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

by Scott Davis

  The QWLCA staff kept things light. I didn’t have to do what they said, obviously. And sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I walked in after eating an extra bowl of strawberries. Maybe two extra bowls.

  “Oh, you can’t do that. C’mon now,” the ladies would say, and I’d take my verbal slap on the wrist and try to do better the next time.

  The QWLCA folks asked me to record everything I ate each day to monitor my progress and make adjustments. I discovered it’s a flexible approach. I also learned it’s so finely tuned that eating prohibited foods or portions has an immediate effect. Even when I cheated by eating too many portions of an approved food, my weight loss slowed.

  “Most people love our program, but we get a few people who complain,” the QWLCA owner told me. “I get some letters from irate people who wanted to lose forty pounds and they only lost twenty.”

  He said his typical conversation went something like this:

  Customer: “This is not working.”

  “What do you eat? Are you eating according to your plan?”

  “Well, yeah, but I have to have my three glasses of wine at night.”

  “Then you’re not following your plan. You’re cheating. If you followed your plan, you’d still be losing.”

  He’s right. When I plateaued after a while, QWLCA earned its money.

  I had followed the plan almost perfectly and lost a lot of weight when my momentum bogged. They tweaked the regimen and introduced specific “breakers” to fan the metabolism flame. It reminded me of the times I worked out with weights and hit a wall and couldn’t get past a 225-pound bench press. I had to do something different to push through the burn to get a new bench press max.

  That’s what QWLCA does. They change the diet and personalize it to find what works to crank the fat-burning dynamo again. I didn’t eat cheese on the plan, but then out of the blue they allowed me to have mozzarella cheese for a few days. Don’t ask me why or how, but it worked. It wasn’t like I had strands of mozzarella hanging from the corners of my mouth, but I lost more weight the next week.

  Sometimes the breaker included more protein and fewer carbs. I’m a meat-eater, so I didn’t mind.

  Once again, the accountability proved crucial.

  I didn’t have to think through this diet. I didn’t count calories. They told me what to do and I did it. And when I stepped on the scales each week, the counterweights moved a little more to the left.

  “Pick from these foods,” they said. “Here’s your proteins, here’s your carbs, here’s your vegetables, here’s your fruits. You pick.” So I did. Eight ounces of this. Three ounces of that. It was like ordering from a menu with terrific variety.

  Most people who cheat on a diet will lie afterward. I’ve done that. On this plan, I learned to be honest no matter how painful the moment. The QWLCA staff and Donna reminded me to take ownership of my failures, my successes, my entire campaign.

  Typical Visit

  I lost 132 pounds in large part because of what I’m about to describe. Without my visits to the QWLCA clinic, without their policing and support, I don’t lose the weight.

  I believe the majority of overweight folks are like me—sometimes we need a pat on the back and sometimes we need a kick in the rear. My target was pretty hard to miss. I had to visit the clinic every business day for the first two weeks. If I didn’t appear as scheduled—even during maintenance—they hunted me down on the phone.

  A typical visit to the clinic started in my bedroom closet and chest of drawers.

  I wore as few clothes as possible for an appointment that by necessity is up close and personal.

  Every time you go in you’re motivated and want to see you’ve lost weight, and clothes weigh something. It may be a few ounces, but that’s a few ounces that ain’t actually me. If you wear the same kinds of clothes and go to the clinic at roughly the same time every visit, your scale readings should be consistent. Your lightest readings typically come after you awake in the mornings and go to the bathroom.

  I started showing up at QWLCA just before they opened. I stood out front in sweatpants, tapping on the door and fogging the glass as I peered in.

  “Come on,” I shouted through the door. “I’m going to start blowing up if you don’t hurry.”

  I usually wore slip-on shoes. I’ve noticed young people sometimes wear pajama bottoms as their pants out in public. I was 47 but I wore pajama pants twice to the clinic. Donna scolded me. I just shrugged.

