Fifteen years ago, I interviewed Rev. Robert Hartwell for my book of weight loss success stories, “How We Did It.” In it, I share the stories of about three dozen people who lost weight using different plans and programs. This past weekend, I caught up with Pastor Hartwell over lunch.

We were having such a great conversation that I totally forgot to take a picture to mark the occasion! So, instead, I’m reprinting his story below. His was a NutriSystem journey, although today Pastor Hartwell says he follows a mostly keto diet. Like him, I found that what worked when you were younger doesn’t always work fifteen years later! But if you want to maintain control of your weight and health, you can find something that works. I’d love to know how you did it!

An astonishing phone call

Most people make their weight loss resolution only after the annual holiday binge. But it was on New Year’s Eve 2007 that the Rev. Robert Hartwell’s weight-loss odyssey came to a dramatic close.

That morning, he stepped on a scale on NBC’s Today Show in front of 10 million people. 

Just how the pastor of Village Lutheran Church in Bronxville, New York, got to this point began around Thanksgiving the previous year. Robert’s church had started a campaign to pay down an $8 million mortgage it had assumed for a building project.

One day, Robert got a baffling call. A former parishioner, someone who kept close ties with the church, offered to make a substantial donation. But there was a catch.

“This donor asked me how committed I was to the project, and I started to tell him what I planned to give,” he says. “The donor brushed that off and said that, instead, he wanted me to commit to losing 70 pounds, and if I did so, he would donate $5,000 for each pound lost.”

Will he accept the challenge?

It was both an intriguing and a heartbreaking offer.

“I was crushed—mortified—that someone had discovered that I was overweight, although of course everyone saw it when I stepped into the pulpit each week,” Robert says. “But this donor said he wanted to know that I was as committed to the project as he was.”

Given the unusual nature of the pledge, Robert talked with church leaders to make sure that accepting the offer wouldn’t cheapen the image or mission of the church. Although the other pastors and deacons found the offer “wacky,” they saw no reason to reject it. So was born “The Skinny on Sacrifice” campaign. 

Although up to this point Robert hadn’t acknowledged his weight problem, he certainly understood how it had happened.

“My life is so hectic. I was always eating on the run. I’d grab a muffin between hospital visits, get home from council meetings at 10:30 at night, exhausted and ravenous, and grab a couple of sandwiches and chips,” he says. “And I was a volume eater—I could eat a half a pizza by myself or eight White Castle burgers at a time.”

By the time the sly donor came into the picture, the six-foot-tall pastor weighed about 270 pounds. After consulting with his parish nurse, Robert took up the challenge. Robert chose NutriSystem, and he followed it to the letter.

How he did it

On a food plan of about 1,500 calories a day, Robert lost 10 pounds almost immediately, and continued to lose two to three pounds a week. He and his wife, Sue, had always walked for pleasure, and Robert made sure he got in his two to three miles a day.

After six months, Robert ramped up his exercise routine in the gym at next-door Concordia College, where he is an adjunct professor [NOTE: Concordia closed its doors in 2021]. A congregant who is a personal trainer showed him how to use the machines for both cardio workouts and strength training. The college atmosphere was stimulating.

“I was there with the 19- and 20-year old baseball players, and they motivated me to keep going,” he says. He began going to the gym five days a week, on top of his family walks.

Let’s go national!

Meanwhile, an employee at the church’s school who happened to be a lighting director for the Today Show brought the pastor’s challenge to the attention of a producer. Wanting a religious-themed holiday feature, the producer asked whether Robert would be willing to weigh in on the show the morning of December 31, 2007.

“I had already told the donor that I wouldn’t weigh in during a church service, and here I was agreeing to do it in front of a live audience on national television,” he laughs. “Barring Jesus projecting it in the sky over the earth, it couldn’t get any bigger than that!”

Robert agreed to do the show, but he had a few conditions: He wanted to be fully clothed, but he didn’t want to wear shoes, and he wanted to bring his own scale. So far, so good. But just before he stepped out onto the stage, someone clipped a microphone to the back of his shirt. “This thing must weigh five pounds!” he protested.

No matter. Robert made the donor’s 70-pound limit, with 8 pounds to spare. Keeping his end of the bargain, the donor wrote a check for $390,000, which church members augmented with their own funds for an even $400,000.

Can I get an Amen?

Since then, Robert’s goal has changed—while he originally targeted 200 as his goal weight, he is maintaining his weight at 180 pounds and is working on strength training and toning. “Age is no friend to loose skin,” he says. He still uses NutriSystem—he finds himself ordering a box now and then because he really enjoys the food and finds it helpful in maintaining his weight. But he has also made his diet rich in omega 3s, healthy grains and low-glycemic carbs and protein.

And, the newly-svelte pastor made a deal of his own. On Ash Wednesday of 2008, “when everyone is thinking of mortality, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” Robert asked parishioners to join in a challenge cooked up with NutriSystem to see how many pounds the church community could lose in a year’s time. The congregation lost thousands of pounds, and many more community members picked up lifelong healthy lifestyles.

Ultimately, a change in lifestyle is what Robert believes makes a difference. “We have even changed the way we plan our fellowship events. In addition to the high sugar foods that people love and often bring, we try to make sure there are healthy options,” he says.

Robert has become an avid runner. He and four others ran the New York City Marathon in November 2011 to raise funds for the church’s Christian school.

“Running is such a great way to stay healthy and to find balance and harmony in the middle of a hectic life,” he says. “I often find myself praying or praising God in my morning runs and thank God that my new healthy lifestyle allows this righteous pleasure.”

Life lessons from the journey

With new insight, Robert says he now believes that weight loss is not only an individual pursuit yielding personal satisfaction, but a goal with wide-ranging possibilities for strengthening family and community ties.

“Food is a short cut. We use food to show love, to reward our children for their accomplishments. It’s ridiculous,” he says. “Food is really a substitute for spending time with each other. We’ve decided we’re not going to do that anymore.”

Influences

Anonymous donor to Village Lutheran Church

His wife, Sue: “She never made me feel guilty about not eating her food.”

Parish nurse Joy Elwell and parishioner Rich Foster, a congregant and personal trainer

God’s grace and motivation to reach new goals

Tips

For our church coffee hours, I’ve encouraged everyone to bring in fruits and vegetables. It costs more, but we feel good about it. I don’t go to donut shops, and I’m not buying that stuff for my kids any more.