Life has been a matter of constant motion — both outwardly as I have engaged in a lifelong search for a path that would lead to healthy weight loss, and inwardly as I’ve been...

moving towards a life of integrity, purpose, and service. I’ve been an unemployed teacher for almost three years. Four months after being laid off I got married, so this has been a rough patch. Like so many other Americans during these difficult times, I have been trying to get by with odd jobs that have included substitute teaching and coaching boys and girls volleyball and basketball teams at Knightsen Elementary School.

As a young person, I was interested in athletics — playing baseball, basketball, and soccer. My life fell apart when I was 13. My parents divorced and I lost interest in sports; I began hanging around with the wrong crowd, trying to fit in; looking for a place where I could feel like I belonged.

JOURNEY INWARD

I have always been large. My fellow students would tease me about my weight until middle school when I learned to use my weight against others and began doing some bullying myself. Things got more peaceful in high school because I learned how to get along with people. I was friendly and developed friendships with members of various cliques and social groups. I had down pat the art of mingling. I was a non-prejudiced hanger-on, and made friends with all kinds of people.I especially hung around a group of kids my age. We had known each other all our lives. In the old days we would find an empty street or lot and kick a soccer ball around. In high school some of them were associated with gangs. I wasn’t in a gang myself, but was friends with many of these people.

My life changed when I was 16 years old. I ran into a reformed drug addict named Ron Brown, who pulled a New Testament out of a bag and offered it to me. He wanted to talk to me about Jesus, but I wasn’t having any of it. Then a cute Hispanic lady, named Hope Lopez, came along handing out flyers advertising her Campus Life Club. Besides her good looks, I was attracted by Hope’s warm friendly attitude, so the next Tuesday I showed up at Neighborhood Church, which was where her club was held. Getting to the church wasn’t much of a problem because at the time I was living in an apartment complex adjoining the church parking lot and could just crawl through a hole in the fence. The meeting turned out to be a lot of fun. Those people weren’t pretending to be Holy Joes and Sanctified Janes because they were doing things like getting everybody laughing by putting gross unmentionable things into their mouths and then eating them.

However, they were also handing out free hamburgers, which is always a way to attract my attention and to put me into a receptive mood. The heart of the meeting took place when members began sharing stories about how their lives were changing for the better. They spoke about topics that were important to me — things such as drugs and divorce. Each of them described how they had been messed up but were now moving in positive directions.

I continued to go back to the meetings. At first it was just for the food and the fun because I didn’t know how I would be able to fit in. However, before long I began to feel connected with the members and especially with the staff. I also began to attend the church’s Wednesday night youth group. I soon found a place where I could belong in that community of good people. We were like a family; these were my brothers and sisters; I had found a home to replace the one I had lost when my folks divorced. Three months after the first meeting, in December 1991, I made a decision to place my life into the hands of God.

It turns out that Heaven doesn’t have some kind of punch press that will instantly stamp a person with the appropriate attitudes and behaviors. Nothing changed that day except that the direction of my life had been turned 180°. Someone recently told me that it makes no difference how far off from God a person is or how near, the only thing that matters is the direction in which he/she is facing.

Life since that day has been a roller coaster ride, at times, but the ride has been a good one. It was different for me to hang out with my old buddies. “Birds of a feather flock together,” but I had changed feathers. I hadn’t changed my behaviors and ways of talking when I was with those guys, but I was uncomfortable. It took me a while before I became comfortable with the rhythms of grace and truly at peace with myself and with the world around me. The struggle with my weight, in particular, has been a constant fight that I am just now getting some victory over.

JOURNEY OUTWARD

I’ve had a weight problem my whole life. In November 2010, I began seriously to work out with my brother, Kenny and with Chris Lopez. In January 2011, I entered the 110° Magazine Biggest Loser Challenge. From November through April my weight dropped by more than 50 pounds — from 430 to 380. However, after the contest ended I lost momentum and by October 21, my weight was back up in the 400s. The weight gain was disappointing but the problem became a central-life issue when I was scared out of my wits one day by the realization that I couldn’t breathe while lying down. My wife took me to Sutter Delta, where they discovered that my heart was enlarged. A lot of people jokingly said, “We knew you had a big heart, Richy!” This was serious, however. I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. My feet and legs were swelling and they discovered that my heart was only working at 25 percent.

Any attack on the heart must become a wake-up call for anybody with normal intelligence. When it dawned upon me that my weight was a serious threat to my health, and that I might not live to see 2012 if I didn’t do something, I began to take control of my diet, imposing strict standards of portion control, eating vegetables, and restricting my sodium intake. Staying on my diet is made more difficult by some people who for some reason continue to offer me rich foods and hi-calorie desserts — sometimes attempting to force them on me even after I have said “No.” It is like offering pails of water to a drowning man or boxes of sand to a farmer who is in the middle of a drought. Of course, such offers are especially difficult, because the water and the sand have no appeal to the drowning person or the farmer, but I really do want that piece of chocolate cake with a large scoop of ice cream more than the bowl of lettuce that I should be eating, and I would much rather have a piece (or three pieces) of that hot apple pie slathered with whipped cream than the apple that would possibly add some minutes to my life.

Through it all, however, my wife Donna has been a rock of support, encouraging me in the direction of good health and discouraging me from going off in harmful directions. Donna fell in love with me when I was large; so I know she will be there when I am thin.

The fact is that my goal is not to lose weight but to become healthy. Weight decline will only be the icing on the cake because the cake itself is a healthy lifestyle. Of course, I have always loved the taste of icing and it will be a great day when I get to the point that I can walk into Target or JC Penny’s and buy a pair of pants or a shirt from off the rack.

Each day I strive to meet the goals of exercise and diet that will be good for my heart. However, I am even more concerned each day to take care of the other part of my heart — the source of healthy emotions and intentions, which is the real heart of the matter.

Dieting is no fun. I especially miss the salt. The food is not tasty to me. Job hit a nail on the head when he cried out,

Don’t people complain about unsalted food? Does anyone want the tasteless white of an egg?

Not me, Job. Not me, for sure! However, I am not complaining bitterly about the quality of my food or about the size of the portions, because I know that God himself is my portion in life. I agree with the psalmist who wrote:

I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. And then he concludes with an affirmation that sounds like the call of a trumpet: My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

I am on a pilgrimage. It is a good trip. I am still heading in the right direction.

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