weight loss

After Losing 322 Pounds, One Man’s Thoughts On Christie Surgery

Russ Hannagan before and after losing 322 pounds. (Courtesy)

As a man who formerly weighed over 500 pounds, I’ve been thinking a lot about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s recent announcement that he had lap band surgery. And I’m not alone: The governor’s surgery has also been a hot topic among many of my weight-loss friends on Facebook and Twitter, and my fellow diet workshop participants in Newton.

As a “New Jersey Boy” myself (born and raised in Carteret, Exit 12 on the Turnpike), and because I still have many friends who live in the Garden State, I like to keep tabs on what’s happening there. At first my friends and I felt Mr. Christie was in a state of denial. I believe he was once quoted as saying he was the healthiest “overweight” man you’d ever meet. Many of us who attend diet workshops know this feeling. You are overweight but still feel it’s not a problem. Like an alcoholic who claims they can stop at any time.

We would love to sit down with him and talk with him about “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” of weight loss. I mention this because back in November of 2011 I weighed over 533 pounds. In a little over a year, I have lost 322 pounds. I now weigh 210. My goal weight is 200 pounds, so I am only 10 pounds away from reaching it. But it took a great deal of hard work to get to where I am now.

I know this sounds like every other Cinderella story out there but through the years I have tried every diet in the book. From counting calories, to getting food shipped to me, to attending overeaters classes; you name it and I have tried it. Sure, I would lose the weight for a while and I would be healthy, but then it would all come back with a vengeance and I would be even worse then I was before.

Russ Hannagan celebrates his 50th birthday, a year after his surgery. (Courtesy)

My epiphany came when I met a friend I had not seen in a long time. I literally did not recognize her because she’d lost so much weight. I asked her what she’d done to transform herself. That’s when she told me about bariatric weight-loss surgery.

There are two main types of this surgery (and I’m not counting lap band surgery here). With the bariatric procedure they surgically alter your stomach into a small pouch (Roux-en-Y) or a gastric by pass sleeve. I won’t go into all the details — but suffice it to say I got the pouch.

Each month at Newton Wellesley Hospital, I attend these free diet workshops with other patients who are having or have had the surgery. The nurses, nutritionists, doctors, and fellow patients teach each other how to eat right and exercise properly. We all continue to attend the workshops to stay current on what types of vitamins are available and how stay healthy. The surgery is a tool — not a cure and not a goal. In the right hands and used in the correct way this tool can make your life so much better. I am proof of that. Used incorrectly it can be as useless as any other fad diet out there. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Personal Health, bariatric surgery, lap band surgery, obesity, weight loss

May 8, 2013 | 10:49 AM | Carey Goldberg

Weight-Loss Surgeon: Christie-Style Secrecy Common, Stigma Lingers

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is surrounded by security and journalists in 2012. (Getty Images via NPR)

I’m not sure which is grabbier news: That New Jersey Governor Chris Christie underwent weight-loss surgery in February or that he felt compelled to keep the operation secret until The New York Post was about to publish a story about it.

I asked Dr. Daniel B. Jones, director of the Weight Loss Surgery Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a Harvard professor of Surgery, for his perspective. He began by emphasizing that all patients are entitled to privacy about their health care, including a governor. He went on:

That said, it is not uncommon for patients, when they have weight loss surgery, to say, ‘I don’t want anyone to know about this.’ We try to get patients over that hump as part of the pre-operative evaluation.

As physicians, we really want patients to identify: Who’s your support group? Who’s your champion? If your spouse doesn’t know what you’re doing, they’ll bring junk food into the house; if family members don’t know, they may think you’re not eating enough. So we really want some core people to know what’s going on. That said, most people do have a core group but don’t want other people to know.

Dr. Daniel B. Jones (BIDMC)

We don’t know the reason but we think there’s still sort of a stigma to having weight-loss surgery. So even though we’re doing 150,000 weight-loss operations a year [in the United States], there’s the idea that if you have a weight-loss operation you’re somehow ‘taking the easy way out.’ You’re kind of ‘cheating.’ You’re just not tough enough to do the diet and exercise required for weight loss. You’re somehow ‘weak,’ right?

We even see this with gastric bypass patients who, six months after surgery, when they’ve lost 100 pounds and they’re healthier and more mobile, they still ask themselves, ‘Should I have done this without an operation?’

So this is sort of normal. In fact, I had a nurse — this was a real clandestine operation. She came in with a separate name, only a bare-minimum number of people got to know who it was. It was done in complete secrecy, but three to four months later, after her lap band was working, the whole hospital knew she’d had it. So what happens is, you reach a point of ‘Everyone can know.’

I quote people a 40-percent chance that the band over their lifetime will need to be repaired, revised or removed.

