Seventh Day Adventist - Testimony

So there I was, laying on the floor in my office, staring at the ceiling. I couldn't stand up because of the pain. All I could think about was the pain shooting down my leg. My manager walks in, looks at me, and tells me to go home. He knows that my back bothers me from time to time, and if it was bad enough that I was laying on the floor rather than working, something had to be seriously wrong. He instructed me to go to the doctor, go rest, do something. Just get better soon. That was my last day of work for the next six months. I did not know at the time what the months ahead would entail for me. Positive changes can come in all shapes and sizes; I learned this when I had back surgery at 21.

When I left work that cold December day, I had one thought on my mind. What is wrong with my body? I'm young, I work out regularly and eat a healthy diet. I take care of my body, so why is it falling apart? What I would soon find out, is that due to some unknown reason, I had found myself with a pinched nerve, herniated disk, and fractured vertebrae. For those of you that have never experienced back pain before, count your blessings. For those that know what true back pain feels like, you can relate to that feeling of just crippling pain. The type of pain that makes you walk like a 90-year-old with a hunch. The kind of pain that makes you cry out when you move the wrong way. I found myself in some of the worst pain I had ever experienced.

When I was finally able to get into the doctor, it had been about a week since I left work. I was given muscle relaxers and told to take them every 6 hours and rest. A couple of weeks go by, and it's not getting better, the opposite actually. I had gone from a state of pain when I walked or moved wrong, to discomfort all the time! I schedule another appointment, let the doctor know what was going on, and this time he sees that there's no easy fix. He tells me that he is going to refer me to a spinal surgeon and that I now need to get x-ray's, and an MRI. For the next month, I wait for my appointment to see the specialist. Mind you; this is another month on top of the 2 or 3 weeks I've already been going through. So at this point I am so ready to finally get the results and find out what this surgeon is going to be able to do to help me. I go to my appointment and the first thing he has to offer me is a shot in my spine; once every three weeks and it will take the pain away. All I'm thinking is, "there is no way I'm going to hide my problem by taking a shot once a month and masking whatever is wrong with my back." I tell the doctor, no, I want surgery to fix my back. Kind of shocked he asks me, "you want surgery?" I tell him that unless there is another long term fix to my back problem, I want surgery. It took another month after this appointment to get my surgery done. From the time I left work because of the pain, to the time I went to the hospital to receive surgery, was over three months! One might ask how someone could find positivity in three months worth of pain. How can you look back on an experience like this and say that you are glad that it happened? This three month period restored my Faith.

My surgery only took an hour and a half; I woke up about 2 hours after they put me under. When I woke up, I remembered wondering where I was and not remembering much. I remembered the doctor telling me a joke about how only a few people don't wake up from anesthesiology, and then lights out. Not too funny looking back! I went home that same day, and I was up walking around only an hour after my surgery was complete. Part of the recovery now is they don't want you on bed rest, so I was up moving that same day. I would never have thought at the time, but what I needed in life was something to slow me down and give me a chance to think and make the change in my life, and a back surgery definitely slowed me down! I remember for the month following I had so much free time on my hands, and the months leading up to the surgery I had found an interest in reading and studying my Bible. I didn't know at the time, but my rest I had during my surgery is what recovered my faith and gave me the chance to recommit to God. I was so busy in my life prior and what I truly needed was time to sit back and make a change in my life. During this period I started praying regularly; for strength, for recovery, for guidance, and for financial support. I was able to get through all this time and make it on the other side fully recovered and with a new goal in my life. I no longer was interested in the things I once found so much joy. I proposed to my girlfriend, I quit drinking, and I started resting on the Sabbath. It was truly a life-altering situation, and it shaped me into who I am today.

Some people may ask how any of this could be seen as positive, but if you knew the person I was before and could see the person I am now, you would understand. I was going through life without direction. I had a baby girl on the way and didn't have a plan for my life. I had no interest in "growing up" and making the hard decisions in life because I wanted to do, what I wanted. I needed to start taking responsibility and be the type of person that my family could rely on, and I wasn't. The time spent with myself reflecting on my life gave me the opportunity to become who I needed to be.  It's amazing, but the person I was destined to be was not the person I was, and it's not the person I am right now. It is a constant battle between good and evil and what I learned was that the decisions I was making were not setting up my family for a prosperous future.

If there is one thing I found out throughout this entire situation, it's that you never know what tragedy will turn into a blessing until the real path has been revealed. And the only way you know of this fantastic journey is by putting your faith in something bigger than yourself, and trusting that you are loved.

