deal with severe cases in spiritual warfare and inner healing. When I looked into the bathroom mirror I was dealing with my own stronghold of self-hatred. A stronghold is a spiritual battle taking place in the mind. I couldn't stand to see my reflection in the mirror. My body was always in pain and my exercise was inhibited. Which in turn, added to the weight gain problem. In the old days of weight lifting, we had the motto, "No pain- no gain!". Which would resonate through my head, and I would counter with my new motto, "I need gains through the pain!" Little did I know I was prepping myself to say, "to hell with the pain, if I am going to live like this I am going to at least have a nice body again." Little did I know that's what I needed to persuade myself to get back on track and get the weight off me. Welcome to my science project - me!

I used to compete in physique transformation challenges since I put on weight in my 40s for gym powerlifting competitions. The drug free power lifter had the big gut, and the steroid jerk who competed drug free had ripped abs. After the competition season was over, I would do a physique transformation and in 16 weeks have an athletic body. Again, that was in my 40s and I was long distance cycling too. I was no stranger to physique transformation. This should have been a no-brainer, I would just push through the shoulder and knee pain, but lift stricter and with the wisdom of previous accomplishments. Not so! After too many frustrating months of intense spinning sessions and workouts, the magic in the iron paradise, my garage gym, wasn't happening at all. What the heck??? 


Rule Number One - Perseverance

I started learning valuable lessons from my 50-year-old body. What worked in my 40s as sure thing strategies did not work at all in my 50s. Furthermore, some of my Bodymasters machines in my garage were now useless because of my injuries. Some of the leg machines had to go because I couldn't use them with my bad knees. And the scale still wasn't budging at all. I had an aggressive mindset of knocking off 5 pounds a week.  To my dismay, I wasn't seeing any pounds drop and sometimes the scale would agonizingly move in the undesired direction. Rule number one of over 50 physique transformation, is perseverance! No matter how overweight you are, you have to get the weight off.  You have to want this off you - more than you want to breathe, but still keep a sane mind about yourself and your goals. I constructively channeled my own self-hatred of my reflection in the bathroom mirror to push me where I wanted to be. The battle to victory starts in your own mind. I started visualizing on myself the body I wanted to see in the mirror. Then I started to believe I could do it. But I also had the understanding of the long battle ahead of me in this journey. I dropped the expectations of losing 5 pounds a week, I was going after 1 pound a week.  Most physique people recommend weighing only once a week. I weighed every day. I wanted to know what the cost was for the food I put into my body. This helped me learn a lot about foods and their effects on my body long before I started tracking macronutrients.


Rule Number Two - Workout Intensity

Rule number 2 is workout intensity. You're not 40 anymore! As I build my physique I joke that 50 is the new 30. My goal right now is building a physique that would blow away my 30-year-old self. But the fact of the matter is my body has gone through some changes. In my 40s I got a vasectomy, I reached my quota in child production. All was good. However, I noticed that year after the operation, my lifts in bench and squats were adversely affected. Something happened with the natural testosterone production in my body. I spoke with a friend, who was my former powerlifting coach, and he shared he noticed the same thing after his vasectomy. Testosterone is necessary in muscle development and fat loss.The point here is, something happens to the male body where the testosterone production or availability is severely hindered in a male in his 50s. There is also the issue of estrogen in processed foods. Hence, the 50-year-old male that has a big gut and the man boobs (moobs)! 

The 50-year-old lifter needs more recovery time than he did in his 40s. I still bang out heavy sets. But the body is incapable of recovering from volumes of sets exercise. You won't be working out 5-6 days a week like in your days of glory. You will be pushing your body to the limits and pushing yourself into heavier weights. And then you will wait 2-3 days to recover. And move along. You will also adapt to how your body is functioning in your 50s. I still bench press with an old injured shoulder. I just bench off the flat floor now with dumbells so my should is completely supported for the lift. I had to break down and buy a plate loaded bent-over-row machine, in order to remove strain and pressure on my knees with normal barbell bent-over-rows. The days of no pain no gain are over. It's the days of gain through the pain. The pain will dictate if you do an exercise or not. You will need to start listening to your body and what you need to do. Modify your exercise program accordingly.  


