It’s rare that an interview turns into a teaching session for the interviewer, but I must say that I learned a lot from Coach Mo, Mozzie DeWalt, a contestant on Season 8 of Biggest Loser. “I never watched the show and never dreamed of being on the show, Coach Mo said. Going on the show proved to be a life changing experience for him.
Going from 390 pounds to 262 pounds is no easy feat. “It really didn’t click in my head until I met with a doctor and he told me that even though I was 55 years old in age, my body’s actual age was 70.”
But how could a man of such wisdom reach a level of such unhealthiness? “In 1987 I had a real bad car accident.” Coach Mo was hit by a tractor trailer and suffered severe injuries. He broke his neck and was immobile for two years. “I couldn’t even pick up my own kids and I was very depressed.”
“I put on a lot of weight and my sons started praying every day that I would change my life,” he said. Coach Mo had diabetes and high blood pressure and suffered a stroke and a heart attack. “So many people were telling me to lose weight, but no one was telling me how. Biggest Loser came into my life at a time where options were few. It was a divinely inspired circumstance.”
Coach Mo has made significant changes in his community and in his own life after coming home from the show. He started a youth organization that offers a number of services to the community, one of which is a program that focuses on childhood obesity.
He also opened a gym that serves people from all walks of life. “I only have four machines at my gym; people use their own body weight.” He speaks proudly about a seventy year old woman that recently lost 55 pounds at this gym. “If she can do it anybody can.”
Even Mozzie still has fitness goals. “I am going to drop 45 more pounds and go back to the size I was at 14 years old,” he says by faith.”If you speak faith, it will create things that you didn’t believe could happen.”
Here is his advice to those needing to make healthy lifestyle changes –
“Find your reason to do something instead of finding reasons not to. Find the peace in you that motivates you, and God will do the rest.”