Seventh Day Adventist - 7 Truths

I would like to start this post by saying, I was not born Seventh Day Adventist. I was born Catholic and "lived" as a Catholic for the first 21 years of my life. I use quotations around lived because I was a proclaimed Catholic but I never truly lived as a Christian. I believed in God, always have and always will. I believed that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, and I believe that he died to save the world from Sin. I believed that all you needed to do was attend the 2 hour service on Sunday, live as a genuinely decent person, and believe in God and Jesus and that was enough! You are now a Christian! See yah next Sunday. Don't bother studying the bible and make sure you say your prayers before bed and you are good to go!

I'll be honest, I stopped going to church when I was like 12 or 13 years old. Doesn't mean I stopped believing but I wasn't forced to go, so I didn't. I attended youth group's a little bit here and there but that was it. Was I truly living as a Christian? Of course not. But would it have made me a better Christian if I had gone to church and still lived my normal life outside of it? Again, of course not. What I believed then, and what I realize now are so totally different. When I first started looking into Seventh Day Adventism it was not an easy thing to find any truth on the matter, especially when the first place you turn is to YouTube. The first thing you will find when you type in the words Seventh Day Adventist is "Christian or Cult". Now I firmly believe that the Devil has more influence in this world than any of us truly think could be possible. And if there was a Christian movement that taught true bible beliefs, don't you think the Devil would want to destroy that or at least tarnish the name the best he could. So now, after this long introduction, I will go into my main point which is the truths behind the Seventh Day Adventist Movement. I am not claiming to know it all, but I know enough to shed some light onto the truth and hopefully anyone looking for a true faith will find reassurance to look past the terrible things you find on the Internet. 

Truth No. 1 - Seventh Day Adventist is a Christian religion, not a Cult. Google explains a Cult as being "a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object." Seventh Day Adventists direct their beliefs and devote their lives toward God and Jesus, now if that makes them a cult then I guess you should classify all Christianity as a cult in the process. Seventh Day Adventist's base their beliefs on the Bible, and this is one of the main reasons that I chose to become a Seventh Day Adventist. Everything they teach and everything they were built upon was from teachings out of the scripture. They do not believe anyone has the ability to change it. 

Truth No. 2 - Seventh Day Adventists worship on Saturday. This is much different than the Christian norm to worship on Sunday's. There reasoning for doing this is very simple. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." Exodus 20:8-11  This is the fourth commandment. When God spoke these words the calendar was as it is today. Sunday is the first day of the week, making Saturday the 7th. 

Truth No. 3 - Seventh Day Adventist's believe that we are living in "The End of Days". This belief was basically what founded the movement. In 1844 there was a movement that became known as The Great Disappointment. You can learn more about this movement and the beginnings of the Seventh Day Adventist religion by watching a short series put together by the Seventh Day Adventist church to spread the TRUTH about how this movement came to be what it is today.  ( https://telltheworld.adventist.org/ ) I will go further in dept into this at a later time because that is an entire post in itself. Point is Christ is coming soon. Just a few of the things that point towards this reality is the massive push of spreading the Christian message to the world, natural disasters and world wars, advances in technology, and nuclear weapons (a.k.a WMD's). This is all supported in the teachings of Jesus which can be found in the book of Matthew 24:3-14. These verses talk about Jesus's teachings as to what will come in the end times before Jesus's Second Coming. 

Truth No. 4 - Seventh Day Adventist's take health very seriously. They believe that your body is the temple of God. "Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?" 1 Corinthians 6:19 Also, in Leviticus 11 God speaks directly to Moses and Aaron telling them what animals are "clean" and what are "unclean" Now a lot of people and a lot of religions believe and teach that when Jesus died for us, so did the laws of the old testament die with him, but I can assure you that this is no such thing. Jesus clearly states "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-19 You see Jesus did not come to do away with the laws of the Old Testament. And he clearly states that any man that teaches other men to break God's law "shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven". The health message is very important to SDA's which is why many live a vegetarian lifestyle. 

Truth No. 5 - Seventh Day Adventist's believe in baptism by full immersion and that baptism is a personal choice and commitment. They do not baptize children until they make there own choice and commitment to God. They believe this is important because the purpose of baptism is to wash the body free from sin and to enter your walk with Christ. They use Jesus's life as their example for this belief. Jesus was baptized by John in the book of Mathew 3:13-17 and he was a man at this point of his life. It is predicted that Jesus was in his 30's when he became baptized, and the remarkable thing is that even a man that lived his entire life without sin, found it important enough to set the example of how important baptism is. When Jesus was baptized it was by full immersion, and SDA believe that it is important to follow after Jesus on this matter. 

