Fat Chance (32 page)

B
ack on that day when Melissa sat despondently in her bathtub, she prayed a prayer to God. “I promise you that I will love you and follow you regardless of what happens to this child,” she said through tears. “I will not turn my back on you and I will not allow this situation to come between us. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord
.
”

I think about the unimaginable pain that she was in when she whimpered out those words and I marvel at my friend’s unyielding strength. On days when I think I can’t go on, all I have to do is think about the framed photo hanging from the wall of a children’s hospital, the one that boasts Ethan, today a happy, healthy four-year-old who wasn’t supposed to live. I think about Melissa’s faithfulness to God and her faithfulness to Ethan. I think about her faithfulness to our friendship that has spanned three decades and counting. “Give me Melissa’s unwavering faith,” I ask of God, “so that I can be that faithful too.”

P
roducers of
The Biggest Loser
made a big deal out of the fact that for the five years leading up to my experience on the show, I avoided Mike’s office at all costs. I didn’t attend company dinners, company picnics or company Christmas parties, all because I was terrified of what people would think. If I couldn’t accept myself, how could I expect his colleagues to accept me? I steered clear so I’d never have to find out.

A woman named Shirley is one of those colleagues I avoided. After I returned from campus, I decided it was time to break the relational drought I had caused, and so I went to Mike’s office one day.

Because Shirley had watched every episode of my season, she knew that my absence from the office had been intentional. But instead of giving me the cold shoulder or remaining courteous but distant, as soon as I stepped foot through the door, she came right up to me, grabbed me, hugged me, and said, “I’m so sorry you felt the way you did.” She turned toward her co-workers who were looking on and said something to the effect of, “Let’s get this girl in here and show her we’re different than she thought!”

The thing that gets me about Shirley is that she doesn’t let anything get her down. She has been deaf most of her life but doesn’t use that as an excuse for self-pity. She is old enough to retire but keeps working hard. And she was overweight—at least in her own estimation—but she refused to stay that way.

Because of Shirley’s hearing impairment, she engages in conversation very intentionally—and at very close range. After I chatted with several of Mike’s colleagues the day that I visited his office, Shirley approached me, positioned her face within two inches of mine and began to speak slowly and with great passion. She told me that she had been so inspired by what she saw me accomplish on the show that she herself had decided to change. She faithfully watched every episode of the show by closed-captioning and told me that she had been so inspired by what she saw me accomplish that she herself decided to change. She started working out and eating properly, and in the end, she dropped a significant amount of weight. In the midst of working through her own transformation, she also prayed for me every day. “You are so beautiful,” she said carefully and with teary eyes. “Because
of you, I will be able to see my grandchildren grow up. I have been given a new lease on life.”

Before I went on
The Biggest Loser
, it was all about me. I didn’t show my face at that office because
I
was afraid,
I
was insecure and
I
was unhappy with how I looked. After I returned from campus, it was all about them. It was all about people like Shirley who are mature enough to accept themselves, which enables them to graciously accept others. Shirley told me I am the one who was an inspiration, but I know the truth about who plays that role.

S
ometimes I know the stories behind the people who are living inspiring lives, and sometimes I do not. But whenever I see them in my day-to-day life, my reaction is always the same. “You
go
!” I want to shout at the top of my lungs. “You’re doing great, and you’ll reach your goal in
no
time if you just see this moment through!” It’s not the people with perfect figures and nary a care in the world who push me to be better myself; it’s the everyman overcoming an obvious struggle who motivates me most. Which brings me to the man in the park.

For nearly two years I have trained with Margie Marshall. This means that for nearly two years I’ve spent five days a week at our local park. It also means that for nearly two years I have seen the same man running the same trail, wearing the very same attire.

If you’re old enough to remember Olivia Newton-John’s video for her song “Let’s Get Physical,” then you have a decent understanding of how this guy dresses. He wears a circa 1970 sweatband around his head, a baggy sleeveless shirt and polyester running shorts that are far too short for a man his age. Actually they’re far too short for a man of
any
age, but that’s a topic for another book.

The man in the park has no idea who I am, mostly because whenever I try to
make eye contact with him, he intently looks the other way. “I’m not a stalker, I swear,” I always want to clarify. “I was just hoping to cheer you on.”

He is significantly overweight and yet every day I’m there, it seems, this guy is running as hard as he can. Whether it’s raining or sunny, whether it’s unusually cool or ninety-eight blazing degrees, there he is, running twice around the 1.75-mile loop, sweating buckets and panting out his breath, working harder than most athletes I know.

Last week I snuck in behind him and trailed him for a mile or so, just to be downwind of his never-give-up ways. “God, give me this guy’s persistence,” I prayed. “May I
never
give up, just like him.”

M
argie is another source of inspiration for me because of the selflessness she exudes. She relates to me with graciousness and she relates to women half a world away with generosity that would make you weep.

