Adam Clay would walk down the airplane aisle — all 363 pounds of him — and he would know exactly what the other passengers were thinking.

“They’d be thinking, ‘Please don’t sit next to me,’” he says. “I just knew. I could feel it.”

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Clay, 43, would finally wedge his way into a seat. But the ordeal wasn’t over.

“I’d have to signal to the flight attendant for a seatbelt extender,” he says. “They’d bring it to you, and they don’t make a big deal of it, but it’s so humiliating.”

This was every flight.

This was typical of the way Clay lived.

He avoided mirrors.

He forbade his mother from posting unapproved photos of him on social media.

If he went to the doctor and needed blood drawn — you know, to monitor his high cholesterol — he’d prepare to be stabbed multiple times while the poor phlebotomist searched for a vein.

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“I was always the fat guy,” Clay says.

But he is no longer the fat guy.

Why?

PICKLEBALL!

Yes, really. That’s the reason. If you’re skeptical, you’re not the only one.

“When I tell people it’s pickleball, they ask me, ‘What’s the real secret?’” Clay says.

To which Clay responds: “The real secret is pickleball.”

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He might also whip out his phone, where there’s documentation. Clay’s phone has a health monitoring app called “Withings.”

“I step on a scale every day, and the app records it,” he says. “See, my weight today is 263 pounds.”

Clay scrolls back to February of 2023.

“Here you go,” he says. “On Feb. 6, I weighed 363 pounds.”

That’s 100 pounds, even.

What’s it like to lose that much weight?

“It’s life-changing,” Clay says. “In so many ways, it has fundamentally changed my life.”

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It all started with a mass email from Life Time Fitness, inviting him to a pickleball class.

“I had played once before, on vacation, and I had fun but didn’t give it another thought,” Clay says. “But the class was free. And I thought it might help me lose weight.”

It couldn’t hurt, anyway.

Through the years — OK, the decades — Clay had tried everything else.

“I was always that kid,” Clay says. “I was always bigger than everyone else. I tried everything. I dieted. I’ve been in and out of the gym. There was one year that I was arguably unnoticeable, as far as being different-sized. That was my first year of college, at Memphis, when I was in the marching band. But any time I lost weight, I gained it all back and more.”

The pandemic didn’t help. Clay ballooned from 320 to 363.

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“I got really sedentary,” he says. “And I love pizza and beer.”

Enter pickleball.

Clay went to that first class in January of 2023.

He loved it.

He found himself playing more and more.

“By April, I was playing almost every day,” he says.

Clay began to lose weight. He’s a naturally big guy — 6’4” — so it wasn’t all that noticeable at first.

“The tipping point was when I switched from playing in the morning to playing at night,” he said. “I was still drinking too much beer at night. But when I played pickleball at night, I didn’t want to drink beer any longer. Then the weight loss became dramatic.”

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It’s not that complicated, actually. Clay burned calories playing a couple of hours of pickleball every day. He consumed fewer calories because he knocked off the beer.

“I’m not saying it will work for everyone,” he says.

Among other things, everyone doesn’t have enough time for that much pickleball. But in addition to losing all that weight, Clay gained a business. He became one of the founders of Pickleball 901, the group that brought pickleball to Beale Street last year and is about to launch a series of pickleball pop-up clubs. 

“My experience is that there’s a misconception about the sport,” Clay says. “It’s not just standing around. You’re running all over the place. It’s intense. I mean, it doesn’t have to be. My mom is 65, and when I watch her play, she might as well be holding a glass of wine. But if you want it to be serious, it’s serious. There’s a ton of people I know at Life Time who have lost weight. I’m not the only one.”

Indeed, the internet is littered with similar stories. They seem to be spreading as fast as the sport itself.

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“Nashville Woman Paddles Away 90 Pounds Playing Pickleball.”

“How Pickleball Helped Amy Lose OVER 100 Pounds.”

“Pickleball and Kettlebells Helped This Guy Drop 70 Pounds.”

You getting the general idea?

Pickleball may not be the most efficient form of exercise. But it has the advantage of being fun. Because it is fun, people tend to keep doing it. The only exercise that works is the exercise you actually do.

“I’m not even dieting,” Clay says. “I still eat pizza. I drink a ton of Cherry Coke.”

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Note: The Cherry Coke part of the pickeball diet may not be recommended.

But whatever works for you!

Clay can’t stop talking about all of the ways his life is better. He has his 4XL clothes packed away in a tub. His 3XL clothes, too.

“I had my blood drawn the other day, and they got my vein on the first try,” he says. “That’s the first time in my life that has happened. The first time.”

And people notice. Of course, they do.

“Some people who haven’t seen me in a while, they are floored,” Clay says. “You can’t imagine the dopamine I get just walking into a room. It’s vain and narcissistic, but I guess I deserve it. I spent most of my life on the other side of that.”

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Not long ago, one of Clay’s teenage daughters sent him a photo captioned “One year ago today.”

The photo was of Clay asleep, looking like every bit of 363 pounds.

“I keep the photo in a folder called ‘Phat Pics,’” he says.

The pics are a reminder — and a prod.

Clay isn’t quite done with his weight loss saga. He’ll qualify for a better insurance rate if he can get down to 245 pounds.

But he’s willing to look in a mirror these days. His mother can post any photos she likes. 

And when he’s on an airplane, Clay can buckle up without signaling for that humiliating seatbelt extender.

“Not only that,” he says, “I send my wife photos of the slack.”