The Skin Tight BJ Hilton episode that kicks off the show’s third season treats viewers to the journey of a Texan minister with a loving family and a dedication to physical and spiritual well-being.
BJ, who is the founder and president of his own church, E37 Ministries, recently explained that he’s been struggling against the perception of weight loss as a singular achievement unto itself. “Many think that there is no validity once someone has lost mass amounts of weight for feeling burdened by the excess skin that is left,” he said, in a Facebook post promoting the upcoming Skin Tight BJ episode. “No matter how hard you try the reality of carrying your past body haunts you daily.”
As if to underscore that struggle, BJ also features prominently in the trailer for Skin Tight Season 3:
As for how his own weight loss journey came to be, BJ described it in detail in a recent social media update. According to BJ, it was around the time of his 39th birthday when he began to feel listless and unmoored, and realized he yearned for a clearer purpose. At “just shy under 400 pounds,” BJ’s obesity was also a motivating factor. So he decided to tackle both problems simultaneously:
I was reading scripture in the Torah that said, “teach this to your children’s children’s” and I realized that I would never be able to see my grandchildren. That day I made a choice and three weeks later I had that gastric sleeve done. But the surgery alone was not going to allow me to become the healthy person I know that I was intended to be. I had to study and train my body to eat food with purpose and be “mindful “ to what I put in my body. Then in January 2016 I join my gym, Anytime Fitness Liberty. At first I as so intimidating, but now have become a HUGE part of daily live. A balance diet, a daily work out regimen, and a little determination can take you a long ways. But the trip will definite be worth!
So, how’s the man doing since the Skin Tight BJ Hilton wrapped? We’ll catch you up to date with a photo gallery beginning several years before:
The first of the two photos above is BJ in 2011; the second is BJ in 2012. Then came a gap, the epiphany described above, and a tremendous physical change. Check out BJ a few years later, in 2016:
And here’s BJ with his wife, Elizabeth, in late 2017:
The couple’s Quiverfull family includes four children: Their oldest son, Zaden; Zamar, their youngest son; and Zaila, their youngest daughter. (Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find out the name of BJ and Elizabeth’s older daughter.)
In one of his final updates before the Skin Tight BJ Hilton episode premiered, BJ said, “I am thankful for being healthy, having a supportive family & circle of friends, and a gym-fam…where I can work out. But no amount of working out could allow me to finalize all the work of my journey in health and weigh loss. So tune in…to watch the journey of ridding my body of the final part, the skin.”
BJ’s journey concludes with the Skin Tight Season 3 premiere, airing Wednesday night at 10 on TLC.
(Photo credits: Skin Tight BJ via Facebook)
