If My Body is a Temple, Then I was a Megachurch

by Scott Davis

  Advance Praise for Scott Davis and If My Body is a Temple, Then I Was a Megachurch

  “I have known Scott (and there was a lot of him to know) for many years. Although there is less of him to see now, there is even more of him to love. His story is not only funny but a tender reminder that we must all become healthier inside and out—no matter how much of you there is.”

  — Chonda Pierce, stand-up comic, TV host, and author

  “I’ve traveled a lot of miles and spent a lot of time with Scott Davis and I’ve known him as a man who loves Jesus, loves people, and loves, well…food. Now, he’s more than 130 pounds thinner and has quite a story to share!”

  — Mark Hall, lead singer and songwriter, Casting Crowns

  “Most of us wish we could see less of ourselves in the mirror. Scott Davis knows your pain, and then some! This book brings the laughs, but it will also inspire you to follow Scott on the same quest: to seek God’s best. And that includes a less-flabby life. Now excuse me, I've got to go brush the cobwebs off of my treadmill.”

  — Cory Edwards, writer/director of the motion picture “Hoodwinked”

  “I know the ‘after’ Scott Davis (the guy who wrote this book), and I knew the ‘before’ Scott Davis (the guy who, by his own admission, might have eaten this book), and they’re both hilariously funny guys who have a passion for hurting souls. Scott’s story of his journey to a whole new self is going to encourage you, make you laugh, and best of all, it’s going to make you think. With Scott’s sense of humor ever present, this is the easiest, most painless weight loss book you’ll ever digest!”

  — Martha Bolton, author of more than 50 books and Emmy-nominated comedy writer on staff with Bob Hope for 15 years

  “Scott Davis seems to have the distinction of being just about everyone’s great friend, and that includes me! He is insightful, transparent, and flat-out funny beyond belief, and you will be blessed by his new book, If My Body Is A Temple, Then I Was A Megachurch. Scott shares his life-long battle with weight issues and how he gained victory in this crucial area. I think you will burn calories laughing your way through the pages of this inspirational masterpiece!”

  — Dr. Dwight “Ike” Reighard, pastor and co-author of The One Year Daily Insights with Zig Ziglar

  “I saw Scott Davis recently and he’s half the man he used to be—literally! As usual, Scott encouraged me, made me laugh, and inspired me to get fit both inside and out. He’ll help get you on the right track, too.”

  — Babbie Mason, award-winning singer and songwriter

  “Scott Davis has been a good friend of mine for over twenty years and I now have the blessing of serving as his family’s pastor. His story is absolutely amazing. Scott’s hilarious ability to see life on the lighter-side has kept my life filled with laughter, now he lives on the lighter-side. I can personally testify that he lost his weight with NO exercise but through the diligent discipline of eating the right foods. To be honest, when he began I thought his efforts would prove wasted ... I know how much he loves food! But he wasted no opportunity and now his life is transformed. Today he carries much less weight but his words now carry even more.”

  — Tim Dowdy, pastor and author of Don’t Forget to Dream

  To my mother Geneva F. Davis, who went home to Heaven on October 25, 2001

  DISCLAIMER

  In this book I share my opinions about weight control and health issues and their causes. These opinions are just that—opinions—and they’re based on personal experience and knowledge gained from trying various diets and exercises. As my daddy used to say, I ain’t no doctor. So don’t stake your health or your life on something I say or write.

  Consult your physician before trying to diet, lose weight, or exercise, or if you have medical questions. Since I have a nerdy-looking attorney with chic European glasses, slicked-back hair, and a musty tweed jacket staring over my shoulder, I must tell you that I cannot be held responsible for any decisions or weight-loss or exercise attempts you make as a result of reading this book. I repeat, please go to the doctor before you try any of this stuff.

  Then again, this book is about eating healthy foods. If you can die from that, then I’m gonna croak before you sue me anyway.

