TESTIMONIES OF FAITH, COURAGE AND RESILIENCE

Looking back at my childhood and teenage years, I know exactly how I became the “cornbread-fed kid" in 2013, who probably should have been playing defense on the Thomasville High School football team rather than watching Japanese animation and reading astronomy books.

While I did enjoy a very happy upbringing with my younger siblings and mother, I do recall being taken to a festival hosted in downtown Thomasville, GA. This was also 2013, The time when The Lord called my mother home a year later. I was serving in the US Army during this time. I left active duty in 2023 after 9 years and 2 months of service.

We were unfortunately poor folks. My father was present in our lives but he had personal flaws that often came to odds with my mother. To put in my own words, he was in and out like the mechanical mammals in the carnival classic of Whack-A-Mole. My mother was the greatest woman who’d ever lived. Give her a dollar and she would split it four ways among her children. She passed away of ovarian cancer on 25 July 2014. The most devastating day of my life. Gentlemen, as I write this on my birthday eleven years later, It still pains me to recall that unfortunate day. And it's still a continual loop in my mind.

I can say through my personal anecdote that I understand the term food desert or nutritional desert. A food desert (I’m giving my definition here the best I can) is an environment in which economic hardships lead disadvantaged people to purchase cheaper, quicker to prepare foods. These foods often have no nutritional value whatsoever and is detrimental for your health in the long term. And you know what food I am speaking of here. I am led to think, that poorer folks have a pre-disposition for those comfort foods: fried meats, greasy collard greens, neckbones, chitterlings (which you’ll never find me even eating), gizzards, mac and cheese, and the list goes on and on. This leaves little to wonder why obesity is a crisis among the less fortunate. 

In 2014 right out of high school, I enlisted in the army. This played a crucial part in my

weight loss journey. I did lose weight during basic training, but only some. Three years in, I still was far from the slimmer man you see today. I was still just barely getting by on physical fitness tests. I grew to hate my size and grew ashamed of my mediocre athletic performance. I looked in the mirror at my fatty chest and jiggly midsection. I would lift my puffy pectoral fat, then release, watching it ripple as it dropped. Things needed to change. I didn’t like the man in the mirror. I didn’t think he was a man to be proud of.

A large part of losing weight and achieving a healthier body is having the enthusiasm, the drive to do so. I’d say my biggest character flaw is procrastination. Believe me gentlemen when I say, I would hold off on my own funeral until the last moments. “I will start after work on Friday.”, “I will work on it at some point.”, “I’m too tired!”, “I’m just too busy right now.”. Oh, the lies man will tell himself! I set out on my transformational journey with gusto. The weight loss formula is simple: more calories expended than consumed, leads to fat burning. I started using the free gym facilities provided to me by the army. I did a number of activities from running to swimming to hiking. Used every machine from a treadmill, the elliptical, and the Jacob’s ladder (a device of pure torment, I say jokingly). I picked up heavy weights, put them down, picked them up again. And repeated this. Personal fitness is, in large part, what you put into your body. I made a change from those comfort foods of my youth, started eating healthier meals. I replaced sugary sodas, drink mixes, and even cut back on my alcohol consumption in favor of water and vegetable drinks. I did away with the calorie-high, nutrient deficient foods of McDonald’s, KFC, and Wendy’s in favor of organic unprocessed food. I followed my regimen even as mortars and rockets fell upon me in the snow-capped mountains of Afghanistan. It was my own toil, perseverance, and fortitude that transformed me into the man I am today.

Here are my words to those seeking to make such a change as I have. Give up procrastination! Start with letting go of dietary sin. Find an incentive to transform yourself and when you begin, find joy in your new mission and set out with The Lord, always. Take him with you in all endeavors, yes even weight loss.

I will conclude this little tale with a scripture from the Book of Proverbs. It applies to any and all personal, health, financial, and spiritual journeys on which you will embark. It is in my opinion the best warning of procrastination ever written and is my personal favorite scripture.

Be strong intellectually, physically, and upmost spiritually.

"Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man". Proverbs 6:6-11  REBUILD Like A B.O.S.S.!