Judge challenges inmate to lose weight
George McCovery, 37, dropped 25 pounds in 20 days — a feat he credited to bland prison food and the judge’s weight-loss challenge.
“She gave me a chance to prove myself, and I didn’t want to let her down,” he told the Orlando Sentinel.
Judge Donna Miller, whose courtroom proceedings are replayed in the TV show “Lake Courts,” is famous for her unusual sentence deals. In her 17 years as a judge, Miller has ordered defendants to start jogging, take a dance class, tutor math and write Christmas cards, according to the Sentinel.
“I do what I do to try to change the person in front of me,” she said, acknowledging that her self-improvement sentences won’t be doled out to everyone. “If the person needs jail, they get jail.”
Miller said she would check McCovery’s weight after 20 days. And to her surprise, he had already shed 25 pounds. man loses 191 pounds bet with wife,
“It’s not easy to lose weight,” Miller told the Sentinel. “I thought he’d lose 5, maybe, 6 pounds — not 25.”
Carrying extra pounds can raise the risk of chronic, debilitating and even life-threatening medical conditions such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. And if waistlines keep expanding at current rates, experts predict half of the U.S. population will be obese by 2030.
