by Scott Davis
At least I kept records of my past weights, recorded almost daily: 280, 284, 283, 282, 285, and on and on. When I decided once and for all to do something about my weight, I discovered that between my home computer and iPhone I had kept six years’ worth of weight records.
During those six years, my weight fluctuated mostly between 260 and 280 but eventually escalated to 290. Then, at the very end, it ballooned like never before and I huffed and puffed my way to 309. I tried to be funny even at this low point. My wife, Donna, walked into the bathroom and saw me sucking in my gut as I stood on the scales.
“Honey, holding in your stomach ain’t gonna make you weigh less,” she said.
“I’m not holding in my stomach to weigh less,” I said. “I’m trying to see the numbers.”
When I had to strain sideways to read my weight, I knew I had reached the level doctors call “morbidly obese.” Morbid is Latin for “You gonna be rootin’ daisies before long.”
I look at photographs of myself at that weight and want to cry. I was so fat that my eyes appeared swollen shut.
On November 2, 2008, at the age of 46 and roughly ten years after getting married, I started the eating plan that led to a lifestyle change that wound up changing me from the inside out. I shrank from 309 pounds to 177 pounds, a weight I had last seen in college, and achieved several objectives:
• I wanted to get healthy so I could enjoy life and live longer for my family. I was not only unhealthy but also could no longer perform many basic daily tasks without great difficulty. Or I couldn’t do them at all.
• I wanted to honor God at long last by taking seriously the biblical truth that my body is a temple. If my body is a temple, then I was a megachurch, and I’d just as soon be a tiny backwoods congregation. In my fat days, the name Saddleback took on a whole new meaning.
• I wanted to do the John the Baptist thing. He said of Jesus in John 3:30: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” I’m an evangelist at heart, and I don’t want anything to get in the way of the Gospel, least of all that I am an undisciplined tub of goo. For Him to increase in my ministry, I had to decrease in my waistline.
I wanted to morph back into an appealing man for my wife. Yes, I was being at least partially selfish there. I like bedroom waltzes just as much as Fabio, even when I was Flabio. I wanted my wife to actually desire me again.
Those objectives fall into three important categories: physical, spiritual, and sexual. That pretty much sums up being a man. I wrote this book to chronicle a life that was roundabout in more ways than one. The fatter I grew, the further it took me from effectiveness and contentment in all of these areas.
I make no apologies that this book at times will read like an unabashed advertisement for Quick Weight Loss Centers of Atlanta (QWLCA). I owe the company my reformed life.
Quick Weight Loss Centers are independently owned clinics in various cities around the country. They are not franchised from a single corporate entity, and each may vary in approach. I have permission from QWLCA to use their name and details of my plan in this book, so I refer only to their specific approach. The Atlanta clinic has many clients monitored by phone only, meaning the QWLCA program may be used by anyone in the country.
The approach requires changing how, what, and when you eat. Doesn’t any diet? The major difference is that your weight loss can be fast and substantial and is closely monitored and aided by trained staff during regular office visits or phone calls. I needed such close scrutiny not only for the accountability but also for health and safety during my monumental trek.
In Chapter Six, I detail my personal approach to healthy eating as designed by QWLCA. If you seek to lose weight and wish to use QWLCA, you will require a personalized plan as well. But the enclosed details of my plan will demonstrate how I shed 132 pounds, including more than 100 pounds in the first six months. Does it require sacrifice and incredible discipline? Yes. Does it require permanent lifestyle change to keep the weight off? You bet. Will it make a difference if once and for all you’re serious and not just blowing smoke at that puffy person in the mirror? Yes.
Will it change your life? Yes, yes, and yes!
If you follow QWLCA’s personal prescription, you’ll not only lose weight but also re-engineer habits to enable a healthy lifestyle and permanent weight control. They taught me how to be the master rather than the slave.
For that reason alone, their approach is biblical. The health-conscious approach and the results honor God.
