Jesus and The Barbell (The Method, Part 4)

Over the last three parts of the Method, I have covered my story from age twelve to college, as it related to my love for the barbell.   The problem with these last few parts of the story is that I left out the most important part of the story.  During the early time of me finding my place in the gym and the love for the barbell, I actually found and started following my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.   I would not be giving credit where credit is due,  if I didn't mention Jesus and how he has changed my life.

Let's back track in my story to sophomore year of high school.  This was the year I first heard about Young Life.  I remember a couple of times during the year, hearing about and going to what Young Life calls "Club".  I was not that involved, but knew what it was.   So What is Young Life?

Young Life doesn't start with a program. It starts with adults who are concerned enough about kids to go to them, on their turf and in their culture, building bridges of authentic friendship. These relationships don't happen overnight — they take time, patience, trust and consistency.  The mission  is to introduce adolescents to Jesus Christ and helping them grow in their faith.  (Young Life website)

At the start of my junior year, I saw one of the Young life leaders from the previous year at a football game, his name was Josh Stull.  I had probably only met him like 1-2 times the previous year.    He introduced me to Doug Finch.  It turned out that Doug was actually on staff with Young Life and heading up Young Life for  Cherokee County.  I didn't play football, but I was a big fan and loved going to the games.  To give you an idea of how I rolled in high school, this is a picture of me before one of the football games.   Doug would start to show up at the school during lunch hour.  Doug and  the other leaders would be at football games, basketball games, other school event, and even my wrestling matches.  God had placed Josh, and Doug directly in my path.  I had no idea what he was up too.  There were a couple other female leaders as well, Karen Akridge, and  Serena Parish (now Serena Stull).

After a few weeks or even months, Doug talked with me about hosting "Club" at my house.  I remembered vaguely what this was from the previous year, but I had no clue really what this meant. I talked with my parents and they were fine with it.   I started  to host club at my house, along with some of my other friends.   It was so much fun.  This might show my age, but at this time the leaders would show up with  an over head projector, with lyrics to songs we would sing.   Karen would play guitar, and lead us in  singalongs, songs like "Sweet Home Alabama"  and "Free Fallin".  We would  play games at "Club" like Chubby Bunny.  Compete against another student to see who could shove more marshmallows in their mouth and still say "Chubby Bunny".   I think even once we played Chubby Chihuahua, which is the same game played with pickled Jalapenos.   Lots of laughter would always follow.  The leader would have us sing more songs, but these were worship songs, which lead into a 10-15 min message on the gospel, introducing Jesus to students.

Up to this point in my life, I was a twice a year Christian, my family would go to church on Christmas and Easter.  The only reason we really would go is because my grandmother would invite us.   My Mom was raised in the church, but my brother and I were not.  We had Christian ideals  in our family, but I did not have a relationship with Jesus.   I think God was preparing my heart to come to know him.  I remember, as a kid, going to Sunday school class at my grandmother's church and hearing about Solomon and his wisdom.  So, anytime I prayed at night as a kid, I would ask God for wisdom and knowledge; that was all I would pray.  I think God heard these prayers and helped guide my path over the years to not go too far off the path.  My sophomore year I had my first experience with death, which sent me into at least a month of seeking to understand, Why?   My buddy in school, whom I was not best friends with, but would have lunch together and ran around the same crowd, died in tragic accident.  His name was Taylor Randahl and he was an amazing person.  He was dedicated to mountain biking, and he was  ranked one of the best mountain bikers in the nation.  His death had me searching for who God is and why he allowed these types of things to happen.  In many cases, this would lead people away from God, but I felt a comfort during this time, and I could not explain why.  I believe this was a turning point in my life, my heart was opening to the possibility of knowing God.      

