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| My Fitness Pal screen capture of the 238.8 lb weigh in. |
Caloric Deficit
The progress I make on a weekly basis is based on caloric deficit. For starters, I don't eat any sugar in my diet. I am not stringent on this, if I am at a family party, which are infrequent. Sure, I will sample some dessert, such as I did today. It's the 4th of July, it was a family BBQ get together. I ate some great food containing sugar, but I did so in moderation. I didn't eat where I over stuffed myself and had to come home and sit on my couch and undo the top buttons of my jeans, like Al Bundy. I had some grilled chicken, BBQ ribs, ate one cookie, tried some delicious sugar free home made chocolate peanut butter cups, and had a slice of chocolate cheese cake. Washed it down with unsweetened ice tea. That was it for the caloric consumption. A lot of food for me, but didn't come home feeling like a stuffed Hawaiian Luau pig.
Since May, I have achieved a level of fasted cardio where I can burn 500 calories in the morning. Again, I stressed I achieved this level of cardio. If you're not doing cardio don't start here and expect miracles. Your body will crash from the exorbitant amount of cardio. You will become sleepy during the day, and your body will try to compensate by over consuming calories to make up for the shock. This is the same reason many people who run for fat loss actually gain weight. You jumped the gun and put your body into a situation it wasn't acclimated to cope with. I mentioned in my previous blog entry, you have to slowly work your way up in cardio and condition your body for fat loss.I also mentioned that fat loss is a mental prison sentence. You must serve your time and do your do diligence. It took you some time to over indulge and build the bulge. Now you need to fight the battle of the bulge from behind your prison walls of body fat. This is all about reconditioning the body and mind into being a different physique than what it currently is. Re-programming the body!
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| Cardio section of the Iron Paradise - Cycle and Rower |
It takes a month or longer to work an unconditioned body up to this level of cardio. The first month of training is conditioning the body to handle the cardio that is required for weight loss. I am doing 4-5 sessions of fasted morning cardio of 500 calories each week. This gives me a deficit of 2000 - 2500 calories per week.
Over Coming Strongholds
As I mentioned I am a counselor, author, and pastor. I work with people who survived severe childhood trauma. Counseling a person out of a stronghold is lot easier than dealing with your own. When I started to aggressively attack my stronghold I was in a place where I was disgusted with my physical appearance and my health condition. I couldn't stand to see a picture of myself, nor did I like seeing myself in the mirror. It was gut wrenching painful. Furthermore, I was working out in the iron paradise for years with no results whatsoever. There were no returns on my efforts. My right shoulder was injured, I could no longer bench press heavy poundage, nor shoulder press anything about 135 pounds without excruciating pain or clicking of the shoulder. Cartilage in my knees were nearly all gone and I was living in phase of my life of pain management. The nights of my shoulder and bench work were excruciatingly painful. I couldn't sleep on my right side. If I woke up laying on my right side I was like a beached sea turtle. I couldn't flip myself over with out experiencing horrible pain.
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| Big Mike at 270 pounds from a street ministry picture |
Because I work in spiritual warfare, I work with people on intense cases of the occult. In December, I had a circumstance in dealing a dabbler in the occult who was irritated by a post I made about voodoo and spiritual house cleansing. I was called an intolerant Christian and on top of that they sent something my way. I knew through discernment what happened. I could feel from their post they weren't satisfied with a discussion and they released something (talk about being intolerant). Within two days of that intolerant comment exchange my digestive system was filled with gangrenous infection. I didn't know the infection was in me. One day I had a sharp pain in my side, my intestines were literally encrusted and rock hard from the infection. Through a 2 1/2 hour laparoscopic surgery, appendectomy, and my internals were literally power washed. This happened to me six days before Christmas. It was severe that I was suppose to spend Christmas in the hospital. Jesus did some amazing healing, and I was released in two days. The doctors were even baffled. They weren't certain if I was even going to walk away from the surgery. So my guts were power washed and my internals hurt like hell. Jesus told me that I was clear to go home, I literally had to demand the nurses to give me the tests they needed to assure them I was good to go home. They resisted and ignored me, then finally appeased me with the blood and fluid tests required to checkout. They were dumbfounded! I was released that afternoon. Supernaturally attacked and supernaturally healed (Still praying for the hospital bill to be supernaturally paid). I was still dealing with internal healing. But I was home for Christmas, external tubes and all. I felt like Wolverine and the Weapon X program with this stuff hanging out of me.