  - Scott Davis

  FOREWORD

  SEVERAL YEARS AGO IN my book, Live Long and Die Laughing, I wrote a chapter entitled “My Formerly Fat Friends” featuring one of my best and most portly of buddies, Scott Davis. He appeared in that chapter because he had lost a good bit of weight. He had ulterior motives for the weight loss, as you’ll see in this book, and unfortunately it didn’t last. I’ve known Scott for almost thirty years. During those years, I’ve seen him go from thin in college to heavy in the ’90s to “You Have Your Own Gravitational Pull” in the 21st Century. My boy was big!

  He’s not big anymore. This time he didn’t lose weight from a pre-packaged or fad diet. Instead, he just ate for one person rather than an Army barrack, and he ate the kind of foods God intended for him to eat since he’s apparently no longer training to be a Sumo wrestler.

  Scott has lost more than 130 pounds. That’s the size of a teenager. Can you imagine having a 14-year-old boy surgically detached from your side? Lord knows the kid is tickled to be free.

  I used to visit Scott in his home outside Atlanta often. I didn’t visit to see him. I went to see his mother, Mrs. Jean Davis. A few years after she passed away in 2001, Scott asked me, “Why don’t you ever come visit anymore?”

  “‘Cause your Mama ain’t there!” I said. “I went to see her, not you.” It came out before I knew it.

  Mrs. Davis was like a second Mama to me. She loved people and treated everyone the same. Whether you were just released from jail or you were Billy Graham, it didn’t matter to her.

  One of the reasons I loved Mrs. Davis is because the woman could cook! She prepared authentic, Southern feasts with fall-off-the-bone meats and vegetables cooked until they were mush. And she loved butter. Lots of butter. I’m not sure, but Paula Deen may have been her apprentice. Mrs. Davis could whip up a spread that would make your granny blush, and she did it faster than any woman I knew.

  Combine her Southern cooking with lots of laughs and a warm place where you could be yourself around great company like Scott, Mrs. Jean, and Scott’s siblings, and I had a home away from home. I love stories, especially funny stories, and his family had an endless supply. Add Scott’s goofy take on things, which I’ve always found funny, and what more could I ask for?

  Over the years Scott hung out with me a lot while I toured. We discovered how much both of us love to eat. We love the flavor of food. We love the experience of trying new foods. We love the fellowship and the moment. That’s where the similarities ended.

  I knew when to stop. Scott would plow ahead.

  When we drove from event to event, we loved looking for the out-of-the-way, hole-in-the-wall restaurants with packed parking lots. The parking lot will tell you if it’s a good restaurant. If we couldn’t stumble across one, we’d stop and ask the fattest person we saw. We figured we might as well consult the experts. Our motto was, “Never ask a skinny person where to eat.”

  Those were good times, but I grew concerned about Scott years ago. His weight and overeating spiraled out of control. He’s funny—really funny. He makes me laugh. That’s one reason I wanted him to be around for a while. But I knew he was digging his grave with his fork. About ten years ago, I got fed up.

  “Scott, I’ll give you one year to lose all that weight,” I said. “If you do it, I’ll give you a thousand dollars.”

  Did he do it? No, he got bigger, which was sad. Maybe I shouldn’t
have tried to bribe him, but I was willing to use drastic measures. I didn’t want to lose my friend.

  I live in Houston now and Scott still lives in Atlanta. We don’t get to see each other like we used to. We talk on the phone and exchange emails. Shortly after he began the weight-loss approach he describes in this book, he called and told me he was going to REALLY do it this time. I rolled my eyes. After all these years and all those buffets, I thought he’d never lose the weight and would end up being a hefty challenge in the Rapture.

  Then he called again. “I’ve lost more,” he said. Then he called again. More pounds. And again. Even more pounds.

  When I saw him after he had lost all the weight, I couldn’t believe it. I was thrilled for my old college friend. And I was thankful he wasn’t going to need reinforcements when the trumpet sounds!

  You will love this book. If you are in a similar place from which Scott escaped, I pray something in these pages helps set you free. You will laugh or you might cry. Either way, you’re going to have water coming out of your eyes. Consider it a start to your weight loss.