As a junior in high school, you already know I was lifting constantly, wrestling, and now I was a primary person getting other students to go to Young Life.   Young  Life was a ton of fun, the leaders invested in me, and I knew the more of my friends I could get to Club the more fun it would be for everyone.  It was September of 2000, Josh and Doug, along with a few other students and my friends were asked to go to a weekend Young life Camp. We weren't going as campers, but as part of the "Work Crew" in Jasper, GA at Sharp Top Cove.  We would be volunteering at the camp working in the kitchen serving other high school campers, in October.  I agreed, not knowing what I was getting into.  It was a ton of work , but we also had a lot of fun.  Our group ended up in the Pits, aka we washed all the dishes.   When we got to the the camp and put our stuff in the bunks, Josh said we were going to have a Bible study.  I remember turning and saying "Bible... I don't have a Bible...I don't know anything about the Bible."  This weekend I met another leader, Kevin Gantz, whom I later served beside as a Young Life leader in college, he also drove me home from camp that year.  Work Crew is normally for those kids in Young life that are already Christians. I was not a Christian, but went to serve. Young life camp is what leaders build toward all year normally.  The short message during the week is only a small part of the Gospel. Once students get to camp, it is there that the entire Gospel is shared over a series of Clubs, building up to the cross and resurrection story.  Because we were working in the Pits, we were the last ones out of the kitchen.  We missed almost every Club that weekend.  The night of the Cross talk, we finished early enough for us to go to Club.  The speaker gave the message about how Jesus died on the cross for all of our sins and we have a choice to accept or deny Him.  He challenged everyone to go out and spend some time with God and listen about making this decision.  They turned out all the lights on the camp and no one was supposed to talk.  It was that clear starry night on the field at Sharp Top Cove (Shown Below) , in the mountains of North GA ,  I said "yes" to Jesus to be my Lord and savior.   

Some people have these amazing stories about how God instantly changed them.  Remember I am a scientist and need to work though things.   I didn't even let my leaders know that I accepted Christ that weekend.  I went home and started reading my Bible that I received at some Sunday school class that I went to when I was really little.  I was going to figure this out on my own.  The week we returned, Doug gave me a Young life Bible. It was the New Testament, along with Psalms and Proverbs.  

At this point, I had become friends with Seth Condrey.  He was known as a Christian kid at school, and was an amazing singer.  To this day, he is an amazing worship leader, singer and song writer with 6 albums, in Spanish and English.   I was talking with him one day at school, and let him know that I was starting to read the Bible to understand more about God.  He said if I pick him up before school, we could go to Chick-fil-a, and he would lead me in a Bible study.   We did this three days a week.  I jumped into the deep end and God was changing my life.   Shortly after this time, Seth wanted me to train him at the gym, and I started to go with him to church.   It was not long, I was learning more about having a real relationship with Jesus Christ, while hitting the weight at the same time.   You were probably starting to wonder how this blog is even about the barbell. The same time I was falling in love with the barbell, was the same time I made the most important influential decision of my life to follow Jesus.

Over the years, I have had many friends come train with me.  A few these have been close enough friends that we would train while discussing the Bible.  This has lead me to see many comparisons between my walk with Christ and the barbell.   Please don't confuse this with a worship of the barbell, but that there are comparisons in the spiritual and physical changes both Jesus and the barbell can have on your life.   

I would not be where I am today if not for Jesus in my life, guiding me.  In in the same way, I physically would not be where I am today if it were not for the barbell in my life.   I owe everything to Jesus.  Please leave comments or email if you have questions or are interested in knowing more about my story. 

Meal Prep Jan 27 2019

This week, I am planning to cut my calories a little.  I want to start to cut a few pounds over the next 10 weeks.    I am planning on only making small changes.  The easiest place for me to cut calories without cutting quantity of food, is to cut a little fat.  One thing I eat during the week for my after dinner dessert is yogurt, berries and a scoop of chocolate protien.  I normally get full fat yogurt, which results in an extra 400-500 calories a day.    I assume that cutting this all together might be difficult, but I decided to switch to fat free Greek yogurt.  I can still have a delicious dessert with only 250-300 calories, just from swapping to fat free yogurt.  Switching to Greek yogurt also give a protien boost.   I will also cut out a 12-16 oz glass of whole milk with dinner.  These two small changes in my diet should allow me to lose 1# a week, because this should eliminate about 500 calories a day.  One issue many people have with jumping on a diet to lose weight, is they make too many big changes all at once.  

For example, many people eat out for breakfast or lunch every day.  They decide to start eating better and switch from Big Macs with fries and chicken biscuits to oatmeal and salads right away.  This shocks your body because you instantly changed the number by over 1000-1500 calories in a day.  Your body now thinks you are starving and you feel starving too, which leads to failing at sticking with  the diet.   A simpler change would be to cut the fries at lunch or switch to a small fry, and add an apple with it.  This way the change in calories is small to start while adding in a quality food.    Over the next number of weeks you can make more small changes, which over time can lead to big results.  

This week for my breakfast, I am going to make a Hash with a side of eggs and bacon.  This breakfast is easy but requires a little bit of chopping of veggies.   This is such a good and hearty breakfast. 