  “Maybe people will think they’re golf pants,” I said.

  I always carry keys in my pocket with two large chains full of keys. Sometimes I’m walking onstage at concerts when I remember to take off my key chains so I don’t sound like the singing janitor clinking around. I always remembered to pull out my keys and wallet and take off my wedding band and watch before weighing. I even took off my glasses. Then I kicked off my shoes and climbed onto the scales.

  One time I stopped at the clinic in nice clothes because I had another appointment afterward. I took a pair of sweatpants in a bag so I could change for my weigh-in. I wanted every advantage to stay motivated, and I knew sometimes clothes and shoes weigh four or five pounds. It takes a lot of cloth to cover a big boy. When I changed in the bathroom and walked out, the ladies smiled and shook their heads. I wasn’t the first person to do that.

  The QWLCA owner told me he walked in to the weighing area at one of his locations in Houston and stopped in his tracks when he saw a large lady standing buck naked in front of the scales, ready to weigh. Startled, he realized she refused to allow anything—literally anything—to get in the way of her weight loss.

  I understood her desire. I wanted to see that scale drop every time, and I counted ounces. I weighed 201.2 ounces one time after weighing 201.7 the week before. If I didn’t count ounces, then all I would’ve noticed is the scales stayed at 201. Instead, I benefited from five ounces of momentum. At the same time, it’s discouraging to go in, step on the scales, and see no loss. And it’s maddening when you’ve actually gained weight.

  The key is never to give up.

  That’s where the counselors help. When you haven’t lost weight or if you’ve regained a little, your tendency is to say, “Forget it. I’m headed to McDonald’s. Then I’m going to go lay under the Frosty machine at Wendy’s and have somebody open the spout.”

  The counselors step in and say, “It’s OK. Let’s change it up a little bit.” In one week they can help you escape a plateau.

  After going in every day for the first few weeks, I tried to go in twice a week for the remainder of my campaign. I looked forward to the encouragement. You feel lighter when someone lifts you. Like meetings for Weight Watchers or Alcoholics Anonymous, you get the support of other people and make new friends and compatriots in a common struggle. We joked and laughed and had a good time.

  I want to love people to Jesus, so I told them what I do for a living and talked about God and progressed toward sharing His story with them. Like Mark Hall says, “You have to earn the right to speak truth into people’s lives.”

  After the weigh-in, the QWLCA staff took my blood pressure and recorded it. Then came the meat and potatoes, so to speak. Each session, a staff member took the time to sit down with me, review my food log (either handwritten or on my iPad) and counsel me.

  They provide a booklet of general guidelines, but the most effective strategies came from my office sit-downs. They offered multiple approaches—Plans A, B, and C—and helped pinpoint the right one for each individual or for each week.

  It’s all personalized, and that’s the reason it’s important to make the office visits. I could hand you my QWLCA booklet and you might be able to pull off weight loss on your own. Yet the plan wouldn’t be as intuitive or effective—and it certainly wouldn’t be as fast and fun—as going to the clinic.

  This essential accountability trains you to eat healthy and monitors all the little things that add up to big results. The staff ensures you get the proper amounts of
water, salt, and fat content, like lite butters and oils. I could not have asked for better input. They even designed a travel strategy for me.

  “I’m going to Seattle this week,” I said, “And I’ll have to eat in restaurants.”

  “All right, here is what you do. Make sure you tell the restaurants to cook it this way and do this and don’t do that.”

  They even checked on me when I traveled. One day my phone rang while I was in another city, and I felt my jaw drop as I recognized the clinic number on my display.

  “Is it going all right? Do you need anything?” the clinic worker asked. “Tell me what you ate, what you did.”

  And they’ll slap you upside the head if you don’t do it right—in love, of course.

  After losing 132 pounds, I went on a maintenance routine in which I followed the habits I developed. But I added more variety (and occasionally cheated enough to regain a little weight; more on that later). Six months after I completed my big weight loss, they still called and loved on me.