  And when you reach the final page, I know for sure you will have experienced a journey of hope!

  God bless you all,

  Mark Lowry

  HOTEL MIRRORS FOG UP after a good, hot shower in any city, which helps when you don’t want to see yourself naked. When I was big, I took long showers for two reasons. First, it took a while because I had a lot of territory to cover. Even my soap had stretch marks. Second, I didn’t want to inspect the results in the mirror. Steam became my friend. A woman told me one time there’s a difference between looking good and looking good naked.

  Too bad that woman was my wife.

  I don’t even remember where I was. I just know I was late for my flight to another concert in another town. The problem with so much shower steam is it makes you hot, and I was drenched in sweat just from getting dressed. When you’re 5-feet-9 and weigh more than 300 pounds, you get used to glistening in the morning even after you towel off. Sort of like pregnant women down here in the South, except we’re kind enough to say they “glow.”

  The people mover from the airport ticketing counter to my gate wasn’t working, so I had to hoof it. Had you been in the vicinity of my mad dash through the airport, you would understand why it’s called hoofing it. I sounded like a herd of Sasquatch rumbling through Concourse B. And by then I smelled like one too.

  Somewhere between ticketing and tachycardia, I had a revelation: There’s a reason overweight folks struggle to find clothes that look good on them, that don’t seem to show every rounded contour, that appear so form-fitting regardless of the cut of the cloth.

  It’s because they’re usually wet.

  As I reached the security station, I kicked off my slip-on shoes, whipped off my belt, unfastened my watch, and emptied my pockets. That’s a lot of maneuvering for a fat boy, so it took a few moments. My heart pounded, my forehead streamed sweat, and my drenched shirt stuck to my man-boobs as I finally hustled through the metal detector.

  Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppp!

  I slumped my shoulders and rolled my eyes heavenward. A slight fellow who weighed maybe 155 pounds pulled me to the side. He was from the TSA, which apparently stands for Tiny Scrawny Agent. Which begs the question: What’s that little dude going to do if he comes across a fat terrorist? Like he was ever going to stop Osama bin Eatin’. But I digress….

  “Sir, please come with me,” Mr. TSA said.

  With my shoulders still slumped, I tilted my head in frustration and wheezed my way to a side section. I didn’t have the energy to protest. He waved his security magic wand, and for a split second I wanted to hear “Presto!” and look down and see that he had cloned himself into my clothes. I could see myself as Mini-TSA, thin and good-looking with my spiffy—and dry—royal blue shirt.

  Didn’t happen. Instead, his security wand beeped.

  I rolled my eyes again. Apparently I had a metal object somewhere on my very hot, very ample person. I stood with my arms outstretched, a bead of sweat puddled at the tip of my nose. I wanted to blow the sweat bead off my nose but it would’ve hit Mr. TSA in the face, and I was pretty sure that’s a felony. I struggled to catch my breath. My arms grew heavy. My glasses fogged and I couldn’t wipe them. Oh, the humanity. He waved the wand some more. I shifted my weight to the other leg as he bent down with the wand to check whether some protruding double-secret contraband had caused the weight shift.

  “No, sir,” I said between heaves. “That’s really my calf.”

  I stood and panted as my heartbeat pounded in my eardrums and his wand waved and his face frowned and his beeper shrieked and people stopped in their tracks to look at this live train wreck, and I just knew the laws of physics demanded that either electrocution or spontaneous combustion occur at any second.

  I held up a finger to speak but nothing came out as I sucked more air.

  I wanted to beg him to let me bend over so I could catch my breath and slow the palpitations. About the time I wondered why they would even bother with an autopsy (“After a transverse dissection of the mid-thoracic cavity, subject was noted to have an unusually enlarged heart.” YA THINK? I have an enlarged everything!) Mr. TSA peered at me with the wearied look of a man about to dive into chasms and crevices never before explored. He paused and stared, as if a stark and important reminder had hit him.

  He reached for the rubber gloves.

  I had a doctor’s office flashback and went from a hot sweat to a cold one.