Ingredients

• 2 Sweet potatoes
• 2 Large zucchini 
• 1 Large bell pepper
• 1/2  yellow onion 
• garlic 
• Salt 
• Red Pepper
• 10 slices of bacon 
• 20 eggs 

1. Cook bacon and set a side.   Leave SOME of the bacon grease in the pan.  You will cook the veggies in the bacon fats, which makes it so delicious. Don't use to much grease or everything will get saturated.
2. Cube the potatoes, peppers, onion, and zucchini into small pieces and place in the pan with left over bacon grease, along with garlic, salt and  pepper.   
3.  Cook until all the veggies are tender. 

This is all you have to do.  Each day place a serving into the pan with the couple slices of bacon. As this reheats in the pan it will grease the pan for cooking your eggs.  Couple this with green OJ and Coffee and have a great breakfast with plenty of calories (750) , and protien ( 35g)  to start your day off.   I would like to add that it is OK on days you are not feeling hungry in the morning to just cook 2 eggs, and make up the protien later.   This can be a slippery slope, because you may not be hungry early in the day, but this could make you more hungry later. If you don't plan  properly, then you may find yourself heading to the snack machine instead of having a protien rich healthy snack during the day.   Be aware that the change in routine early in the day may change your routine later in the day towards the negative.  

For lunch I am making another one of my favorites.  I love cajun food because it definitely doesn't lack in flavor.  This is a Crock Pot Jambalaya.  I have linked the recipe and I don't modify this one much.  This has veggies, protien and rice, so by my standard it's a great meal.     

Ingredients 

• 1-2# Chicken 
• 1#  Shrimp 
• 1#  Andouille sausage
• 3 Bell peppers 
• 3 Jalapenos 
• 1/2 yellow Onion 
• 30 oz can of crushed tomatoes 
• 1-2 cloves of garlic 
• 2- cups of chicken bone broth 
• 3 Tbs cajon seasoning 
• 1.5-2 cups of dry rice 

1.  Chop all the veggies and sausage and put in the crock pot.
2.  Mix in broth and crushed tomatoes, and spices 
3. If chicken is thawed then you can cut the chicken into cubes. If it is frozen just throw it in the crock pot, and chop it after it is cooked.   This batch I did not include shrimp only because I didn't have any on hand.  Therefore I  used about 2 # of chicken.  Only use 1# of chicken if you plan to use shrimp.  
4. The shrimp you need to put in about 20 min before it is finished.  
5. The rice you mix into the crock pot about 20 min before finished as well.  

The macros on this is one is great.  When splitting this into 5 serving you can get about 850 calories, 85 g of protien, 70 g of carbs and 21 g of fat.     If you are looking for a very high protien lunch, this is it .   You could cut some of the rice out if you are watching your carbs, but if are worried about performance then keep the rice in the recipe.   There is  an open question as to weather your body will use this much protien at one time.   I  am not too worried about it, but if you are worried then you could split the serving into two smaller meals during the day and cover your bases to maximize the absorption of the protien.

Combine this breakfast, lunch and the above mentioned dessert, and I will be up over 150 grams of protien with out dinner or a protien shake.  This should be a good week and easy to hit my protien number and while cutting some fat, I hope to drop 1#.   I hope you enjoy.   Let me know what you think of these recipes in the comments. 

The Method Part 3

After my senior year, I was off to Kennesaw State University (KSU)  to go to college.  In high school I was kind of a nerd, taking extra science classes for my electives in school.  I was in the honors and AP math and science classes, but I am a horrible standardize test taker.   I scored very bad on the SAT's.  Even with a better than a 4.0 GPA, I was not accepted to a single college.  The only reason I was able to get into to KSU is because I submitted an appeal and had a series of interviews in which they realized that my grades were good enough for me to be successful at KSU.  At the time I had to register for classes, I found out that they wanted to me to register for all remedial classes.  This was not going to happen.  I asked the person in charge what I could do to get out of these easy classes and take the normal class.  She eventually listened to what I had to say, and asked me to come by her office the next day to register for my classes.   The next day, I met her at her office where she had me take a test on a computer, and the next thing I know she has placed me in the honors program at KSU.   From the start of college, I knew I was going to major in chemistry, this was my favorite subject in high school.  I also had a goal to graduate college in 3 years, which was wishful thinking, but I was close to achieving this goal before I decided to double major in Mathematics and Chemistry.    I received the Hope scholarship, along with another academic scholarship I won through Wells Fargo bank (I think it was South Trust Bank at the time).   I lived at home rent free, had school tuition free, but I needed to work to pay for extra food, gas, insurance, cell phone, gym membership , and supplements.  At  the end of high school, I was working at Publix, but wanted to do something different. I looked into being a personal trainer while I was in school.  I had a buddy that worked at Gold's Gym and made good money.

