{"id":10186,"date":"2009-07-20T08:45:39","date_gmt":"2009-07-20T13:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/?p=10186"},"modified":"2009-07-20T08:46:12","modified_gmt":"2009-07-20T13:46:12","slug":"meet-the-650-pound-virgin-on-tlc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/07\/meet-the-650-pound-virgin-on-tlc\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet &#8220;The 650 Pound Virgin&#8221; on TLC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>David Smith may have an ordinary name, but his story is quite extraordinary. This has to be the most amazing transformation I&#8217;ve ever seen.<a title=\"650 pound virgin\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/07\/meet-the-650-pound-virgin-on-tlc\/\" target=\"_self\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-10202\" title=\"david smith 650 pound virgin\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/david-smith-650-pound-virgin.jpg\" alt=\"david smith 650 pound virgin\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>David, 32, once weighed 650 pounds. He was suicidal and lonely. But somehow, he found the will to take back his life, and lost an amazing 400 pounds in only 26 months. And he did it without surgery! If that&#8217;s not enough, he&#8217;s now a certified <a title=\"personal trainers\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/author\/matt\/\" target=\"_self\">personal trainer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Smith&#8217;s story was documented by TLC and aired as a special titled &#8220;The 650-pound Virgin&#8221; on July 12. He looks to his past as if it was someone else.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s a different person,&#8221; Smith told Matt Lauer in an appearance on the Today Show. &#8220;It\u2019s not me anymore.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While he hasn&#8217;t totally beaten his shy bug, women look at David a whole lot differently.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s like night and day. I\u2019ve gone from being a laughingstock to having girls make googly eyes at me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>David&#8217;s transformation was aided by fitness and <a title=\"dietitians\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/author\/rebecca\/\" target=\"_self\">nutrition expert<\/a> Chris Powell. He devised an approach called the STAX System. And what I liked about it is he didn&#8217;t make expectations unrealistic. He had David eat strictly <a title=\"healthy recipes\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/recipes\/\" target=\"_self\">healthy food<\/a> one day, then allowed him to reward himself the next.<\/p>\n<p>David&#8217;s weight problem began with deep-seeded emotional scars of sexual abuse as a kid, and bullying by others in his youth. His story of recovery is nothing short of amazing. Here it is, as told on the Today Show:<\/p>\n<div>\n<p style=\"background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-size: 11px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #999999; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center; width: 425px;\">Visit msnbc.com for <a style=\"border-bottom: 1px dotted #999999 ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; height: 13px; color: #5799db ! important;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\">Breaking News<\/a>, <a style=\"border-bottom: 1px dotted #999999 ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; height: 13px; color: #5799db ! important;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032507\">World News<\/a>, and <a style=\"border-bottom: 1px dotted #999999 ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; height: 13px; color: #5799db ! important;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032072\">News about the Economy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>(via: <a title=\"MSNBC Today Show\" href=\"http:\/\/today.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/31845266\/ns\/today_relationships\/\" target=\"_blank\">MSNBC.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Smith may have an ordinary name, but his story is quite extraordinary. This has to be the most amazing transformation I&#8217;ve ever seen. David, 32, once weighed 650 pounds. He was suicidal and lonely. But somehow, he found the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/07\/meet-the-650-pound-virgin-on-tlc\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3695,18],"tags":[3677,29,92,3736,74],"class_list":["post-10186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diet-and-nutrition","category-fitness","tag-diet-tv","tag-nutrition","tag-obesity","tag-success-stories","tag-weight-loss"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10186"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10204,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10186\/revisions\/10204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}