But as passionate as he was about his chosen field, some­ thing held him back: his weight. In the tall of 2004, the North Springs High School senior weighed 283 pounds. "I was eating enormous amounts of food," Feinberg recalls. "1 could cat an entire pie from Publix in one sitting. It was disgusting."

Feinberg also felt disgusting. He had low self-esteem and was depressed. "I was so self-conscious about my looks, about how people looked at me," he says. "It was horrible - 1 didn't think anyone would like me."

His mother, Betsy, recalls those fateful auditions. "He went into every one thinking, 'They're going to hate me. I'm so fat," she says.

A doctors appointment in October 2004 rattled him. Feinberg says his doctor told him he was dangerously big and it was time to make a change. So change he did - both physically and mentally. He and his mother started Weight Watchers together, and Feinberg began work­ing out with a trainer. Today, Feinberg weighs just over 200 pounds, and says he feels like a different person.

"People look at you and are like, “Wow, Scott, you look wonderful!” he says on his cell phone as he walks the streets of Boston, where he is a freshman at the New England Conservatory of Music. "I feel I can do anything now:"

WORDS DO HURT
The physical and mental transformation was a year-long journey, and continues to be a process, Feinberg says.

For one thing, he had always been heavy, he says. "I always ate a lot of food. It always was a problem. It got to the point it was ridiculous - I couldn't do it anymore.

Both he and his mother remember the teasing, especially in elementary school.

The family, which includes father Stephen and 17-year-old brother Kevin, lived at the time in Chicago. Kids would bully young Scott because of his weight and his high IQ, Betsy says. "The combination of' those things just made him Target Number 1," she says.

When Feinberg was in fifth grade, he broke his foot and one classmate wrote "Boobman" on his Cast because of his heaviness. "Words do hurt;' Feinberg says.

He also was not an exerciser. "He was the couch potato of all time;' Betsy says. "He played soccer in first grade [but] he always wanted to be the goalie because he didn't have to run:"

In middle school, Feinberg attended a private school in Chicago for gifted children. He fared better there but still had few friends, Betsy recalls. The family moved to Atlanta when Scott was in 10th grade. Still not popular - and still overweight - he flourished in the North Springs drama department, she says, landing leads in school musicals.

But that senior year when he tried out at his heaviest, he did not even make the chorus.

"It destroyed him," Betsy says, adding that he realized it had to do with his weight. "He said, “I'm going to stop eating."

EVERYTHING IN MODERATION
Instead, the mother and son tried something healthier: Weight Watchers. Through its system, foods are assigned point values, and program participants are allowed a cer­tain number of points per day.

"That really helped me," Feinberg says. "It made me start thinking about what foods I could eat and what foods I should avoid" because they had higher point values. "I learned that the goal to weight loss is not cutting out any one food in your diet - it's eating everything in moderation:"

Each week, Betsy, a realtor with Harry Norman, and Scott went to meetings at the Weight Watchers location in Buckhead. He enjoyed the camaraderie and the lessons he was learn­ing, as well as the time with his mother. "We inspired each other and kept each other going at it. If one of us was down, we always cheered the other one up," he says.

Betsy Feinberg, who has lost 18 pounds, agrees. "The only reason I did [lose the weight] was because of Scott," she says, adding that the two would also go grocery shopping together, and plan and cook healthy meals. They also kept each other from cheating, she adds. "Some weeks when we'd go and lose a big amount of weight, there would be that temptation. I'd say, “Let's have spaghetti for dinner” and he'd say, “How can you think that?” The next week it would be him saying, “I want waffles. It was good to have someone to make you straighten up.”

That fall, Feinberg was referred to Paul Rodgers, per­sonal trainer and owner of IQ Fitness Buckhead. His philosophy stresses nutrition and joint safety. "If you look up a defini­tion of fitness, most often it says good nutrition and correct exercise. Nutrition fuels the body with what it needs," Rodgers says. Taking care of one's joints is crucial in the exercise portion of fitness, he adds. "If they do something along the way to hurt a joint, that will limit their ability to exercise throughout their life.”

A LIFESTYLE CHANGE
At IQ Fitness, the program features exercises that strengthen joints and muscles more naturally than with, say, barbells and free weights, Rodgers says. "We don't do any traditional body-building-style training. We specialize in the natural movement patterns our ancestors have done for thousands of years, not what a body builder decided would build big pecs 50 years ago.”

Feinberg's routine included a lot of cardio work on a tread­mill and elliptical machine, as well as strength training using cables rather than dumbbells. He trained with Rodgers two to three times per week for an hour. "It energized me and helped me to drop the weight a lot faster," Feinberg says.

The first time was grueling, he recalls. "I had never done stuff like that - working out and physical activity - in so long.” Feinberg says. "The exercises he was making me do, I was like, ‘How am I going to do this?’'

One of the hardest Feinberg calls the cone shuffle. It involves two orange traffic cones about 20 feet apart.

He had to shuffle his legs quickly between the two. "You have to continuously do it at high speed and keep going, keep your stamina up.”

Eventually, the workout got easier. Rodgers encouraged his charge in his healthy eating, advising him to eat organic products and other high-quali­ty, nutritional foods. The two became close, Betsy says. "When we met Paul, it changed Scott's life. He was the best thing that ever happened;" she says. "He spent one-on-one time with Scott, not in a trainer way but as a pal and a coach."

Rodgers saw a mental transformation in his young trainee as well as a physical one. "When he originally came in, he was very shy. When he started see­ing progress, it was like a light went on - he would walk into the gym and talk to everybody," Rodgers says. "He just made friends with everyone in the gym.”

WONDERFUL FRIENDS
"Though Feinberg is in Boston now, he keeps up his regime. He reads nutrition labels and chooses grilled food in the cafeteria. "I don't see it as a diet anymore." he says. "It's a lifestyle change."

He also walks everywhere, drinks a lot of water and exercis­es at the YMCA next to campus. He and Rodgers frequently email and Rodgers even plans to visit Feinberg in Boston and help him adapt his routine. Rodgers says Feinberg is begin­ning to study the IQ Fitness program, and may become an intern at the facility over the summer to help other young people who have similar issues.

Feinberg recognizes how his transformation will help him achieve his dreams of singing professionally. "People say, “It's not over till the fat lady sings, but that's not good for a singer.” he says. "You have to be physi­cally fit and strong to be an opera singer. You have to have the energy to sing for hours on end, so working out and being healthy is critical.”

His mother, too, has seen his determination to continue. She recently visited her son in Boston and saw his new life. "I can't tell you how many kids I met. They love him.” she says. "Several said things to me like, ‘He's so great. He's got such a beautiful voice.’ He has wonderful friends now and that's because he's so happy with who he is.”

Those wonderful friends didn't know Feinberg in his former incarnation... and he's proud of that. Working out and being healthy means he has a new outlook on life.

"When I tell people, they can't even picture what I would look like at 283 pounds. I have to show them [pictures]," he says.

“It’s just amazing to look at what I looked like then and now.”