HE STARTED GAINING weight at age 7. By the time he got into his teens, he was overweight. When he hit his late teens, he was officially obese. And when he reached his 20s, he was morbidly obese.
At his heaviest, at 166 kg (360 lbs), he found himself complaining at having to do the simplest of errands: “Oh my God, I have to walk there?”
He had hypertension, high cholesterol and obstructive sleep apnea—mainly because of lugging around all that excess weight.
Today, with roughly 7.3 percent body fat on him and a resting heart rate to match that of an athlete at 43 beats per minute, Carlo Miguel, second placer in the recently concluded “Biggest Loser Asia,” feels like a teenager all over again.
“I’ve never been below 100 kg as a teenager. Now, at 83 kg, I can run around all day and not get tired. If I need to run off somewhere, I’m there—no problem,” said the 32-year-old 6’3” Miguel.
He was so determined to lose all the excess weight that before he left for the show he gave away all his clothes to the “Ondoy” victims—all five balikbayan boxfuls. He took with him his workout clothes, and clothes gifted to him that he never got to wear because they were too small.
“I knew I wasn’t coming back the same person,” he said.
Today, happy to be home, all pumped up and eager to impart his personal knowledge of weight loss
to those who seek his help, Miguel said his brain still needs to do a lot of catching up with his new body.
He may look trim to everyone, but in his mind he still thinks he’s the big, jolly chef. (Miguel is the executive chef of Sala and Sala Bistro.) He braces himself, for instance, before bending to tie his shoelaces. On some evenings, he still walks around the bed to get in from the side because he still thinks he’ll have a hard time crawling around toward where he would be comfortable.
“Sometimes I forget I can just go right ahead and jump into the bed,” he said, laughing.
Everything just happened so fast. During the five months he spent in the “Biggest Loser Asia” (more than two months in the ranch; more than two months home), he trimmed down from 132 kg (291 lbs) to 83 kg (182 lbs). Toward the end of the program he was exercising 12 hours a day, running 15-20 km per day. (They started walking at 10 km per day.)
Understatement
To say it’s a huge accomplishment for someone who never even used to enjoy walking is an understatement. For Miguel, it’s something he never thought was possible. Now, he actually loves running.
“If you told me this midway last year, I would have laughed at you. I never believed I could do what I have done. It’s been an amazing journey,” he said.
So how did he do it?
Like all reality TV shows, the “Biggest Loser Asia” isolates its participants from the rest of the world. Miguel had no contact with anyone outside the show, no access to sources of information such as the Internet, newspapers, radio and television. (The only time he was allowed to Skype was when his wife Ria got pregnant—mainly because it made a great story for the show.)
Simply put, they had nothing better to do but focus on diet and exercise every single day. On their first week they worked out four hours a day—two hours in the morning, then a long break in between, then another two hours in the afternoon. This gradually progressed to six hours per day, then eight, then 10, before reaching the final 12-hour workout program per day.
“I wouldn’t recommend to anyone doing what we did. It’s unrealistic to live your life working out, say, six hours a day. There’s a big difference about getting yourself healthy and losing weight for a competition. What we did is extremely exhilarating compared to what one would normally do,” he said.
More professional
As a chef, Miguel doesn’t trust anyone these days to prepare the food he eats. An additional teaspoon of oil could easily add up to 70-80 calories, he said. So, he prepares his own meals. He has also developed a way of working around the kitchen: He tastes the food he prepares and spits it out to avoid consuming unnecessary calories.
Eating for work and eating for his consumption needs to be defined, he said: “I just had to become more professional rather than eat my way through the whole day.”
Miguel used to be able to go through an entire day without actually having to sit through a meal, although this meant he would be constantly picking on the rich food around him. Today, he eats five times a day—holistic, low-fat food with lots of greens and mostly lean meat.
“If I needed some fat in my diet, I could eat the skin off a chicken, but I would never deep-fry my chicken,” he said.
He cautions, though, that people may not see any dramatic changes in the Sala and Sala Bistro menu, because people’s idea of a celebration meal is still rich food. He hopes, however, to someday study nutrition and come up with meal plans
for people wanting to lose, gain or maintain weight.
“There are a lot of reasons, emotionally and mentally, why people are fat,” he said. “Right now I really want to help them. If I can do it, anybody else can.”
Greatest thing
He also plans to take up courses to become a certified RPM (spinning) and Body Pump class instructor at Fitness First, where he has been a member since 2007. (He trimmed down from 360 lbs to 291 in two years, he said, but had a hard time getting the number to go down even further because he couldn’t manage his busy work schedule.)
“The greatest thing I have learned from this experience is, I can control my body. I can control what weight I’m gonna be, how I’m gonna get there, how much muscle and fat I want. I am in control now. That’s the greatest thing I have achieved,” Miguel said.
From starting his day at 11 a.m. Miguel is now bursting with energy at 7:30 a.m.; his hypertension, high cholesterol and obstructive sleep apnea long gone.
He stayed away from building muscles during competition because it would make him weigh more, but now he wants to muscle up. Next step, he said, is to be a father to his future daughter. Then he and his wife could work together to join their first triathlon, which would eventually lead them to joining an Iron Man.
And at Fitness First, he will be seen more—this time as a class instructor.
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