Rule Number Three - Consistency

The physique transformation will happen through consistency. Consistency in your nutrition, workouts and cardio sessions. Consistency is the key and it is also a cruel mistress. Consistency demands time, it's like a prison sentence you have to serve to get the body you desire. Consistency is the price to pay to crush the stronghold of self-hatred in the mirror. Consistency demands maturity, that no matter how long this takes you're going to finish what you started. There is no methodology here to physique transformation, you're going to need to participate in this long-term scientific clinical test of what works and what doesn't work in your own program. Collect data. I use my fitness pal and track my food and my weight. Tracking helps you understand what you're putting into your body and what works. Definitely, track food and weight on a daily basis if you can. It will help you understand why things happen whether good or bad on the scale.  It will help you with strategies when you plateau in your weight loss and you will. As you can see below, I am now down 30 pounds in weight, since September of 2017. 

My Fitness Pal tracking my weight from March to June 2018


For Starters

For starters, KISS, keep it simple stupid, you may not see results in the first week or couple of weeks. Your body is habitually being fat. You need to retrain that. In the meantime, there is no miracle cure for obesity, so start preparing the mind for the long haul. If you're obese like I was, at 270, your not going to have a beach bod in 6 months or even 9 months. You have to serve the time and pay the price - inside the gym and out.

For week one, start a gym program if you haven't already. I recommend starting with only one day of cardio per week, burning 300 calories. Treadmill, spin cycle, or rowing machine. I prefer the Concept 2 rowing machine for cardio, its a full body workout. And its fun! During week one, download my fitness pal app for your phone and computer and start tracking the stuff you are putting into your pie hole. Also get into the habit of daily weigh-ins and track those on the app. Keep it simple!


I strongly recommend getting a cardio machine in your home. Start building your own Iron Paradise. I love my Concept 2 Model D rowing machine (i set up filters on Craigslist and waited for over a month until I scored mine at $600). I also have a recumbent Schwinn bike for spinning.  Having your own cardio equipment is great because there are no excuses for not being able to go to the gym. You can probably get a free treadmill from your neighbor. Ask them about their cardio equipment that in their garage that is buried in boxes. Ask the wife of the home, she'll probably give it to you just to get it out of her garage. If you have bad knees, find a spin cycle or get the rower!!!


Fasted Cardio

I recommend doing cardio early am using a technique called fasted cardio. Where you burn calories prior to having your first meal. I also recommend intermittent fasting, where I don't eat anything from 9 PM the night prior to 12:30 PM the next day. I do consume one protein shake (2 scoops) Muscletech Nitro Whey around 8:30 AM after my fasted cardio. But that's it. Nothing scientific or regimental to it. Simply don't eat when you get up in the morning until after 12:30 pm in the afternoon.


Routine for Fasted AM Cardio

Cardio week 1:
 1 day per week 300 cal
Cardio week 2:
 2 days per week 300 cal
Cardio week 3:
 3 days per week 300 cal
Cardo week 4:
 2 days per week 400 cal
Cardio week 5:
 3 days per week 400 cal
Cardio week 6: 
 4 days per week 400 cal

As for my cardio, I now do 500 cal 10K rows on my concept 2 about 4 days of the week. I worked up to this using the routine provided. This alone and tracking and managing your food will show a spike in weight loss. Remember, fad diets do not fuel exercise. A diet fuels exercise! Throw out the Hollywood beach bod diets, you're about to become the rocket scientist of your own body. Your looking for optimal performance. This requires time, investment and consistency. A side note, fuel mixture ratios are what make or break diabetes. I baffled my doctors with weight loss and management of my type 2 diabetes with this simple program outlined. It will take the weight off.  This should be a good start for you. It's a journey, and each and every day is a battle at the scale to fight for that one pound and keep it off. It's day by day. 


Caloric Deficit

For weeks 1-3, don't worry about your diet. Just eat as you usually would, but try to eat sugar free.  Clean up your current diet with the food you currently eat. Stay away from the candy machine and be very aware of curbing the late night snacks. The fasted cardio and curbing your sugar intake should give you some initial results on the scale. During this time do research about nutrition and about macronutrients. This information will start coming into play for weeks 4-6 of the fasted cardio. This is how I initially got my weight to start to drop after months of no results at all.

That's it for now. I will return on more posts about working through injuries and dealing with low testosterone. Testosterone is another major factor in over 50 male weight loss.

A comment on commenting. This blog is all about helping myself and others who are sick and tired of gimmicks and magic pills. Comments are for exchanging information for fellow garage warriors. I will not accept comments with posts and urls for gimmick weight loss fads. Those posts will be deleted as fast as they're posted so please don't waste your time here. This is all about doing the time and chasing the dream - and seeing results!


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