Personal notes about my weight

It’s time for me to talk about my weight. I first became conscious about my weight in 1961. I fell out of my Dad’s car on to the pavement and broke my collarbone. The doctor put me in a cast and after a teenage life full of activity; I was required to not be active. I did however continue to eat. I went from 135 pound to 165 pounds by the time I had the cast removed after one month. There I was in my sophomore year and had gained 30 pounds in a month. I began playing golf that February and the walking daily helped some but I didn’t lose any weight.

Things were never the same after that. I slowly but steadily gained weight all through High School until I weighed 190 pounds in my senior year. I was still in pretty good physical condition, but the weight was starting to affect me, and also affect how others saw me. I spent the summer after graduation working at summer camp and was being quite physically active. I was running and swimming every day.

In September 1963 I decided to go into the US Coast Guard and went to Boot Camp at Base Alameda on September 9th 1963. I weighed about 190 pounds and was very physically fit. I was strong and fast and quite ready to meet the physical requirements that would be placed on me for those 12 weeks of intense physical and mental activity. In that first week, I had to go in for the entrance physical and the doctors wanted to toss me out for being obese. I was 5’7” and weighed 190 pounds. On the weight chart, of course I was obese. I convinced them to allow me to go to the fifth week PE test and if I passed it I could stay in. My company commander, Clem Meredith, made sure that I was VERY physically active and I passed the test easily.

By the time I got out of boot camp I weighed about 175 and was in top physical condition. As I settled in to my more mundane existence at the Base, I started to gain back some of those pounds I had lost. The diet at the Base was fairly high in carbohydrates, and also included high levels of fried foods, as well as fruits, and vegetables (poorly cooked I might add). I was fairly active and stayed in good condition with regular physical training and swimming.

In May 1964 I was transferred to Dental Technician School in San Diego to train for four months. It was summer in San Diego and I spent a lot of time surfing and swimming in the ocean. None of us had cars, so we walked everywhere and that was a plus. We played a lot of volleyball as well. And it was jungle rules, so it was very physical. I stayed pretty much around 195 pounds during this period and things were fine.

In the fall of 1964, I finished DentalTech school and was transferred to the USCG Base in Curtis Bay Maryland near Baltimore. I worked in the dental clinic and every afternoon either played football or softball. Again there was a slight increase in weight to about 200 pounds but I was eating well and was active. I didn’t see the weight as a problem. In the spring of 1965, I was tired of staying on the Base and decided to go into Baltimore most evenings. I started to go dancing at the USO and spent 2-3 hours almost every day dancing vigorously to the rock and roll of the day. I was a good dancer and made a number of friends at the USO in that year. I stayed around 200 pounds during that time. My uniform fit me well and I looked pretty good in civilian clothes.

In December 1965 I met my wife to be. Sandi liked who I was and what I looked like. She was slender and pretty and full of crazy life. We married in July 1966 and moved to Baltimore to our first apartment. I weighed about 210 pounds. Slowly over the first year of marriage, we both gained weight. We didn’t have much money and our diet was dominated by carbohydrates and coupled with a lowered activity level, the pounds started quietly adding on.

I started college in September 1967 at Cal Poly in Biological Sciences. I studied a lot to ensure that I would be able to get through. I also didn’t have too many physical activities outside of the home. Gradually I went up to 225 pounds. I felt a bit loggy but generally fine. But people did comment.

Through graduate school in San Diego and at UC Davis, the weight slowly accumulated. And by the end of the 1970s I was well up into the 200’s. Again it appeared that the combination of calories in and calories out were not matching and thermodynamics were at work. I tried dieting and was successful, as most overweight people are, for short periods of time.

We moved into Tustin, California in the summer of 1982 and I began working for an environmental consulting company. I had slowly but inexorably kept gaining and was now up to 250 pounds. I was not able to do things as I used to and was diagnosed in 1985 with Type 2 diabetes. Control was with pills and diet but that did not stop the slow increase in weight over time. Coupled with my elevated blood pressure, my health was not on a good path.

In 1987 we moved to northern California and the kids started middle and high school, and Sandi and I began a new career running an environmental testing laboratory. I was being required to do a lot of physical work including field work, carrying heavy materials, and doing construction. I felt that I was pretty fit, though in reality I was not. As business increased through 1991 my physical activities decreased as I had staff doing a lot of the heavy work. My weight had gone up to 270 pounds and it was pretty stable there. My diabetes now required heavier medications. Blood sugar control was still difficult and my blood pressure was up in problematical ranges.

In 1993 I began seeing a nutritionist about my diabetes and nutritional control. At one point she told me I could take as much insulin as I needed to get satisfactory control over my blood sugar levels. I began giving myself approximately 300 units or more of insulin daily. Over a period of two months I put on about 30 pounds, going from 280 to 310 pounds. I finally realized that the excess insulin was acting like an anabolic steroid and causing the weight gain. That weight did not come off quickly.