You may have noticed I referred to my “reformed life.” Make no mistake, I’m enjoying a personal reformation. I call it Reformed Meology. I’m transformed in most physical, professional, evangelical, and even sexual aspects. I love the Lord Jesus Christ and finally decided to allow Him to have all of me. He just wanted to shrink the shell carrying me for my own good. He’s the only one who could’ve carried me anyway. He’s got the whole world in his hands, but I took up more than my fair share.
I could never say this until now: I know anyone can lose weight, even the most addictive of personalities.
Eating habits don’t come any worse than the ones I had: meal after meal, drive-thru after drive-thru, snack after snack. I could’ve had my own cable reality show alongside all the Duggars and the dwarfs except for the fact that they couldn’t fit a camera crew in the car with me.
This book will show you how you can have your own personal reformation. It doesn’t have anything to do with TULIP, like Calvinism, but it has everything to do with your Two Lips.
First, you’ve got to speak your conviction with those Two Lips and mean it. And I’m not sporting a Gucci suit and slathering on hair gel to spout off about naming and claiming anything. The simple truth is that when it comes to what you promise yourself you finally have to get dead serious. Or you just may get dead.
Anyone can make the kind of drastic and healthy lifestyle changes I did, and that includes you—if you really want to. If you don’t truly want to do it—and I mean the kind of “want to” that is a half-sister to “ticked off”—then you won’t. It’s that simple.
Second, if you are a believer in Christ, you have to understand that God has charged you to be the doorkeeper of those Two Lips. You have a responsibility to guard His temple.
Psalm 84:10 states that a day in God’s courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. You’ve probably heard that phrase dozens of times in your walk with the Lord or during your time in church. But have you ever noticed the next sentence?
“I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”
I had to make up my mind that my body, called a tent by the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:1, was nothing more than a tent of wickedness when I was a glutton enslaved to food. I’m not trying to throw guilt at you, but I want you to understand my mindset when I had my embarrassing airport escapades and later climbed off those bathroom scales and the figure 309 left me staring at the wall.
Notice I didn’t stare into the mirror.
I knew I would change only if I insisted on being a doorkeeper. I would guard what I allowed in the house of my God. He indwells me. I owe Him that watch care.
The Guarantee
It dawned on me that I couldn’t do it alone, however. Everyone can use help, accountability, and encouragement from a spouse or friend. Donna never had any trouble with her weight until she met me. She has never been fat, but I guess when you live with a compulsive, chronic eater for a decade, you tend to wear down and join in. Donna had put on forty pounds she wanted to shed. We often talked about trying to lose weight together, but when I saw 3-0-9 on the scales, I walked out and took over the leadership mantle that by virtue of bad habits I had abdicated years earlier.
This time, I didn’t ask. Rather, I lovingly but firmly let her know we were going to lose weight. All she had to do was follow me.
Still, I realized it wasn’t enough even to have Donna along for the ride. And it wasn’t enough to have just another diet.
I needed a lifestyle change. I needed QWLCA.
“Let’s go,” I told Donna. “I don’t care what it costs or how long it takes. Let’s go.”
She didn’t argue, which may have been a first, and before I knew it we were face to face with a QWLCA staff member.
“If you don’t cheat,” they told us, “we guarantee you that by this date you will reach your goal weight.”
My goal was to reach 175 pounds. I was too big to be weighed on standard doctor’s office scales, but a few feet over they had a set of cattle scales. How convenient. My embarrassment faded when I realized the cattle scales were there for a reason. I obviously wasn’t the first cow they ever had to weigh. They saw my weight, crunched some numbers, and told me I’d reach my goal in about seven months, by Father’s Day of 2009.
That guarantee and the visual of my reaching a weight I hadn’t seen in almost 30 years—a svelte 175 pounds—was enough to solidify my resolve. I was convinced I was going to lose weight. Now I had inspiration to fuel my conviction.
