Wally Bishop loses weight, grows a business

Wally Bishop is half the man he used to be. At the same time, he's a lot more.

Not too long ago, the 57-year-old lost more than 200 pounds of his 450-plus weight.

In the process of losing the weight, Bishop uncovered his true passion: educating people on how to get healthy naturally through eating real food and becoming more active.

He went from being a buyer at Fuji Film in Greenwood to becoming the developer and president of Vive meal-replacement shakes. The president and CEO of WebND, Bishop is also a certified nutrition consultant and offers an online course called "Fat to Fit."

"Basically, it's about changing your routine today to a healthy routine," he said. "This really this isn't about dieting. It's about a way of living."

Amy Mayfield, a liaison for the information technology and radiology departments at Bon Secours St. Francis in Greenville, said she sees Bishop's efforts as a ministry.

She joined his nutrition meet-up group last August. At the time, her cholesterol and blood pressure were borderline and edging upward.

After a warning from her doctor, "I was determined I would change my life around," Mayfield said.

She has since lost 50 pounds by walking and using "the wealth of good information" she's gained from Bishop's class.

"Physically, mentally, I feel good. My doctor was really impressed," she said.

Now when friends compliment her on her appearance, she often invites them to Bishop's class.

Bishop said his biggest challenge now is getting people to believe that they, too, can beat the weight, beat the obesity and beat the health issues naturally.

They can win, but not through dieting, he said. "You have to do it through a lifestyle change," he said.

'Wash pot'

Bishop didn't foresee his problems with weight.

As a child growing up in Simpsonville, he was skinny and "looked like an orphan," he said.

He enjoyed Southern foods such as biscuits, beans and gravy, but all he developed as a result was "a big belly."

"They called me 'wash pot' because I looked like I swallowed a wash pot or something," said Bishop, who grew up with a brother, two sisters and a "hardworking mom and dad." His dad died about 18 years ago from cancer.

In junior high, Bishop started "bulking up." He ran track and played football in junior high and high school.

He was always "sort of driven, always out exploring, wanting to try new and different things," he said. He also was "super competitive."

"I had to be the best at everything. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's bad," he said. "You have to learn to be a good sport and you have to learn to understand that sometimes, it's not your day to win."

He learned a lot of life lessons in sports. One that remains with him today, he said, is treating people with respect, even people you're competing with.

Bishop said he best learned the lesson of integrity from his mother, Dorothy Bishop, who lives in Anderson.

But his path to entrepreneurship with a focus on nutrition was far from straight and narrow.

His first corporate job was at Michelin. He moved to Seattle at 21, wanting to get away from Greenville. He and some partners built single-family homes for a time.

Later, when he moved back to Greenville, he opened a photography business. When business dipped, he took at job at Fuji Film through a temp agency. It was supposed to be for six weeks, but instead turned into an 11-year stint.

All the while, weight was becoming an issue in his life, he said.

The connection

Wally and his wife, Gwen, were both divorced when they met 14 years ago through work.

As a buyer at Fuji, Bishop was responsible for office supplies, equipment, furniture and more. Gwen worked for a company that Bishop was doing business with. She became his customer service representative. They met over the phone.

"I remember that day vividly. The phone rang, I picked it up, and she says, 'Hi. I'm your new customer service rep.' It was like this little switch in my heart that sort of flipped," Bishop said.

He was still operating the photography business part-time. Gwen also had a love for photography.

That was a big connection between the two, Bishop said. "We developed a huge friendship that went from there."

Wally and Gwen had been on a quest to find their calling, their true passion, for years. Bishop said he has always had a soft heart for people, and he's always been a compassionate, giving kind of guy. "I got that from my mom," he said.

The couple dreamed and talked about one day having a nonprofit to help people. But exactly what and how they would help, they could never pinpoint "and the door never really opened until I got sick," Gwen said.

At the time, Bishop weighed more than 400 pounds, and Gwen about 220, she said. And although they knew they wanted to help others, "nutrition never entered our minds," she said.

'I had no life'

The year was 2004. Gwen had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and was unable to work. She was seeing three different doctors and was on seven medications.

Nothing was working. And "the pain was excruciating," Gwen said. "I had no life."

Bishop was the heaviest he'd ever been. He had tried every diet imaginable.

"It was the typical dieting yo-yo-syndrome thing. You lose 50 pounds and over the next year you gain 70 back," he said.

In addition to the weight gain, health issues began to pile up — diabetes, high blood pressure, rosacea, ocular rosacea, sleep apnea, arthritis.

"I could barely walk, to be honest with you," he said. "I'd given up on me."

But he couldn't give up on his hope for Gwen.

"I prayed a lot. I was like, there's got to be an answer. I can't just sit here and watch her suffer," he said.

He ordered a couple of nutritional products for Gwen. She wouldn't take them, he said, so he did. He began to have more energy, and he began trying to walk a little for exercise.

His first walk was about 200 feet, and "it literally killed me," Bishop said. "But I was trying to get my life back."

By the end of two weeks, he was walking a mile. He'd get to work an hour early and walk a mile. He'd walk during a break, during lunch, in the afternoon and more when he got home from work.

Eventually, he began walking eight to nine miles a day. He began to lose weight and his health began to improve.

"My body started healing and repairing and revitalizing itself and a new me emerged," he said.

While he continued to work at Fuji, Bishop decided to go back to school part-time to study nutrition. He likened his new-found knowledge about nutrition to finding the Holy Grail.

"I never wanted to be that heavy. Problem was, I didn't know anything about nutrition. I didn't realize the food I was eating was the problem, causing the issues," he said. "That just goes to show you that once you start giving your body the right building blocks, the body can respond."

'Life-giving'

It took three years to develop Vive, a supplement sold online and in local stores and businesses.

"Nutrients fuel life," Bishop said. "Our bodies can't life without nutrition, and so the word 'vive' basically means life-giving."

Both he and Gwen drink Vive shakes and use it daily in their growing collection of natural and raw foods recipes.

"We went through three different revisions and finally got it where we like it taste-wise, texture-wise and nutritionally," he said.

Vive, he said, is made from whole food and contains a mix of vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, protein, fiber, probiotics, pre-biotics, enzymes and antioxidants.

"It covers everything," he said. "It's made from food, and the other nutrients we add to it are really highly absorbable nutrients."

Bishop's office is based in Greenville, off Woods Lake Road. The Vive shakes are tested and packaged at a lab in Colorado.

He reaches customers through his Internet site, the book he's written and the articles on health he provides to numerous magazines. He's also been tapped to lead a nutrition program for employees at Fuji Film.

Bryan Carver has known Bishop most of his life, and said his friend's recent transformation "really lit a fire in him."

"He is constantly talking about nutrition, the importance of it, and he's focused and continues to want to help others," Carver said.