Faith and Fitness
The 102-pound Labrador bounded across the backyard and nuzzled up to her owner, Newport Beach fitness and prayer guru Becky Tirabassi, for a wet kiss.
“She’s kind of pudgy,” said Tirabassi, who at 125 pounds weighs barely more than her dog. “She blows my message.”
The chipper Tirabassi, 45, is part of a movement that has quietly grown powerful in America: fitness with a Christian spin. From church exercise ministries to self-help books, many are the ways for the faithful to get fit.
Tirabassi, whose earlier books include “Let Prayer Change Your Life” and “Let Faith Change Your Life,” has established herself in the marketplace with a blend of religion and advice she has fine-tuned over the past decade, increasingly taking a more secular tone to attract a wider audience.
Her latest book, titled simply “Change Your Life,” is marketed for mainstream America and is focused on fitness, rather than prayer. Tirabassi also is featured on new audiotapes called “Walk Your Body,” with secular music like “Splish Splash” and “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”
Tirabassi makes no apologies for the shift.
“I don’t want people to think that I’m just a conservative Republican who’s a born-again Christian. They will miss my message,” she said. “I’m not a political Christian--I’m a lifestyle Christian.”
Tirabassi grew up in Cleveland. After dropping out of college at 18, she moved to California and flung herself “into drugs, dope, nightclub dancing, binge drinking and living with boyfriends.”
Tirabassi recently celebrated her 22nd year of sobriety. She spent years as a drug and alcohol addict. She pegs her transformation to an encounter in 1976 with a janitor who comforted her when she had a breakdown in a church corridor.
Today, her disciplined way of life is apparent: Her two-story Newport Beach home is tidy and neat, with her books displayed prominently. Her kitchen counters are covered with vials of vitamins and boxes of Raisin Bran.
Tirabassi presses her ethic of weight loss on her three employees, who each have lost 10 to 20 pounds, she says, since coming to work for her.
“I’ve lost 12 pounds in two months,” said her publicist, Heather Vodra.
Preaching a Broader Gospel
Tirabassi has attracted crowds as large as 4,000 to her lectures, and her eight books have sold more than 750,000 copies.
She says she still needs the fans who have bought her books strictly on prayer and faith, but she also wants to branch out to snag some of the money going into the $3-billion-a-year exercise industry.
“I don’t think I’ve reached my target audience,” she said. “I want to make a significant impact in my world.”
Indeed, Tirabassi has big ambitions.
“I’m certainly not where Oprah is, and I’d love to be,” she said. “I’ve struggled with the envy of all that.”
Tirabassi is known in Christian publishing circles, but has not achieved the kind of recognition enjoyed by Christian fitness authors like Gwen Shamblin, a dietitian from Tennessee who wrote “Weight Down Diet.”
“Some Christian authors want to promote the church, some want to inspire, and some want to entertain,” said Nancy Guthrie, media representative for the Christian Booksellers Assn. “Becky has a passion to reach people where they are and share the gospel with them.”
She’s not abandoning God in her books; she is preaching a broader gospel of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.
“For many years, Becky was branded as an author with an expertise on prayer,” said Rolf Zettersten, her former publisher at Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville.
“While she still carries that moniker, she’s broadened her approach and her message to include other aspects of life.”
She also changed publishers and went with the mainstream Putnam, instead of a Christian company, for her latest book.
Most American women worry about their weight, she feels.
“Weight is on every woman’s mind, and it can get obsessive,” Tirabassi said. “I’ve been overweight. I’ve been there. I know there’s a way out.”
Tirabassi, at 5 feet 6, was 155 pounds at her peak--hardly obese. She dropped 30 pounds and has kept them off for 15 years. She consumes about 2,000 calories a day and writes down everything she eats in a journal. A typical entry: a smidgen of peanut butter on toast with slices of banana, oatmeal and a fish dinner.
Combining health and religion is a trend of some 10 years that’s become quite profitable, according to Doug Ross, president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Assn.
“Faith and fitness is a natural combination,” Ross said. “If one cares for their soul, then they should also care for their body. The biblical concept stems from the notion that your body is the temple of the holy spirit.”
Books Link Health With Spirituality
Books linking health and spirituality are mushrooming in popularity, Ross said. From “The Angels’ Little Diet Book,” to “A Catholic Perspective: Physical Exercise and Sports,” to “Faith-Based Fitness” and “Newstart Lifestyle Cookbook,” hybrids line bookstore shelves.
Also growing in popularity are exercise classes at churches, as well as a variety of diet and fitness programs. For example, the Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa has offered exercise classes for years. Programs vary from “Heavenly Bodies” to “Sweat and Soul.”
At Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa, however, Tirabassi is just another faithful parishioner, said Pastor Keith Page.
“She takes her faith and her time with God very seriously,” Page said. “Becky has the heart of an evangelist. It’s in her heart to introduce as many people as possible to God. She’s anything but sold out.”