It hasn’t hurt that I’m able to eat a variety of foods on the QWLCA plan. It’s not all one focus, like a diet with no carbs or all rice or all protein. It’s balanced. I eat fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy, and grains. I have limitations and foods to avoid, but my meals are varied enough that I don’t worry about cravings or monotony driving me back to Fatdom.
The QWLCA team guaranteed a weight loss of three to five pounds a week. On my way to losing my first 100 pounds, I averaged losing about four pounds per week. The bigger you are, the quicker it comes off at first. Maybe it’s because it’s mostly excess water. I lost 10 pounds the first week, and I could feel a little slack in my pants, shirts, and belt. Once I explain my personality a little more in later chapters, you’ll understand why such instant gratification motivated me to keep going.
People ask me how much I exercised to lose so much weight. Here’s the exciting part for overweight folks….
I lost 132 pounds without exercising. In losing my first 30 pounds, I couldn’t bend over, much less exercise. I’m exercising some now, but all I did to lose weight was eat right.
I can’t stress enough that I didn’t starve myself either. I didn’t eat too little, and I didn’t lose weight too fast. This was because I ate vegetables, fruit, and protein every day. I even drank coffee. I ate like one person should eat. I used to eat enough food for three people. Or a small village on some days.
You know how people who have lost weight say they feel better and more alive? Well, I discovered the reason for the cliché. It’s true.
I do feel better. I go to bed earlier and wake earlier. Discipline in one area has led to discipline in other areas. I’m more consistent in my quiet time with the Lord. I have more energy. I actually want to take the trash to the road now.
The QWLCA plan lived up to its name, and my quick weight loss stoked my fire to stick with it.
Some people want to know why my goal weight was 175 pounds. Mark Hall from Casting Crowns is a friend who serves as student pastor at my church and also travels with me to help conduct student conferences at Christian schools. He saw me before I reached my goal weight and said, “Why do you want to lose more? You look fine the way you are.”
Maybe. I’ve learned that you can cover up a lot with clothes, but some places need all the help they can get. The reason for the goal weight of 175 is more symbolic than anything else. It comes with a token, a prop, for motivation.
In my homesick freshman year at Liberty Baptist College (now Liberty University), I tried out for a traveling group called SMITE. The horrible name meant Student Missionary Intern Training for Evangelism. I know, it’s weird: “Come hear all about the grace of God with the SMITE singers.”
I wondered if we would go around hitting people: “I smite thee in the name of the Lord!” They’ve since changed it to Light Ministries, which makes more sense. It’s a missions team, and we traveled to thirteen countries and ministered with Dr. Jerry Falwell, the founder of Liberty, and SMITE director Roscoe Brewer.
During the time I traveled with SMITE, we stopped in Hong Kong. I discovered I could get a quality suit tailored cheaply there, and I bought a custom-made suit in Hong Kong when I weighed 175 pounds.
Before my QWLCA transformation, I found that suit in my closet. I stumbled across it just after my defining moment when I said, “I’ve got to do something once and for all about my weight.” I stopped and stared at the coat, my mind flashing back to Hong Kong and the sweet little guy who took my measurements.
I said to myself, “I’m going to get into this again.”
Less than a year later, I put on the jacket while weighing 177 pounds, two pounds shy of my weight on the day I had the coat tailored in Hong Kong. The coat has moth holes and it’s out of style, but it fits me. I admit it’s still a little snug.
But it won’t be for long.
MARK LOWRY AND I missed a good chance to be twins. Not that he’s ever been rotund, but our life paths are remarkably similar. I think that’s why we became such good buddies despite the fact I’m so much funnier and better looking than he is. Sometimes I have to work to draw him out of his shell.
We both make our livings as Christian humorists and singers. We both are Southern boys. We both attended Liberty. We both suffer from common maladies. Mark is open about his battle with ADD, and I’ve always had an ADD problem too. I add a lot of helpings to my plate and I add a lot of items to my buggy and I add a lot of toppings on my dessert.