Something in me died on the operating table that night. I don't know what happened. When I woke up I had a different attitude. A fighting and angry attitude. I knew what happened to me spiritually and where the attack came from. But I knew I could no longer allow myself to be in this sad physical and mental condition any longer. Whoever the old me was, died. Too many attacks were coming my way. If you ever dealt with the occult in ministry, and I am not talking about deliverance ministry, I am talking about Mark 9:29 hard core warfare, you know the level of mind games the enemy throws at you. For me, not any more, I was leaving with a new me and a new attitude. I was done with hating myself, I was grabbing my life by the reigns and fighting back. I believe Jesus was shaping a new me for the depth of warfare to come. This involved both mental and physical re-alignment of myself.
My original post operation plan was to lose 60 pounds between January 1st and July. I had to nurse my injured body back to health first. I think in the second week of January (4 weeks post op), I tried spin cycling, for 300 calories (Mondays). Only one day a week. My guts were still a great deal on the tender and raw side. So I played it careful. Around six weeks post op, I started using a kettlebell (on Tues - Fri) for early am fasted cardio (I started intermittent fasting on Jan 1st, since it was something I could try without injuring my guts). The kettlebell exercises I used were from Chandler Marchman's your tube channel, 12 Minute Kettlebell Workout for Faster Fat Loss. I used a 20 pound kettlebell, and with a post surgery recovering body, these were realistic and doable exercises. But listen to your body, I was couch ridden for six weeks, before I slowly moved into this. If your (post op) body says NO! - don't push it!
My original post operation plan was to lose 60 pounds between January 1st and July. I had to nurse my injured body back to health first. I think in the second week of January (4 weeks post op), I tried spin cycling, for 300 calories (Mondays). Only one day a week. My guts were still a great deal on the tender and raw side. So I played it careful. Around six weeks post op, I started using a kettlebell (on Tues - Fri) for early am fasted cardio (I started intermittent fasting on Jan 1st, since it was something I could try without injuring my guts). The kettlebell exercises I used were from Chandler Marchman's your tube channel, 12 Minute Kettlebell Workout for Faster Fat Loss. I used a 20 pound kettlebell, and with a post surgery recovering body, these were realistic and doable exercises. But listen to your body, I was couch ridden for six weeks, before I slowly moved into this. If your (post op) body says NO! - don't push it!
I was seeing results, but the fat was coming off EXTREMELY SLOW! I came to the rationalization that I wasn't going to lose 60 pounds by July. My body was reacting differently to exercises. The physique transformation blueprint from my 40s was too much for my 50 something body to handle. The 53 year old male body was temperamental. It wanted to do things it's way or the highway. This was at first a set back. But I never lost my desire to lose weight and do the physique transformation. I just had to re-engineer and re-learn what it takes for the 50 something body to get into shape.
To overcome the fat stronghold image I hated, I now visualized what my body would look like in the mirror. This helped me over come the self hatred of my reflective image. The weight loss was extremely slow, but it was coming off, which helped me re-imagine what my design goals were. The body was now an artistic palette, the nutrition and exercise a super soldier science program for a 50+ year old male. I re-imagined myself and went after it with the realization that this is an extremely long term project - magnitude of years. As the weight slowly came off, I noticed my heart burn started diminishing. Another plus. Good bye to my old friend heartburn! Heartburn was a daily occurrence at lunch and dinner. My esophagus would close up and my chest would burn. Not anymore! I no longer really monitor my type 2 diabetes. The dangerous diabetic narcoleptic involuntary reflex naps no longer are an issue with me. I started seeing a lot of health gains that baffled my doctors (i.e., no prescriptions!).