  Each visit takes fifteen or twenty minutes, depending upon how much I cut up with the crew. I never failed to get my money’s worth, which brings up the next most pressing subject: cost.

  Bottom Line

  When I walked into the QWLCA clinic for the first time, I learned I could afford to lose weight in more ways than one.

  I also knew by the end of the visit I couldn’t afford not to do it.

  The cost, like the plan, is different for everyone. You pay only for the amount of time you use the QWLCA clinic, and that time is based upon the goal weight you provide in your initial interview. They guarantee you’ll lose a certain number of pounds per week if you don’t cheat, and they’re able to pinpoint the future week when you’ll hit your goal weight. Then they charge you per week.

  The less weight you have to lose, the less you have to pay since you pay based on the number of weeks you’re in the program. It’s not cheap but it’s reasonable. However, the cost motivated me. I wanted to get what I paid for. It’s human nature to do something half-heartedly when you have no real investment in it. I’m a firm believer in having skin in the game, especially when the skin needs liposuction.

  If you hit a wall and need a breaker for a week, that doesn’t count toward your bill. They help you get going again for free. They sometimes have promotional contests and announce, “If you lose more than three pounds this week, you get a free week added to your program.”

  The clinic asks you to pay the entire fee up front but will work out a payment plan if needed.

  Inquiring minds always get around to the money. I love to keep people guessing on how much it cost me to lose all this weight and learn a new way of eating. Drum roll, please….

  It cost me a little over $1,000 to lose 132 pounds. I paid about $7.58 for every pound I lost. That’s the bargain of a lifetime—literally a longer lifetime. In the interest of full disclosure, I probably spent that much again on the QWLCA products, but that was my choice out of convenience. I didn’t have to buy them.

  What’s the price tag on being around for Donna and my grandson when I’m sixty?

  How much is it worth to be able to feel good about yourself?

  I remember steamrolling through my weight loss, the pounds almost dripping off of me, and thinking, “If this cost $3,000, it’d be worth it for my health and other reasons.”

  People spend $3,000 for Lasik surgery to see without reading glasses. Losing weight can be infinitely more important than acquiring 20/20 vision. Either you do this and lose all the weight, or you hope no one else is getting Lasik surgery because you don’t want them to see all your rolls.

  The best endorsement I could give the program is that, knowing what I know now, I would do it all over again without hesitation. It was worth every trip, every minute, every dime.

  And yet it was only part of the picture. I was so addicted to overeating that I needed more than just the QWLCA staff. I guess if Warren Buffet lived up to the way I prefer to pronounce his last name and needed to lose weight, he could afford to have the QWLCA folks go home with him. I couldn’t.

  I needed something else—someone else—for all the other hours of each day. In the next two chapters, I’ll share how two friends made all the difference.

  CARL GATES IS MY father-in-law. His mother and father died young. His brothers died young. But Carl is 76 years old and still at his high school weight.

  He runs six miles every other day. He eats a healthy diet. Watching his disciplined lifestyle inspired me during my weight loss because my grand quest was all about mental discipline.

  A disciplined person has a much greater chance of being a healthy person. In fact, my new eating regimen has helped me with my devotion time. If I can be disciplined in my toughest physical challenge, I also can be disciplined in my most important spiritual one (more on that later). I’m more disciplined to perform work for my ministries and marketing company. Not only am I more disciplined to do the work but I’m physically capable of lasting longer.

  Inspiration fuels transformation. We all need motivators in various areas of life, but motivation makes all the difference in a pursuit as monumental as weight control. I know what it’s like not only to be big but also blind and deaf. I had selective vision and hearing because I could tune out even the most inspirational videos, photos, and examples of people who had made themselves new in some way.

  I don’t know if it’s accurate to say I tuned them out. I just couldn’t hear them over my chewing.