The other part of it is a concern that you might fail. And the pressure’s kind of high. So once you’re winning, everyone likes to share success. Not everyone knows whether they’re going to achieve it. You have to remember, everyone who’s had a weight loss operation has, by definition, already been on multiple diets — that’s a requirement for any operation in an accredited bariatric program. It’s very common for people to have lost 15 or 50 or 100 pounds, and for one reason or another they’ve gained back even more. It has to do with our physiology. It’s not about willpower.

The body has a set point and whether you like it nor not, your body hovers there. So if you diet in the traditional sense and knock the weight down, your body thinks you’re somehow starving it. And the first chance it gets, it fires off chemicals that not only push you back to where you started, it sets your new set point higher. We call this yo-yo-ing.

Whether it’s the band or the sleeve or the bypass, [weight-loss operations] do things that make it possible for people to get the weight off and keep it off. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, bariatric surgery, weight loss

March 28, 2013 | 10:30 AM | Rachel Zimmerman

Study Finds ‘Significant’ Weight Loss Among Seriously Mentally Ill

It’s widely known that people with serious mental illness have a lower life expectancy — around 25 years less — compared to the general population. One reason is that these folks are more likely to smoke and be overweight or obese which, of course, can lead to all sorts of critical health problems — heart disease, diabetes, respiratory troubles and a whole host of chronic illnesses. The challenges facing this population are great: the very medications they take to function through the day can lead to weight gain, and studies have shown that they often have poor diets and sedentary lives.

(Tobyotter/flickr)

A number of efforts are currently underway to try to reverse this trend by focusing directly on the physical health of the mentally ill.

The latest study in this arena, published in The New England Journal of Medicine today, found that a so-called “behavioral weight-loss intervention” including weight-management counseling and group exercise “significantly” reduced weight “in overweight and obese adults with serious mental illness” (including those with major depression, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder).

The mean weight loss, after 18 months, was 7 pounds, researchers from Johns Hopkins report. Not so much, you may think. But researchers note: “This extent of weight loss, albeit modest, has been shown to have beneficial effects, such as a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease among persons with an initially elevated risk.” Also noteworthy is that people in this study, called ACHIEVE, lost weight gradually over time.

“Participants in the intervention group in ACHIEVE continued to lose weight after 6 months and did not regain weight, Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Personal Health, exercise, mental health, obesity, research, weight loss

March 26, 2013 | 2:49 PM | Carey Goldberg

Boston’s Million-Pound Goal Looks Like A Losing Battle, But…

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino cuts cake during last year’s Boston Harborfest, back when cake was likelier to be on the menu. (U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons)

Boston’s battle to lose is looking, at the moment, like a losing battle. That is to say, Mayor Thomas Menino’s one-year goal of a million collectively shed pounds by late next month is looking exceedingly distant. As the Boston Globe declares in this feature story by lifestyle reporter Beth Teitell:

So far we’ve lost 95,697 pounds. Only 904,303 to go. By April 23.

People, now would be a good time to start that juice fast.

Beth joins us on Radio Boston between 3 and 4 today to discuss the city’s weight-loss campaign. Just a couple of points to note:

It’s very hard to know whether that disappointing poundage is a true failure to lose or just a failure to track. I spoke today to Boston City Councillor Felix Arroyo. Last year, when Mayor Menino announced his million-pound march, WBUR’s Delores Handy reported that he also personally pledged to lose two pounds a month himself. Other weight-loss pledges followed, she reported, including Arroyo’s goal of over three pounds a month.

So how did he do? Not badly. He hasn’t lost the 36-plus pounds he pledged, but he estimates he’s lost about 10 pounds, mainly by cutting back on unhealthy food and listening to the stomach that tells him he’s full rather than the taste buds that tell him the food is delicious.

He’s doing just what weight loss experts suggest, creating a sustainable, healthier lifestyle rather than following an extreme, faddish diet. Just one rub: he didn’t think he’d charted his weight loss on the city’s Website, and if a man who’s civically oriented enough to be a city councillor doesn’t get around to doing it, you can bet a great many other citizens are similarly remiss.

“Most people I talk to think about weight loss at one point or another, and it’s not the easiest thing to do but I also suspect it may not be the easiest thing to track on a mass scale,” he said. It may not be possible to know whether Boston has lost a million pounds or not, he said, because it’s so hard “to create a mass consciousness across the city of, ‘Lose weight and track it in this place.’ I don’t envy the work of the people trying to do that.’” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Personal Health, massachusetts public health association, obesity, weight loss

January 21, 2013 | 10:41 AM | Carey Goldberg

Study: Tweet Your Way To Weight Loss

feetonscale

I hereby dub this “The Brian Stelter Effect.” Stelter is the New York Times reporter who famously used the social-media site Twitter as a tool to lose nearly 75 pounds in 2010. He wrote:

I knew that I could not diet alone; I needed the help of a cheering section. But rather than write a blog, keep a diary or join Weight Watchers, I decided to use Twitter. I thought it would make me more accountable, because I could record everything I ate instantly. And because Twitter posts are automatically pushed to each person who subscribes to them, an audience — of friends or strangers — can follow along.

