So divine a loss for fitness-minded minister

By Jeanne Starmack

Kelvin Jordan of Sharpsville has dropped more than 140 pounds in less than one year.

FARRELL, Pa. — Think of the most inspirational weight-loss icons of our time.

Richard Simmons. Billy Blanks. Dean Ornish. Robert Atkins. God.

All of them have their loyal followers, but that last one surely is the ultimate in physical fitness guidance — and Kelvin Jordan’s got him.

He wants you to have him, too.

Without God, Jordan believes, he would have not been able to lose 140-plus pounds in 11 months.

God told him to do it, he said, and now he’s making it a mission to inspire others on their own weight-loss journeys.

Jordan, of Sharpsville, sat in his pastor’s office at Farrell’s Second Baptist Church one day last week to explain his revelation and the steps he took to make his mission happen.

An assistant minister at the church, he’d been preparing several months to preach for a special Men’s Day service in July.

While researching the Scriptures, he came across these words in Titus 2: “That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.”

So he prayed, he said, to ask God what message he should relay to the congregation.

“I was kind of surprised by God’s response ... that I have to lose weight,” said the 6-foot-2-inch Jordan, who at the time weighed 391 pounds.

So what did Jordan do?

“I prayed again.”

But God’s response was the same. So Jordan got to it.

He started that same day to lose weight, changing his eating habits and walking at Buhl Park in Hermitage.

Eventually, he joined the F.H. Buhl Club, walking on its treadmill and using its elliptical machine.

“I started lifting weights, something I hadn’t done since high school,” he said.

He had no human trainer. “Just me and the Lord,” he said. “Well, the Lord and me. He comes first.”

He never consulted a nutritionist, either. He curbed his appetite for fast food, which he’d come to rely on as inexpensive and easy for a single man, and he kept a food diary.

He made his own discoveries about how his body responded to his diet, such as eating white bread that slowed down his progress.

And progress, he did.

He never told anyone at first about God’s edict on his weight, he said.

“I doubted myself,” he said. “You tell people that God gave you something to do, and they know you didn’t do it ...”

But after about two months and 40 fewer pounds into his new lifestyle, people were starting to notice the change.

His pastor’s wife questioned him about it at a prayer meeting at the church one morning.

“And if you’ve ever had good news and you can’t wait to tell somebody — it was a good feeling someone had noticed. So I shared the news then,” he said.

Has his story been an inspiration to anyone?

He pointed to his pastor, the Rev. Thomas Bolling.

“I think it’s great,” said the Rev. Mr. Bolling of Jordan’s accomplishment, and he said he has begun his own effort, mostly through “portion control.”

“I do it for health reasons,” he said, adding that from his vantage point of 71 years, he recommends taking weight off while you’re younger. “It’s easier.”

With a plaque on his desk that reads, “Lord help me, the devil wants me fat,” Mr. Bolling acknowledged some doubts, too. “The jury’s still out on how much I’ll lose.”

Jordan will turn 40 Wednesday. His motto is “fit by 40, not finished,” he said, and he wants to lose 25 more pounds.

His life is different now. He stays away from fast food, fried foods and sugar. He does three miles of cardio work on the treadmill six days a week and lifts weights. In the summer, he walks five miles a day at the park.

He’d like to jog the 21‚Ñ2 miles around the park this summer, which he hasn’t done since he ran track in high school. He’s fitting all these activities between a full-time job at Dean’s Dairy in Sharpsville and his duties at the church.

He believes that he will not regain the weight once he reaches his goal.

“I’ve been taught by my pastor that ministry is a one-way street, with no turning back,” he said.

He won’t disappoint himself, God, or the people who were inspired by his mission.

starmack@vindy.com