  Every year, Carl celebrates his birthday by matching his age with pushups. When he turned seventy-six, he did seventy-six pushups. He decided to battle the cycle of early death in his family by pursuing an active lifestyle.

  Carl survived a motorcycle wreck a few years ago. Yes, he rode a motorcycle at age 74. I said he was physically fit. I didn’t say he was bright.

  He remembers riding his motorcycle one moment, and the next thing he knew he woke up in a Medevac helicopter. He suffered a punctured lung and several other injuries and needed months to recover but is at full capacity now. Doctors told him the mortality rate for his injuries to a person his age is ninety-five percent. For those who survive, ninety-nine percent wind up bedridden or in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. It is obvious the Lord had His hand on Carl. Ultimately, God saved his life, but the doctors credited Carl’s incredible physical conditioning for his full recovery.

  And Carl owes his incredible physical conditioning to his equally incredible personal discipline.

  Donna and I recently vacationed in Maggie Valley, North Carolina with her parents. One mile separated our hotels. Carl jogged to our hotel when he wanted to see Donna on Sunday morning. That’s just Carl. When he runs an errand, he literally runs an errand.

  I’ve always wanted to be that type person, but I learned a long time ago I can swallow good intentions right along with a slice of Red Velvet Cake. My fifth Golden Nugget addresses the ever-present temptations that haunt anyone who struggles with weight. If you want to stay mired in Tubbytown, then Dessert Your Will. Give in to those yummy, powder-sugared enticements that beckon at every break room, every vending machine, every company party. Gorge on the finger food even though it should be renamed fanny food since that’s where it winds up. As a friend once said, “Eat, drink, and be merry... then die young and make a pretty corpse.”

  Most fat folks fall daily in this area. They simply can’t say no to temptation.

  Donna and I went on a recent shopping trip. While she slid clothes hangers across racks, glancing at the garments hanging beneath them—squeak (pause), squeak (pause), squeak (pause)—I sat in a corner and decided I’d stay productive. I whipped out my iPad, tapped my YouVersion Bible app and did a search on the word glutton.

  Over and over again, I read the same pairing of words. In five of the seven verses that mention the word glutton, the words “drunkard” or “winebibber” also appear. For instance, Proverbs 23:21 states, “For the drunkard and the glutton wil
l come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.”

  That tells me something. Gluttony is like alcoholism. God puts them in the same category because of the correlation of the enslavements. I’m not sure if you’re ever cured of being an alcoholic. I think you just have to stay away from it. It’s the same for a glutton and his food.

  Even in Jesus’ day, people connected alcoholism with gluttony: “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” (Luke 7:34).

  As I listened to Donna squeak through the rack of clothes, oblivious to the truth bouncing around the chambers of my heart, the reality of how far I’d come dawned on me. I’ve never been liquored up, but if carbs and calories could pickle you, I’d be a dill by now. I can honestly say food intoxicated me.

  Those of us who want lasting change must come to the conclusion that we are our own most formidable enemy in our struggle with self-control. We must endeavor to stand against temptation, knowing that God does not allow anything in our path, or on the caterer’s table, that we don’t have the ability to withstand.

  While that verse gives us hope to stand against temptation, God also gave us common sense. It’s a bit late to quote 1 Corinthians 10:13 while waiting for our change at Dunkin’ Donuts.

  If I’m an alcoholic, I do myself a big favor every day if I refuse to put myself in a position to stumble. If I have to go home a different way to avoid a temptation, it’s worth it. Maybe the package store is on the easiest route home. Maybe every time I approach that store it seems as if a giant magnet pulls my car toward it. The wisest route is to go the long way home. It’s the narrower road but it leads to life.

  That means I don’t go to Ryan’s or Golden Corral or the Grand King China Buffet, where they have half of the Eastern seaboard laying out on hot lines. Every time I went to those places, I made sure I ate my money’s worth. I wanted to make them wish I hadn’t come.