  As he patted me down, I couldn’t help but notice him wince. When I caught my breath long enough to hear anything but my own huffing, I realized why he winced. I was squishing.

  As he patted my torso, I squished every time he moved a hand to another spot on my wet shirt. And it was loud. Real loud.

  Squish, squish, squish.

  “OK,” said Mr. TSA, a disgusted lilt in his voice. “You’re clear. You can go now.”

  As bystanders gazed with raised eyebrows at the freak show, I realized the scene was the latest in a long line of humiliations over my ever-expanding weight.

  I cracked some lame joke to move the moment along, which must’ve worked because he never told me what set off all the security beepers. I still don’t know what caused all the fuss. I guess he figured out that, yes, those were legitimate, good ol’ American rolls of fat and not a bundle of dynamite strapped around my midsection.

  Mr. TSA turned toward his cohorts as I fastened everything back on to continue my rumble through the concourse. As I stepped away, Mr. TSA inadvertently caused my face to redden even more.

  He looked over to a grinning co-worker and said, “I ain’t never doing that again.” The co-worker’s grin turned into a giggle as I hustled away.

  The thought struck me as I picked up the pace again: It’s OK to poke fun at myself onstage, but life is much more pleasant when people laugh with me and not at me.

  After a long, hot plane ride, I arrived at my destination and found the rental car counter. I’m notoriously cheap, so I had reserved an economy subcompact car, something just above a moped. I’ve gotten used to scraping my knees and elbows to wedge myself into rental Yugos over the years.

  “Mr. Davis, we have reserved you a Smart Car,” said the lady behind the counter.

  “Great,” I said. “Maybe I can just tell it where to take me and climb in the back seat for a nap.”

  She smiled. At least somebody humored me.

  “It’s in parking space A-12,” she said.

  Parking space A-12? That didn’t sound too far away. Finally, I caught a break and didn’t have far to walk. I strolled out and began looking for my Smart Car, but when I spotted it I thought it was an optical illusion.

  “Does it look small because it’s so far away?” I asked myself.

  It wasn’t an optical illusion. It was just tiny. It was one of those new-fangled, two-passenger Smart Cars that look like a cross between half a Volkswagen Bug and Darth Vader’s persona
l spaceship. It was an egg on wheels.

  “I didn’t know you could drive a Tic-Tac,” I said aloud. I didn’t want to drive it, I wanted to eat it.

  The car was cute, but I wondered how would I ever fit through the door, much less drive the thing. As I sucked in my gut, I turned to back my way inside while reaching to grab the steering wheel as a handrail. I ducked my head as far as my belly would allow and collapsed backward into the driver’s seat. I’m convinced the passenger wheels came off the ground. “If I get out too fast,” I asked myself, “will this car flip over?”

  A jet cockpit couldn’t have been any less comfortable. Even with the flexibility of a manatee, I could reach every window in the car, including the rear windshield. If I had engine trouble, I could fix it from the driver’s seat. As I started down the road and found myself sucked deeper into my seat, I feared I would need the car surgically removed from my body. At least I could wear it into the O.R.

  About the time I merged onto a congested interstate, with bumper-to-bumper traffic threatening my life mere feet away in either direction, I had an epiphany. While I had come to similar moments before, this time I clenched my jaw in certainty. Not that you could see my jaw line, but it was clenched. The air conditioner strained to comfort a carcass that seemed to absorb heat like a space shuttle tile, the seat groaned as it bottomed out beneath me, and my puffy face looked with new resolve into a tiny rear-view mirror of a car I wore like a suit.

  “I’ve got to lose weight,” I said to the fellow scowling back at me. “This time, I really mean it.”

  So I did. I lost more than 100 pounds in six months.

  It was the smartest car I’ve ever driven.

  The Reformation

  Before my weight climbed to 309 pounds, when I finally put down my chubby foot and said I had to stop killing myself one bite at a time, I kept computer records. I had wanted to lose weight for years. I’d say, “I’m going to start today,” and I’d be sincere but still fall off the wagon in a day or two, sometimes in just a few hours. I endured false start after false start.