I’ve been asked repeatedly by different folks about my process for losing 49 pounds this past year. So rather
than continually repeating myself, here it is in written format. There were several factors that played on my decision to get fit. The first was in January 2010 on a trip to Woodstock First Baptist Church in Georgia. We went with our Pastor to a "Sunday School in High Definition" conference. As we encountered the staff members at Woodstock, they were mostly all physically fit. Not muscle-bound, just fit. It started weighing on me (no pun intended) then and there. Some might say I was convicted about my weight.
It didn’t start all at once, in fact, when I was just out of high school I weighed a mere 125. At 5’11” that pretty much made me skin and bones. It took much overindulgence over 20 years to get me to the 249lbs which was my heaviest weight. I had become tired all the time, slow, everything hurt. I went to my physician and he ran a battery of tests that concluded everything was fine except for my weight.
So after I finally accepted his challenge of diet and exercise for 60 days, I got on the road to getting fit. What was my goal? To be a healthy, Godly man. I decided that everthing that I would do, every decision should fall under these two things.
I happened to encounter some strong men through a ministry event. I asked them questions and read a lot. Here is where I landed. Every bite of food feeds something. In the simplest terms I can understand, I had to decide whether to feed fat, or muscle. I also had to learn how to manipulate both.
Previously my routine was to skip breakfast, eat a huge lunch, snack on white flour filled or high sugar content snacks, eat a huge supper and then have a bedtime snack. Don’t judge me, you probably do the same things. That routine created a condition that caused my body to think it was starving so it stored fat.
The food choices and quantities I was eating made it worse. High carb, high white flour content, and high sugar... all wrong for my body. I have done low carb diets, low fat diets and calorie counting diets. As soon as I got tired of being deprived of something, I fell off of the wagon and went right back to bad habits. So I knew I had to find a way to satisfy my appetite, eat the right things, all without feeling deprived.
Further conversations with body builders convinced me that in order to turn things around, I had to feed my muscles and starve the fat. Another simple way I can understand it is that if I sit and gorge on junk food with
low activity, I am building fat. To build muscle I have to do something to make them hungry. Exercise. I have always hated to exercise so I thought the easiest thing would be to get a home gym so it would be convenient and simple. So I did.
I started with very basic exercises, low weight, hi reps to make my muscles hungry. So then I had to look at my food intake. I learned that if you get hungry, you are supposed to eat. Not a lot, not junk, the right stuff in the right amount. My qualifications for food are now guided by 2 main things: protein and fiber. Protein builds muscle, Fiber fixes a lot of issues for a fat guy, and we’ll leave it at that.
I discovered power bars, with roughly 10 grams of protein per bar. They have other stuff too, but nothing bad. (It is always funny to me, that when I let some other out of shape person look at my power bars, they look at the ingredients and say something like, "well that has calories, or that has carbs", and then they go eat a cheesebuger, fries and a snickers bar. You are going to take in both carbs and calories. That's what we need to survive. Where the calories, carbs and even fat come from are more important). Bananas would be my other food. I cut out hi-starch and hi carb foods such as potatoes and especially french fries. That isn't small, I LOVE fried food.
I eat a lot of rice now and don’t miss the potatoes. I eat a lot of beans, meat and vegetables, and my evening sweet tooth snack is usually fruit. So here is a typical day:
6am - oatmeal or hi-fiber cereal with 2%milk. If I am in a hurry I eat a Fiber One bar.
8am - Banana
10:30ish - Power bar
12:00 ish - Light lunch - Chicken or bean burrito, bbq salad, or even BBQ chicken with slaw and beans. It is important, I think, not to overeat at lunch time.
2:00ish - Usually another power bar or an apple or banana
5pm - Supper. A meat, rice, vegetable (sometimes 2), no bread ever
7:00 ish - Snack - Usually fruit
As you can see, I eat constantly. But what happens is, because I eat often, I don’t eat as much. I don’t feel
deprived of anything, and once the weigh started coming off it got easier to avoid foods that aren’t good for me.
My bread replacement is basically 2 things. Flour tortillas, and Double Protein bread. They aren’t as bad for you as regular bread, and again, I don’t feel deprived.
I exercise at least 3 times a week. Here is some advice for you: If you can only do 3 push ups, then do 3 push ups. In no time you’ll do 5, then 10 and so on. Try to do some kind of crunch or even sit ups. Again, if you can only do 3, great. Do 3. Don’t do anything that causes a sharp pain, but burning is ok. Walking is great. A good brisk dedicated walk, not a slow death durge.
I take multivitamins, Chromium Picolinate to help metabolize fat and certain foods, some sort of fat burner (natural ones), and I use Muscle Milk for some of my snacks when I just have to have a chocolate shake.
Finally, make sure you involve Christ in your process. My daily prayer is like this: “Lord, I am weak and have no self-discipline. You told us to take care of our bodies cause they are your temple. I want to, but I need your strength. Help me Lord to make wise choices.”
49 pounds in less than a year. And I feel great.
