The change was gradual. Following a car accident in 2001, I was diagnosed with a severed phrenic nerve in my neck, rendering my right lung basically useless as my right diaphragm was paralyzed. That meant any strenuous activity caused what I called “oxygen panic.” Oxygenation of your blood is such a primal instinct that, when under threat, everything in your brain screams, “STOP! Don’t do that thing!” As a result, I avoided exercise, which became one contributing factor for my weight climbing from the svelte 170s to over 310 pounds.
I was pre-diabetic and just one number away from being diabetic—which I never told my family. I was using a CPAP machine to help me breathe at night and to alleviate my severe snoring and apnea. Anticipating a lecture on my weight at my next pulmonologist appointment in six months, I started to cut back on my snacking. Six months later, I was under 300 lbs.
At my exam my doctor reminded me that I was morbidly obese, explaining to me that “morbidly” meant I would die from a complication of being overweight, such as heart attack or stroke. That visit made an impression. But only enough to stop me from gaining more weight. “I’ll start on Monday” was a phrase on a loop in my head.
Ironically, when I’m under great stress I stop eating. Several stressful events overlapped in the winter of 2020-2021. For a couple of weeks, I was eating just one small meal a day. I lost another 10 pounds. I began to wonder if this weight loss thing was something I could actually do. I started eating one meal a day, in the evening, followed by an apple as a snack. The weight slowly started to disappear.
Growing up as a farm kid, I didn’t like strenuous work because it was a chore. I developed the attitude that exercise was a punishment for being overweight. But when I hit a weight loss plateau, I knew I needed to add exercise to my daily routine.
My wife, Sheri, is an avid hiker. I had tried to go on hikes with her in the past but failed because of my oxygen panic as well as back and knee pain. On February 11, 2021, she gave me “the look” and told me we were going hiking.
One-fifth of a mile into the hike, she commented that it was the farthest I had ever hiked with her. That was embarrassing. I pressed on, doing my best to keep pace with her. We made it around a pond she had talked about deep in the park. We hiked two and a half miles with a 300-foot gain in elevation.
The following afternoon she said we were going again. Excuses spewed forth from my mouth, but she was having none of it. We ended up hiking three miles. The following day I was crippled with soreness, but she ignored my excuses and took me on an extremely difficult grade up to 600 feet. My functional lung was burning, and I had resentful thoughts that I managed to keep to myself.
The next morning I stepped on the scale and saw the weight loss was kickstarted. Before she could come at me again, I told Sheri I was ready to hike. Her jaw hit the floor. Within three weeks, we started to hike separately, and each week I pushed myself a little farther and faster. I was doing daily cardio! At church, folks were starting to notice the change, which fueled my growing passion for diet and exercise.
I no longer viewed exercise as a punishment for being obese. I viewed my fitness and weight loss as evidence of what I could achieve. I explored different trails and found the best combination of challenging uphill grades and gentle downhill routes to help with my surgical recovery knees.
Then I hit another plateau. I joined my wife’s health club and worked with a personal trainer on mobility and strength issues, but I needed another cardio workout. My son-in-law kept suggesting I take up swimming. I shrugged off that suggestion because there was no way you were getting me into one of “those” swimsuits. As ridiculous as that sounds, my Midwest modesty was too much to overcome. Yet everyone was telling me it was the perfect exercise and I needed to get over my hangup.
I went to my first swim lesson—it was time to face my fears and take off my sweatpants and shirt. Then, at my most vulnerable moment, a woman in the pool finishing her laps looked up at me and said, “Hi, Pastor Scott!”
I jumped in as fast as I could.
My first two lessons were an exercise in trying not to drown. By my third lesson, I was able to swim freestyle 25 yards at a time. My oxygen panic kicked into high gear, not only from the strenuousness of this new activity but having my face in water 90% of the time told my brain I was in danger of drowning—in a four-foot-deep pool. I learned how to push myself. And the weight kept disappearing.
I turned 60, and my scale at home told me I had made my goal. But it wasn’t official until I stepped on my doctor’s scale. Wearing the absolute lightest-weight outfit I had, I stepped on the scale barefoot and hit 179 pounds. The staff surrounded me and cheered. My doctor said, “We’ve never had a patient do what you just did. We’re not sure what to do with you now!”
Ancient Celtic Christians were in touch with nature, referring to Scripture as the “small book” and God’s creation as the “big book.” As a minister, I have spent countless hours in the small book with great benefit to my spiritual health. What I have learned from hiking in God’s big book, deep in the woods in all kinds of weather, surrounded by wild creatures who call it home has radically transformed me. Certainly we as humans are made in God’s image. But nature also reflects God’s image and is filled with our Creator’s handprints.
I still cannot believe I am able to hike six to ten miles a day with a 1,000- to 1,500-foot elevation gain. I swim three to five times a week. I take yoga and Pilates. I’ve recently started lifting weights to gain muscle mass. I no longer needed my CPAP or blood pressure medicine.
One day as I was hiking, I was searching for a motivational phrase that would describe my journey. “Perseverance” or “consistency” seemed perfect descriptors, but they also seemed too cliche and serious for my style.
Early one Saturday morning I went swimming before the lanes started to fill. After a few laps a friend jumped into the lane next to me. He asked what else I had going on that day and I told him after my swim I was going on a two-hour hike. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? How do you do that every day?” he asked. Without thinking I replied, “I just do it tired.” That spontaneous reply stuck in my mind. That would be my phrase, the key to my success. JUST DO IT TIRED.
For years I paid close attention to my spiritual well-being but completely neglected my physical well-being. Jesus instructed us to ask forgiveness from those we’ve wronged, and I have with great sincerity asked my family for forgiveness for missing out on so many aspects of their lives because I physically could not keep up and, worse, didn’t even try.
I feel like I’ve been born again in all areas of my life.