Slowly the stronghold of the mind comes unraveled with your diligence and persistence. Channel your anger and self hatred through prayer for break through. Turn your tears up to heaven and forge your pain into a new body in the gym. This is a long term prison sentence. If something isn't working for you, don't use it. By this I mean, trying something for over a month and there is no return at the weigh in on the scale. I had an old mindset of how I lost weight in my 40s which was useless to me and my gains in my 50s. Yet I tried to push myself through a brick wall, for years with no return on investment. Something stops working or doesn't work, drop it from your program! I literally remodeled my garage gym in the last couple of months to reflect the equipment I need for a physique transformation at age 50. The lat pull-down machine is GONE! The Body Masters leg extension and leg curl machines are GONE (no cartilage in the knees). I added a pull up bar and bands in place of the lat pull-down machine. Sure I could lat pull 250 pounds, but I couldn't do a pull-up because of my weight. I want a body that can do reps of pull-ups! Right now as the weight comes off I use the bands and do assisted pull-ups. The cheapest and most effective form of an assisted pull-up machine.
So this is where I am at now, on July 4th 2018. I did have an interesting week this week. When you're 270 pounds, you're invisible (see my old picture of me above). You can walk into a store and just get in and out unnoticed except with the conversation with the cashier at the checkout. This week on several occasions, I had women clerks in the store look at me and smile and talk to me. It was puzzling at first, because I never experienced this. I had one middle aged woman, last week, in my bank check me out. I glanced over at her and wondered why the heck she was looking at me. She quickly looked away non-nonchalantly. I was like, what the heck, this old fart just got checked out like I was a piece of meat! Ok, ladies I now know how it feels. Well, I laughed it off inside. I am happily married (for 28 years), so I didn't need this attention. Even though I don't care, it is a weird reassurance that hard work is paying off. Perseverance! Stick with it. Each little piece of the journey there is some reassurance you are to stay on track with your dreams and your goals.
And most of all, begin to develop a new relationship with food. It is to fuel your exercise, it is not a means for weight loss, avoid fad diets. If you're friend is on a fad diet, let them be on it. Don't let them talk you into it too. They're going to jump the next bandwagon when the current fad diet fails!
Hope this helps!
Slowly the stronghold of the mind comes unraveled with your diligence and persistence. Channel your anger and self hatred through prayer for break through. Turn your tears up to heaven and forge your pain into a new body in the gym. This is a long term prison sentence. If something isn't working for you, don't use it. By this I mean, trying something for over a month and there is no return at the weigh in on the scale. I had an old mindset of how I lost weight in my 40s which was useless to me and my gains in my 50s. Yet I tried to push myself through a brick wall, for years with no return on investment. Something stops working or doesn't work, drop it from your program! I literally remodeled my garage gym in the last couple of months to reflect the equipment I need for a physique transformation at age 50. The lat pull-down machine is GONE! The Body Masters leg extension and leg curl machines are GONE (no cartilage in the knees). I added a pull up bar and bands in place of the lat pull-down machine. Sure I could lat pull 250 pounds, but I couldn't do a pull-up because of my weight. I want a body that can do reps of pull-ups! Right now as the weight comes off I use the bands and do assisted pull-ups. The cheapest and most effective form of an assisted pull-up machine.
So this is where I am at now, on July 4th 2018. I did have an interesting week this week. When you're 270 pounds, you're invisible (see my old picture of me above). You can walk into a store and just get in and out unnoticed except with the conversation with the cashier at the checkout. This week on several occasions, I had women clerks in the store look at me and smile and talk to me. It was puzzling at first, because I never experienced this. I had one middle aged woman, last week, in my bank check me out. I glanced over at her and wondered why the heck she was looking at me. She quickly looked away non-nonchalantly. I was like, what the heck, this old fart just got checked out like I was a piece of meat! Ok, ladies I now know how it feels. Well, I laughed it off inside. I am happily married (for 28 years), so I didn't need this attention. Even though I don't care, it is a weird reassurance that hard work is paying off. Perseverance! Stick with it. Each little piece of the journey there is some reassurance you are to stay on track with your dreams and your goals.
And most of all, begin to develop a new relationship with food. It is to fuel your exercise, it is not a means for weight loss, avoid fad diets. If you're friend is on a fad diet, let them be on it. Don't let them talk you into it too. They're going to jump the next bandwagon when the current fad diet fails!
Hope this helps!
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