thread starter aznegglover Jul 11 2009
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 | He was enormously obese � a lost soul with no friends and no life who had given up on himself and on life. David Smith even hatched a plan to end it. He would get an inflatable swimming pool, and he would take it to a remote spot in the Arizona desert. He would fill it with gasoline, get in, and light a match. It would be a horrific and painful way to die, but that�s what Smith thought he deserved. And the best thing about it would be that the fire would consume his 650-pound body. When it had done his work, there would be nothing left to make fun of anymore. It is hard to believe that the David Smith who tells this story is the same hunky man who sat down with TODAY�s Matt Lauer Friday in New York. Smiling and confident, he�s cut and ripped, a certified personal trainer with a body that�s no longer to die in a blaze of glory for. He has a future that never seemed possible � and a past that seemed to have belonged to someone else. �It�s a different person,� Smith told Lauer after watching a video that showed the gelatinous blob he used to be. �It�s not me anymore.� �Night and day� The remarkable story of how Smith lost more than 400 pounds in just 26 months without gastric bypass surgery is the subject of a TLC documentary that premieres Sunday, July 12. It�s called �The 650-pound Virgin,� and it follows Smith�s journey from a suicidal and friendless loner who never left his house to a new life as an inspiration to everybody who has battled obesity. The story�s not over. Smith, now 32, would not say directly if he is still a virgin, but he admitted that he is still fighting to get over his shyness around women and his fear of rejection. �It�s like night and day. I�ve gone from being a laughingstock to having girls make googly eyes at me,� he said. But responding to those looks is still a challenge. �I still have to muster up the courage to talk to girls,� he said. �Instead of being a dud, I want to be a stud,� he added. Facing his fear The remarkable transformation in Smith�s life began in 2003, when he was considering suicide. Somewhere deep down, he discovered that he still harbored a hope that he could transform himself. He decided to lose weight. Smith rejected bypass surgery as too risky. He didn�t want to die on the operating table and have his obese remains mocked by the surgeons who had been trying to save his life. The remaining alternative was to learn to eat properly and exercise the weight off. And, he decided, he would renounce his terror of being seen in public by making his journey the subject of a documentary. �I decided that the best way to get over my fear was to destroy it � and the best way to be seen is on television,� he wrote. So he contacted KTVK, a local television station that had a feature hosted by fitness and nutrition guru Chris Powell. After some initial hesitation, Powell took Smith on. Powell waited several weeks before contacting Smith. He had doubts about whether he could help, but the more he looked at the pict |
