Heading to the Fat Farm
Just hours before checking myself in to M.E.E.T. Ministry in Tennessee, I stopped at a Hardees in Nashville for a Beyond Burger (vegan, beef-style) and some curly fries. Since the drink was included, I got a medium 7-up. I ate like a prisoner on death row, the night before his execution. Knowing I would likely not have French fries again for a long time, I regretted not going to Burger King where the fries were preferred.
My belly full, I reported to the clinic at 7:30 p.m. I was supposed to be there at two. As usual, I had not read the full orientation packet and I thought if I were there by evening I’d be on time. By my tardiness, I kept everyone waiting until 8:00 p.m. to do our orientation and get-acquainted session. My opposition for the program was showing to everyone but me.
The next morning began with worship. A man with diabetes and weight issues and a woman with abdominal tumors were the other health guests. As we started reading out of Ministry Of Healing, the nurse in charge stated, “You are all here because you are sick.”
I was about to come out of my seat and announce that I was not sick, I was only fat! But I held myself together and realized that I would have been way out of line by saying that.
Why was I so defensive? What made me better than the others that were there? The Holy Spirit started to illuminate me and share that I indeed was sick. My cholesterol was up. My chest was having tightness and I would be winded going up a few steps. I could barely breathe when I would stoop to tie my shoe.
My clothes had changed from a comfortable 32” waist to a 38” that barely stayed under my ever-growing belly. I no longer washed my stomach up and down. I had used a circular motion for years. My stomach served to rest my book when I read in bed.
Late in 2003, I went to a Medical Missionary Evangelism course and learned great things about the eight laws of health and how to maintain good health. Five of my family members went to a lifestyle center and overcame diabetes, heart disease and weight issues.
Here I was 17 years later, checking myself in to the equivalent of the SDA fat farm! I was embarrassed and mortified that I had to admit that I was out of control. Even though I professed to be a “vegan” vegetarian, I had allowed most of the principles to become blurred and perverted as I allowed my appetite to push the limits of common sense. It wasn’t overnight that I lost my way. Slowly, with every little compromise, I had gotten to be 50 pounds overweight.
January 2020, ministering in Brazil
As an international speaker of a ministry that I helped start, I travel so extensively that I sold my home and have lived mostly on the road. Traversing time zones from Australia to New Zealand, Africa, Europe, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Thailand while lodging with church members, I ate enthusiastically of the local fare. I politely enjoyed seconds and more (if the food was good). But now I could no longer profess the benefits of the health message in my testimony as I stood there with my body on the border of morbid obesity.
Saving Health—First Time Around
Twenty years ago, I had been homosexual and sexually addicted since the early 1980’s. AIDS was devastating the world. When someone found out I was gay, I was treated with more rejection than a person in Wal-mart without a Covid-19 mask.
In the year 2000, I was dating a wealthy millionaire boyfriend. I was very successful in the hair industry, doing hair for local television personalities. I made a good name for myself as an aerobics instructor for more than 15 years. I ran marathons, taught cycling for five years, but my cholesterol was still 385! Those late night extra-large pizzas were taking their toll on the inside while the outside was maintained in a svelte package because of all the exercise.
Just turning forty, I was devastated at my cholesterol report. In the gay culture it was paramount to always be a perfect weight and to have the right look. My genes were taking over and I was forced to take a cholesterol lowering medication, which my insurance wouldn’t cover, for the rest of my life. More than my Russian roulette of sexual addiction, I took this as a death sentence.
Then my sister invited me to an evangelistic seminar and I was sitting in a gymnasium in a Caribbean-Spanish Seventh-day Adventist church. “Why am I here?” I thought. But the gritty preacher from the streets of Los Angeles was so direct his message struck straight through my heart. I was hearing about how wretched I was but how perfect Jesus was and it started to hold my attention.
The night before I was to leave on a 10-day vacation with my boyfriend, a woman at the seminar spoke about lowering your cholesterol naturally by going to a “plant- based” diet. “That’s my ticket out!” I said. So I went to Steak ‘n Shake and ordered a bacon-double-cheeseburger and a large ice cream sundae and that was my last supper!
I went on vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains with a new diet and a new awareness of how Jesus was pursuing me. I quit drinking alcohol and doing drugs. I quit meat, dairy, cheese, sugar, coffee and all forms of butter and eggs. I was starving every time we went to a restaurant.