Truth No. 6 - Seventh Day Adventist's believe that when you die you don't go straight to Heaven, or straight to Hell. The bible explains death as sleep, this is made most clear in the story of Lazarus. If you are not familiar, you can find it in John 11. In this story, Lazarus is sick and dies. Jesus then raises him from the dead 4 days later. One thing from this story though is that in verses 11-14 Jesus speaks with his disciples saying, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up." The disciples misunderstanding him say, "Lord, if he sleeps he will get well." Jesus knowing the disciples did not understand him states plainly, "Lazarus is dead." Later on in this chapter, 4 days after Lazarus has died, Jesus raises him from his sleep. Now the reason Jesus uses the word sleep, and not another way to describe Lazarus's state of being is because that is exactly what he was doing. To us, death is death. But to Jesus, death is just a sleep until he comes again to rise us from our slumber. The bible makes this clear as well in Ecclesiastes 9:5 when it says "For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten." You see the reason Jesus compares Lazarus's death to a sleep is because that's what it is. Think about when you go to bed at night. You close your eyes, go to sleep, and then its morning and time to get up. You don't remember the 8 hours that went by you just wake back up and wish you had more time. Death is the same way. You go into a sleep and your next known consciousness is the second coming of Christ. Think about it from this perspective. If Lazarus had gone straight to heaven, spent 4 days with God and everyone he had lost in his life, and then been pulled back to Earth just so Jesus could perform a miracle do you think Lazarus would have been happy? Or would he have been mad that he was taken away from heaven! The other thing that leads SDA to believe that death is a sleep, is that if everyone was in Heaven, or Hell why would there need to be a second coming? If there was no point in Jesus returning to earth to bring the redeemed home, and everyone was already in Heaven or Hell he might as well just wait for man to destroy itself. Jesus wants us to choose him, so when he returns at his second coming he can raise the redeemed and take us all home!

And finally... Truth No. 7 - Seventh Day Adventists do not believe in a literal Hell that you burn in for all eternity. The bible does not support this and it was created as a scare tactic to make people believe. There are quotes in the Bible that confuse people, like Mathew 25:46 "And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." But then there are verses like John 3:16 " For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." This verse uses the word perish which means to be destroyed. There are many more verses that support a hell that DESTROY'S Sin, not punishes it for all eternity. Verses like Malachi 4:1-3, Psalms 37:10, Psalms 37:20, Psalms 37:36, Jude 7, Matthew 3:11,12, Jeremiah 17:19-27.. And many more. I am not saying that all verses are easily understood as meaning destroyed by fire, just like all verses are not easily understood as meaning eternal fire. The thing to understand here is that if one verse doesn't quite make sense, look to other verses to help you better understand. There are verses that say the earth will be wiped free of Sin. That the damned shall perish. And that Jesus died to give us eternal life, If the wicked burn in hell for eternity, then eternal life is not a gift from God and all of us will live for eternity, just some will suffer through eternity and others will not. When I think of an eternal Hell, all I can think of is how can a loving God torture the wicked for eternity. This turns God from an all loving creator, into an evil dictator that if you don't obey he will punish you for eternity. SDA believe that we all will make a choice and we will all stand before God in judgement. And when Jesus returns after the Millennium, the dead in Christ will be raised, and they will be made known why they did not make it into heaven. Then the wicked will suffer for their sins because they chose to not accept Jesus as their savior. Jesus died and paid the price for our sins so that we would not have too. The Bible tells us that the punishment for Sin is death, and the only way around this is through Jesus Christ.

These are the 7 truths about Seventh Day Adventist's. Not a Cult, just a Christian religion trying to teach people the truth using the bible as their guide. If you want to know more, leave a comment below and I will provide answers and use the questions to steer my following posts!  Thank you for reading and I pray this list helps in some way to strengthen your relationship with Christ. 

The Road To 315 - PR's

We've talked about landmarks and about goals but personal records are the best feeling you can have when your striving for your goals, and today I hit two of them!! I had a great workout this morning and felt very accomplished after setting not one.. But two PR's for myself!! Today was leg day and bench press so we started by hitting squats for 4 sets working down in reps and up in weight. First warmup set was 135 lbs for 10 reps. Next we hit 185 lbs for 10, 225 lbs for 8, 275 lbs for 6 and 315 lbs for 3. I have never hit 315 for more than 1 rep so it felt pretty good to rep out 3 with 315 lbs on my back!! Especially at a body weight of 275 lbs. 

After squats we hit 4 sets of leg curls and 4 sets of leg extensions. Just focusing on the contraction and pumping blood into the muscle. After finishing those sets we did a variation of dumbbell calf raises with toes on a plate to add a little bit of a deficit. 70 lb dumbbells for 4 sets of 10 reps. I really like this variation because it's not just about pushing as much weight as possible like seated calf raises or normal calf machines. It forces you to focus on balancing with the weight and activates the stabilizer muscles. 