Margie Marshall has a fantastic physique, but it wasn’t born in a gene pool. Rail-thin fitness models who seemingly do nothing to maintain their perfection is one thing, but
real
inspiration comes from women like Margie, who has to work her tail off to achieve results. She has earned every curve she now enjoys, and she compels me to do the same. On more than a few occasions during a tough workout, Margie will look at me grimacing and wheezing my way along and say, “I know this kills. I did it yesterday.” It’s always just the dose of empathy that I need to stay the course.

When I first came home from campus, Margie wasn’t sure how much I could handle, on the exercise front. She showed up at our first session with a laundry list of exercises that I was supposed to endure, and I remember starting at the top of that list and not stopping until we’d reached the very end. Margie didn’t have much use for water breaks at the time, and so sixty minutes of working out translated into sixty
actual
minutes of working out. If I reached down to tie my shoe, for instance, she’d stop the clock so that we didn’t lose even ten seconds of our agreed-upon time.

I have banished from my mind most of the memories of that first
workout, but I do recall that as a way to end our time together, Margie asked me to do plyometric side-kicks all the way down the football field and then all the way back to where she was standing, stopwatch in her hand and cruel smile on her face. The next day, she called me and said, “Um, Julie? Are you okay?”

“Sure, if you consider it okay that I still can’t sit down to pee,” I replied.

“Yeah,” Margie said. “About yesterday. I reviewed all the things that I made you do, and I think it may have been a bit too much—”

“Ya
think
?” I interrupted.

Thankfully, we never did that particular routine again.

Margie and I laugh about those early days now, but what I still take seriously is her “teachability” and grace. It’s a tough thing to admit when you’re wrong, but in the admission trust is forged. She is more concerned with helping me reach my goals than she is with always appearing right, and that is a real gift to me.

D
espite countless hours of training input, Margie has never charged me a dime. I’ve often insisted on paying her, but it’s always a wrestling match to get her to take it. She reminds me that part of her “God-given role” is to help women however she can and frankly, I couldn’t agree with her more. I hear her tell me each and every day how strong I am, I see her refuse to let me quit, I sense her commitment to my journey and I know in my heart that
any
woman in Margie’s care is a privileged woman indeed.

Margie has such a passion for helping women reach their goals that she now donates half of her personal-training revenue—received from clients she
will
take a dime from—to organizations that help women who have been sold into slavery. The idea came to her during her afternoon run one day, which is where she gets most of her epiphanies in life. She wanted to do something significant to help those women trapped in tough lives, when suddenly the thought came to mind that she could audition for the reality TV show
The Amazing Race
. She figured she’d coerce me to be on her team and that after we won, we’d donate 70 percent of our earnings to charity. “No
way
!” I said when she called to sell me the scheme. “I’ve already done the reality-show gig!”

Margie went running again two days later and sensed another prompting—this time, she believes, from God. “What are you doing right now?” he seemed to ask.

“I’m running,” she said out loud.

The prompting continued. “Exactly! You don’t need
The Amazing Race
. You don’t need
anything
, except what I’ve already given you.”

That’s so true!
Margie thought.
I can make a difference through running—something that’s already part of my life
.

It was the small seed that would bear great fruit.

Margie got home and got busy hatching her plan. Every forty-seven seconds, another girl or woman is sold into slavery somewhere in the world. And so in conjunction with Celebration Church of Jacksonville and an effort called the A21 Campaign
²⁷
—so-named because of their vision to abolish injustice in the twenty-first century—Margie would establish a 4.7-mile race called “Be Her Freedom.”

The inaugural run happens this fall, and proceeds will go toward the medical, legal and psychological treatment costs that are associated with rescuing, restoring and rebuilding the lives of women who have been enslaved.

A magnetic passion, a selfless spirit and an enormous drive to win—who knows what God will choose to do through a woman with Margie’s heart.

M
elissa’s faith, Shirley’s spirit of acceptance, the persistence of the man in the park, selflessness like Margie’s—these are the things I ask God for, but of course I don’t stop there! If there is one request I make most of God, it is for Noah’s sheer
belief
.

Out of all of the people in life, it was my son Noah who never doubted that I would get picked for the show. It was Noah who never doubted that the black team would dominate. It was Noah who never doubted that I would come back much thinner than when I’d left. It was Noah who never doubted that I’d contend for the championship title.

The entire time I trained between my on-campus experience and the finale, he believed so firmly that I’d win it all that I found myself wanting to say, “You got it, Noah, whatever you say. The way that you’re imagining it is
exactly
how it will be.”

I sensed Noah’s belief in me from the beginning and worked as hard as I could so that I wouldn’t let him down. To this day he believes that I’m the strongest mom on the planet and that I’m the fastest runner to boot. He’ll come home from playing at a friend’s house and say that so-and-so’s mother has started working out. “But she can’t hold a
candle
to you,” Noah always adds.

Ah, the unbiased perspective of a momma’s boy. You’ve got to love it!