I didn’t feel that my weight was a hindrance to me in business or to my health. I was probably right about the business, but certainly wrong about the health. Sandi was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in late 2004 and died on Valentine’s Day in 2005. Due to the problems my wife had with her bariatric surgery I was not particularly enamoured with having surgery for weight loss.

I reconnected with my future wife Elizabeth on a trip to Italy in the fall of 2005. I had begun having some minor chest pains on exertion. I had a stress EKG in 2006 and had a minor heart attack in the hallway of the hospital, and I quickly realized that things had to change. had a double bypass surgery plus a new laser treatment. My diet was already improved and my cholesterol was excellent. The contributions of the combined risk factors of diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol are what likely caused the attack. Within three months I had gone back to work. I was still at 300 pounds but I felt a lot better and the chest pains had stopped. But I knew that was likely only temporary. There were things that still needed to be done.

Elizabeth and I were married in March of 2008 and while she was very pretty, I looked like an overweight Mafia don. Shortly after the wedding, we watched a 60 Minutes segment on bariatric surgery where all of the patients were also diabetic. The surgery and resulting weight loss apparently eliminated their demand for medications or insulin. As I thought about that, I realized that the long term effects of the diabetes were certainly more problematical than just the weight, but they were interactive and the whole body was involved in the problem. A friend of ours had the bariatric surgery called a vertical gastrectomy in November 2007 and was down about 70 pounds by March 2008 when he took the pictures at our wedding. We had discussed his surgery and I decided to go see his surgeon about possibly me doing the same thing.

In May 2008, I met with my surgeon at our first meeting and spent a lengthy amount of time discussing the various surgical options. He felt that I would be a good candidate for the gastrectomy surgery and gave me about a 92% chance of getting off insulin. At that point, I decided to go forward with the surgery. Since my insurance wouldn’t pay for the surgery, I was required to come up with the money myself. The preoperative process included: endoscopy/colonoscopy, x-rays, blood tests and a psychological evaluation. I had one month to get all this done before my scheduled surgery on June 4, 2008.

On the evening of June 3rd, I took my last long-lasting insulin shot. The next morning my son drove me to the hospital at 10 AM. At 1:30PM, after pre-op meds, I walked into surgery. The surgery took about an hour and a half, and was done using laparoscopic techniques. I awoke at 4PM and was put in a private room. I had ice chips that night, but the next morning, I was offered a high protein liquid breakfast. This was certainly a lot different than in 1981. After a liquid lunch, I was discharged and drove home with the convertible top down. It was certainly a new day.

Over the next few weeks I was kept on a liquid high protein diet. When I went into the hospital I had gone from 300 pounds at out first surgical meeting in May to 292. I began losing weight at an initial rate of 20-30 pounds per month. This lasted for 2 months. I had no pain or discomfort and I felt fine. My blood sugar levels dropped steadily after the surgery with no insulin intervention. My blood pressure was still a bit high but all of my doctors felt that it would come down over time.

The reason I had the surgery was first and foremost to try to eliminate the diabetes. I wasn’t as concerned about how I would look, but more about how I would feel and be health-wise. As I have lost the weight, I have also been able to feel better about how I look. But I am still happier about how I feel. I am now down to 165 pounds. The loss has been 135 pounds since May 2008. I am able to walk for extended periods of time as well as ride the stationary bike for a hour or more. Recently I pushed a wheelbarrow full of 110 pounds of fertilizer up a hill for 100 yards without any discomfort. The net benefits have been increased vitality, decreased fasting blood sugar (now in the normal range), and decreased blood pressure. I am restricted to approximately 8-9 bites per meal and I eat three meals per day. A number of people have expressed concern that I might lose too much weight, but at this point I can adjust my diet by increasing caloric intake to maintain my current weight. I have been steady at 165 pounds since June 2009.

Over the last year I have been acutely aware of how people who have had bariatric surgery deal with their weight loss and in some cases regain the weight. Several of the surgical options tend to leave a bit too much stomach muscle available which can stretch and accommodate potential overeating. I think it is important to understand why you are overweight. If it is because of psychological factors, these should be addressed before you have the surgery. You are truly changing your life and need to clearly understand how that process will transpire. Having lived with Sandi for 24 years after her surgery I found that I understood the problems and processes better than most, and when I decided I was ready, I was ready.

I know that my life has changed for the better. I moved full time to Italy in August 2008. I am no longer taking insulin, and am exercising daily. Extra weight is not just a state of mind. It is neither healthy nor attractive. While society frowns on overweight people, a very large percentage of us are overweight (50-60% in the US). It is very important to understand the health implications of the weight. Acceptance of the weight can be a false acceptance of yourself and it will ultimately affect your long term health. Having been on that side of the fence for so many years and seeing and feeling the real or imagined disapproval, I finally realized that I needed to do this for me. Not for how the public perceived me or how attractive I may become, but for my own survival and the new life I now lead.