At this point of the workout my body felt shot, The squats definitely exerted a lot of energy because I was READY to be done my workout and Eric reminded me we still had to bench press. This is where my next PR was set. Today was 6 sets of 2 reps again at 225 lbs which wasn't bad even though I was tired. On our sixth set both me and Eric went till failure. Eric went first and said he wanted to hit 10 reps which he cranked out. I went after him and of course my competitiveness kicked in and I was gonna hit 10 reps also. I finished my tenth rep and decided I needed one more. It took a little support to get the 11th rep up but it was still a PR!! I've never hit 225 lbs for more than 9 reps and this was AFTER an hour long leg workout and 5 sets of bench so to say the least it felt great!!

After a long road to recovery from my back surgery it feels great to get back in the gym and actually FEEL like i'm making progress. There is much more to come and I can't wait to see where I'm at in a year if I keep up with the track i'm on now and keep injury at bay!! The best is yet to come!

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The Road to 315 - Goals

Setting a goal for yourself is I would say the most important step before you truly commit to the gym. If you don't have a goal, and you don't have a plan, your not going to be prepared and it WILL be more difficult to stay committed. When picking your goal you have to think about what you are really trying to accomplish! Do you want to lose fat? Do you want to gain muscle? Are you trying to get more athletic or are you trying to get strong? Everyone of these goals will have you changing your routines, your diet, and your mindset. When I think about the goal I want to achieve I think about long term what do I want. Am I trying to burn fat and lose weight (which was my original goal) to my goal now which is gain muscle while minimizing fat gain. With each goal you have your "landmarks" that I talked about in another post and these are your achievements along the way. The goal is the end picture. Whether your trying to get ready for beach season or want to be the next Mr. Olympia.. Make a goal. Make it happen.

So when you decide you have a goal, what do you do? How do you achieve it? Do you spend time researching or do you just dive in and wing it!? I can speak from experiencing saying both work, and one without the other is definitely possible, but if you have both you are going to be much better off! No amount of research on the matter is going to get you in shape, and going to the gym without a plan/goal will leave you walking around looking at machines and not maximizing your time spent in the gym.

I'm going to break it down to the two goals I have the most experience with and those are burning fat, and gaining muscle! At different times of my life I have worked towards these goals and though I wouldn't say I'm an expert on the matter, I have done my research, and I have put the hours in at the gym. 

If you're trying to burn fat/lose weight I'm a firm believer in weight training with a controlled diet. When I started my fitness journey I was 300 lbs and wanted to burn fat and get stronger at the same time. I had a personal trainer and his method was very simple and effective. In only 5 months I had gone from 300 lbs to 252 lbs which was the lowest weight I had been in years. The plan was simple; control your calories eating at a 700 calorie deficit, cutting out bad carbs, fatty proteins, and consuming only healthy fats, and weight train 5 days a week. I didn't do much, if ANY cardio. I would occasionally throw in some HIIT (high intensity interval training) like pushing the sled, box jumps, medicine ball slams, or running the stairs, but the majority of my training was using weights or doing body weight exercises. I'll tell you not only was it fun! It was efficient! Weight training is good because it works on building muscle and it helps burn fat while your body is at rest. It's important to keep the rest short between sets, 45 - 60 seconds and keep your reps in the 8 - 12 range.

If your trying to gain muscle while minimizing fat gain, which is what I am doing right now, it's important to still eat a healthy diet to minimize the fat gain but you got to up the intake! My goal is to maintain my current weight which is 275 lbs, but to gain muscle and lower my body fat percentage in the process. The key to this type of training is heavier weight, more sets, and eat enough food to maintain your current weight. It's important to find your BMR (basal metabolic rate) and aim for a calorie range equal to that of your BMR. You can find your BMR by looking online or using this easy equation. 

Men = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

Women = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)

The healthier you eat at this calorie range the more muscle you will gain while keeping your body fat percentage low!! Currently I bench 3 days a week and train legs twice a week. One leg day is higher rep with less weight and the other is lower rep with heavy weight! I'm not claiming to know it all but I do know the key to gaining muscle is lift heavy and eat a lot!!

Now that you have your goal set, get to the gym and start making them a reality! The worst thing you can do is push back starting because your afraid of beginning! Set a goal, make a plan, and START YOUR JOURNEY! 