I took the weekend coarse through the international sports science association (ISSA) and became a certified trainer.   I was still lifting at Stack's Gym and I talked with Bobby, the owner, to get his advice on places to become a trainer.  Stacks is a family run gym.  I didn't think training at Stacks was an option because I was not family.  He said he has more clients than he could handle, and he could give me some clients and if he did he would get a small cut.  But if I brought in any of my own clients, I was fine to take it all.   All the trainers in the gym charged the same amount $35/hr .  If Bobby gave me a client, I would give him $5/hr.  This was way better than my buddy training at Golds Gym making $15/hr.   This was an ideal job as a college student.  As stated above, I was trying to finish in 3 yrs so I was taking 18 credit hrs a semester.  I could train a few clients a week  and make enough money to do everything I wanted.  I was officially a trainer, and I was kind of part of the family.  I might have been the only none family member at the time with keys to the gym.  Training had it ups and down.  A few clients I kept for 4+ yrs and other were in and out.   It was amazing that people would pay for a personal trainer and just not show up even when they paid upfront.   It was so much fun training the ones that wanted to make a change in their life.  I really do miss that part of training people. 

After high school and in the first couple of years of college, I was still  training for power lifting meets and Bobby was still telling what to do to get my gains. Even though Bobby had taught me so much, I think it is great having a coach write my program. It is easy to pick things I like to do over the things I  need to do.  In 2003 and 2004, I entered a few meets each year.   I did a quick search on-line and found this document with some results from a APF Irondawg open in November on 2003.   I won best lifter, but it said I didn't have my best performance.   I continued to compete until I turned 20 yrs old.   I placed 1st place in every meet except 1 meet I placed 2nd place in the GA state Power lifting championship.   My last meet was in January of 2004, just before turning 20 yrs old.   I put up my best number in the that meet.  I was in the 181# weight class weighing 178#.  I squatted 565# (Picture hangs in Stacks Gym on the wall of fame) ,Bench 355#, and deadlifted 455#.   I really enjoyed powerlifting, and the only reason I stopped competing was because school became more of a priority.  I realized that there was no money in the powerlifting, but my education was going to be what paid the bills long term.  

When I was 19 yrs old about 10 weeks after my last power lifting meet, a group of about 5 guys at stacks gym decided to all  compete in a Body building show.   It was Golds Gym Body Building Open in Gadston, AL.   This was only a slight deviation from my current training regimen.  I believe I started to increase rep scheme slightly and performed a few more super sets.   I  remember going to a 5 day a week split: Chest, Back, Legs, Shoulders, and Arms.   As a powerlifter, I still trained like a mix between a body builder and power lifter.   One of the hardest leg workouts I remember doing to get ready for this show was for 3 sets of  Leg Press at 1050# for 12 reps  super set with back squats at 375# for 8 reps.   This was a major pump and made me realize that I was still strong even carb depleted and much lighter body weight.   I started to cut weight about 10 week out from the show.  I weighed 178#  and started to cut carbs to cut some weight .  The first week of my cut, I went on vacation to the beach. I don't recommend doing it this way.  I am showing a picture from that beach trip to see what I looked like at the start of this cut.  I dropped to 153# in the 10 week period.  I had my stage routine to an Incubus song from one of their first albums.  There were about 8 teenage competitors in this show.   Therefore they didn't have a real weight class they just had a best in show teenage division.    I placed 3rd in the teenage division.  That is the only body building show I have ever done, and the dieting and water cut  was very difficult.  The picture where I am actually tan, is from the day of the show and is also on a poster with the other 5 guys hanging in Stack's Gym.  Below are some picture a few days before the show.    

By this point in my life, training was ingrained into my life.  I would waver slightly on my consistency, but would never be without a gym membership.    The barbell was part of who I was, and I would have a hard time living with out it.  Later in life, I would become much more serious about lifting, when I found Crossfit and my 1st son was born.  Crossfit changed a lot of my thinking on lifting, and brought me to do more research on different training regimens.   See my about me page  to read how I got into the Crossfit and beyond.   

I hope you are enjoying the blog, leave comments or question below.