As I was on vacation, my body was detoxing from all the foods clogging my system for forty years and I was starting to see and feel physical, mental and spiritual changes.
Years later, I saw the correlation of Daniel Chapter One with my own experience. Daniel and his friends asked for “pulse and water” for 10 days (the same as my vacation) and the king noticed that they were ten times smarter and healthier than the other men that were eating the king’s meat and wine.
After my vacation, my sister invited me to the evangelist’s last service, where I gave my heart to Jesus Christ. I was under great conviction that I was a sinner and that Jesus was powerful and loving to forgive and heal me. I stood up that night after I told Jesus that I would give Him my heart.
Had I not been changing and detoxing my body through a plant-based diet, I doubt that I would have heard His voice or had the ability to even stand that night. But because of the cleansing of my body, mind and soul from the pollutants that had stagnated my thinking and reasoning abilities, I saw early the connection between my body, my lifestyle and the Holy Spirit.
I made the initial changes to spare myself from heart disease. I see now that the new habits applied also to my salvation, easing the beginning of my walk as a new Christian.
Compromises
But twenty years later, I had taken short cuts and become sick again even though I remained plant-based all this time. Remember, potato chips and a coke are vegan!
I had compromised by adding lots of fats into my diet. I used processed vegan cheeses, butter, sugar and all the wonderful delights that the veggie industry has devised to replace the things we left. Those foods started to break down my system and I knew that I was heading for the heart disease and diabetes my other family members were struggling with.
With my health declining quickly, and my chest tightening at events where I was ministering, I knew I would soon be a failed testimony to God’s beautiful health message. I would not demonstrate the beautiful relationship between physical and spiritual health, all that good counsel that our church was given on diet.
I never ate meat, but I had kicked the health message in the teeth with my overeating and lack of balance in the good things God put naturally on Earth in their whole form.
Healing Savior
So there I was in November, 2019: oppositional, defiant and ashamed that I was among the sick when I had been so careful to be plant-based all these years. But that moment in our morning devotion I heard my Savior speak to me and affirm, “Yes, Michael, you are sick. It’s okay to admit that you need help.”
The Bible reminds me that His strength is made perfect in my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:10) and that if I would just admit that I was sick and out of balance, Jesus wanted to help me. Surrounded by men and women that would help me find my way back to a good weight and health, I would glorify God and show the world I could live without our family’s multi-generational diabetes, cancer and heart disease.
As my attitude changed, I found MEET staff members ready to help me.
When I checked my pride and accepted that I was sick, then change started to happen. My resistance and passive-aggressive behavior washed away and I was able to be joyful and open to receive education and treatments that would remove the blockage that was clogging my system and also would cleanse my liver so my system would work efficiently.
As my perverted appetite became a converted appetite, I started to be joyful again. Now I was satisfied with the whole-plant foods on my fork.
Hydrotherapy treatments such as hot fomentations accelerated the cleansing, healing process.
My cooking school instructor taught me how to make delectable breakfast foods such as whole grain waffles and strawberry sauce.
Outside, the sky was bluer, the grass was greener. I pressed on. Soon my pants and coat started to get looser. Progress noted!
After three weeks, I had lost 15 pounds. After four months, 35 pounds. I now have just nine pounds left to get me to my goal.
July 15, 2020, 40 pounds lighter!
I would never have been able to do the program or stay on it if it hadn’t been for the strength of God and the profound kindness and love that the health workers showed me as I admitted that I was weak.
The most beautiful thing Jesus said to me while I was there at the lifestyle retreat was this:
“It’s okay, Michael, to admit that you can’t do it. I have people that can help you get back on your feet and help you when you cannot do it yourself.” To personalize Ecclesiastes 4:10, “For if I fall, some one will lift me up: but woe when I am alone when I fall; for I have not another to help me up.”
Jesus is so generous to not only guide me to the help that I needed, but also to use those that are dedicated to Him and His principles, to help me find my way back and to get up when I fall. To those (very necessary) health care workers, I am eternally grateful for my new direction and the life to come until I see my Savior face to face.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases...Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. Psalm 103: 2-4.
Michael Carducci, a hairdresser and former homosexual, now shares God's redeeming power and gospel of health worldwide via Coming Out Ministries, which he co-founded in 2010.