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The Road to 315 - The Routine

I started this new routine on international chest day (Monday of course) 11/14 and it goes a little something like this. Find your 1RM, for me it's 275 lbs, then find 80% of that which for me is 220 lbs (I rounded up to 225). Now, for the next six weeks I will be benching 3 times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This does not mean hitting chest 3 days a week though! Just adding heavy bench press at the end of each workout. Monday is chest, Tuesday is arms, Wednesday is legs and bench, Thursday is back and shoulders, and Friday is legs and bench. I've never done a routine like this and I'm hoping my body will respond with huge gains! 

The working sets each day vary slightly. For example, on Monday we did 6 sets with only 2 reps per set. On Wednesday we did 6 sets with 3 reps per set and on Friday we did 6 sets with 2 reps again. That's week 1. As the weeks go on the sets either get heavier or you add reps with the same 80% weight! I know it's a stretch but I'm hoping to push 315 by the end of this 6 week program!

I finished my first week today with a deadlift/bench day. I started the workout with bench because I didn't have a spot and wanted to be fresh for this portion of my workout. My warmup was pretty basic. I stretched out my chest with some light controlled reps with just the bar, and then did a few more slow and controlled reps with 135 lbs. I then loaded on 185 lbs and went for another 3 or 4 reps before starting my 6 sets of 225 lbs. The program called for 6 sets with 2 reps per set. I was feeling pretty good today so I varied the reps slightly. 1st set I hit 2 reps, 2nd set I hit 3 reps, 3rd set I hit 3 reps, 4th set I hit 4 reps, 5th set I hit 3 reps, and 6th set I went to failure with 9 reps. I figure with 2 days off over the weekend I should push myself!!


I'm waiting to see if this program is going to over work my muscles and leave me feeling soar without making much progress or if it will result in some great success. I'm hoping that the saying "There's no such thing as over lifting, just under eating and under sleeping" is accurate!!I have however been training long enough to know when my body has had enough and when to back off and give it time to recover. One thing is for sure though and that is if you eat big, you will get big! 

I was talking about goals in my last post and that is definitely one goal that has changed for me. I currently reside at 275 lbs which is pretty heavy in comparison to my goal weight, but if I set a goal for myself too weight 250 lbs and to gain 40 lbs on my bench.. It's possible! But you have to make a choice! Either eat big, lift big, and make gains! Or control your diet, cut, and work to gain strength at a calorie deficit. Me personally, I don't care as much about what the scale says, as I do with how my body feels and how I feel in my body. I'm happy right now eating enough calories to maintain a body weight of 275 and working on gaining muscle, and when I get to where I want to be with strength and muscle mass, then I will lower my body fat percentage and find my ideal weight. Currently I don't know how much I want to weight, and frankly I don't care too much. As long as I FEEL good not only physically, but mentally happy with my body. It's great to have goals and to push yourself and want the best for yourself, but if your can't be happy with where you are, you'll never be happy when you reach your goal. 

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The Road To 315 - Landmarks

With lifting comes landmarks. Landmarks can be just about any goal that you set for yourself! When I started working out my goals were so much different than they are now! In December of 2014 I started my fitness journey with one goal in mind.. Get healthy. I was overweight and had terrible habits. I thought the only way I could do it was with a gym membership and a trainer. Looking back it was an amazing, life changing choice. The trainer was expensive, but it's what kept me accountable! If I wouldn't have been spending the money for a trainer I don't know if I would of stuck with it. They say it takes 60 days to form a habit. I had a trainer for 90 days and by the time I was on my own, I was hooked. Spending more time in the gym than I probably needed! It was nothing for me to go for 2 maybe 3 hours.. 5 days a week!

My goals soon changed from get healthy and lose weight, to get strong! I've had several set backs over the last couple years between injury and just day to day struggles with motivation but I'm back on track now and have a goal! 

My first "landmark" was the first time I benched 225 lbs. For some of you this may not seem huge, and for others you may not see the big deal with this number. But let me tell you this, when you are big it's expected that you are strong. And when I started lifting I was strong, but I was not lifting weights strong. I could only bench like.. 175 lbs but could dead-lift 405 lbs. And I'll be honest it was embarrassing to struggle with 175 lbs being as big as I was, but I overcame that and when I threw on 2 plates for the first time it was an amazing accomplishment!

I'm now starting my journey to 315 lbs because an extra plate is obviously the next goal!! My current 1RM (one rep max) is 275 lbs, and 225 lbs now is a weight that I can push out several reps with but that 315 lbs mark is my next goal. I'm starting a new lifting regiment and will be tracking successes and failures along the way! My hope is that someone will read this and know, you are not the only one that struggles. Everyone starts somewhere and it doesn't matter how far gone you THINK you are. You CAN do it.

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