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