Mark is best known for his work with the Gaither Vocal Band, but we’ve passed a lot of mile markers together. I appeared in several of his videos, wrote for him, and hung out with him on some of his tours.
When I visit our old college town of Lynchburg, Virginia, I often stay with Mark’s parents. His father, Charles, is an attorney who was on retainer for Dr. Jerry Falwell. According to Mark, that was enough to keep his dad with a full-time job. Mark’s mother, Bev, taught psychology at Liberty. They have an apartment in their basement, which allows me to stay at least one night on the road for free. I’m cheap, so I’m fond of the arrangement. Plus, I get to fellowship with old friends and escape another sterile and lonely hotel room. One year, I wound up wishing I’d splurged on the hotel room.
The Lowrys have a beautiful home. In their basement apartment is a nice bathroom, a veritable sanctuary for a man who values the peace of a daily constitutional. In that nice bathroom is a fine commode. And on that fine commode during my visit was a bit of an indulgence for a man who values the peace of a daily constitutional. It had a comfortable, smooth, expensive-looking wooden seat.
I don’t know if it was mahogany, walnut, hickory, oak, pine, or glossed-over particleboard, but it sure felt good. Especially for such a wide expanse.
I have to preface this story by saying the wooden seat was already cracked a little before I sat on it. I just want you to know that.
Somewhere within the tranquility of the moment—probably about Page 2-B of The Lynchburg News and Advance—something popped beneath me. The snapping sound reached my brain a split second before the searing pain did. It was something akin to a hornet sting in a very bad place.
I yelped like a coonhound.
When that seat snapped underneath my weight, just enough flesh wedged into the crack of the seat that it left an indelible mark way too close to the crack of my seat. It’s not easy to dance when your pants are around your ankles. I managed to keep my balance as I flailed and rubbed.
I shined my bottom toward the mirror to check whether I had a gaping wound. Gaping, yes. Wound, no. I had only a small red mark surrounding a rising white welt.
I found myself in a bit of a bind. Upstairs, my hosts surely heard the commotion and wondered whether they needed to dial 911 to stop the burglary in progress downstairs. What could I do—act like it didn’t happen? I couldn’t exactly play it off. Broken hardware was involved, and duct tape would’ve been too obvious.
So I did what any good comedian would do. I gra
bbed the broken half of the seat and waddled upstairs.
“Mr. Lowry!” I yelled as I held up the seat. “Ummm. Your seat broke.”
He looked up, shook his head, and laughed. Thank God for the Lowry humor gene. Such is life for a fat man. You live. You learn. You break things. And you laugh a lot, especially when it’s such an effective front.
Bless his heart, Mark Lowry bore the burden of my weight more than once. One year, my mother and I visited him at his home when he lived in Nashville. The guest room featured two antique twin beds. I slept in one bed and mom slept in the other. The beds were gifts to Mark from a well-known Christian singer. They were old…like, Bunker Hill old. They popped and creaked when you rolled over. It was a natural alarm clock when somebody shifted in the other bed.
My bed groaned under my girth, begging for relief that finally came sometime in the middle of the night. As I flopped over on my side, the foot of the bed collapsed to the floor. The concussion rattled the walls. My mom muttered something—I was too incoherent to make it out—but my size paled in comparison to my laziness. I didn’t try to fix it. Too groggy to lose sleep over it, I inclined myself with my head up and my feet near the floor for the rest of the night.
The next morning I thought, “Great. I broke Mark’s bed, and not just any bed but a gift from a famous singer. I assumed Mark heard the loud crash and called his parents to whisper, ‘Tubby did it again.’”
Another time, I broke my own guest bed at home. I grew so big and snored so loudly that I had to sleep in our guest bedroom to enable Donna to get some rest. Plus, I stayed hot and sweaty all night and Donna suffered from hot flashes at the time. She felt she was the source of global warming and just knew Al Gore would track her down. My heat combined with her heat was too much. She let me know she wasn’t sleeping in the Easy-Bake Oven another night.