Stelter credited Twitter with helping not only him lose weight but some of his Twitter “followers” as well. Now, Wired reports that a new study finds more evidence for the Stelter Effect.

Researchers at the University of South Carolina found the support and accountability provided by posting to the social networking site made a difference in how much weight people lost. Although the two groups in the study — one that tweeted and one that didn’t — lost the same amount of weight during the trial, the individuals within the Twitter group who posted the most also lost the most weight.

Both groups received podcasts containing information on nutrition and exercise, but one group tracked their progress in a book, while another used a smartphone app and Twitter. When Brie Turner-McGrievy and her colleagues at USC’s Arnold School of Public Health took a closer look at the results, they found those actively tweeting and retweeting lost more weight. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Personal Health, diet, obesity, weight loss

November 27, 2012 | 3:48 PM | Rachel Zimmerman

As Menino Recovers, City Enlists Weight Watchers For Cut-Rate Memberships

You don’t need an M.D. to figure out that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino isn’t well. He’s been diagnosed with diabetes and also suffers from Crohn’s disease; he was recently hospitalized for a month “after cutting short a vacation in Italy because of a respiratory infection,” the AP reported.

While in the hospital, the 69-year-old mayor “suffered a compression fracture in a vertebra in his spine and also was treated for a blood clot that moved from his leg to his lungs,” the AP says. “Dr. Charles Morris said that while Menino was hospitalized, doctors also discovered an infection in his back and diagnosed him with Type 2 diabetes.” Now the mayor’s in rehab at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.

(J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Menino’s battle with his weight has also been well documented. In his state of the city address in January, Menino vowed to lose two pounds a month as part of a city-wide anti-obesity effort. At the time he said: “Look, weight is an issue that many of us struggle with. But what is daunting on our own becomes doable when we work together. So my goal is to see all of us combine to shed a million pounds this year.”

To aid in that effort, the city announced today a new partnership with Weight Watchers that gives eligible Boston residents discounted memberships to the popular weight management program. Here’s much of the news release:

As part of Mayor Menino’s Boston Moves for Health initiative, Weight Watchers, a leader in weight management services that has helped millions of people worldwide, will work with Dorchester House Multi-Service Center, Mattapan Community Health Center, and East Boston Neighborhood Health Center to provide steeply discounted weight loss and weight management services for up to 1,000 qualifying participants beginning in January. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Personal Health, obesity, Thomas Menino, weight loss, weight watchers

September 20, 2012 | 10:02 AM | Rachel Zimmerman

Why To Exercise Today: You Don’t Have To Do Much To Reap Benefits

(Geff Rossi/flickr)

As soon as the temperature dropped below 70, everyone in my house got either sick or really cranky. I was not immune: yesterday, I was dragging, yelling at bad drivers and feeling like each of my minor, daily tasks was instead a major ordeal. I was considering skipping my daily exercise and crawling back into bed, but instead decided to take a very short jog. It completely changed my outlook, reset my bad attitude barometer and prevented an afternoon of mindless snacking. And, according to a recent report, it was good enough.

Time Healthland sums up the new research on limited exercise with big benefits this way:

As with so many other things in life, exercise may work best if you follow the Goldilocks rule: exercise neither too little nor too much, if your goal is to shed extra weight, a new study finds.

Here are the details:

By the end of the 13 weeks, the results were both expected and unexpected, the researchers reported. Not surprisingly, the sedentary group saw no changes in their weight. The men in the high-intensity exercise group lost an average of 5 lbs., but while weight loss was expected, the researchers said these men lost about 20% less than they would have anticipated, given how many extra calories they were burning. Even more surprising were the results from the moderate exercise group: these men lost an average of 7 lbs. each, 83% more than what the researchers would have guessed based on calorie expenditure alone.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Personal Health, exercise, weight loss

February 1, 2012 | 1:40 PM | Carey Goldberg

Study: ‘Virtual Coach’ Helps Keep Overweight People Moving

If you’ve been talking with Siri on your iPhone lately, you know how deeply natural it is to respond to a computer-generated “person” as if they were human even when you know perfectly well they’re built of nothing but bits. (I heard my 85-year-old dad tell his iPhone after a failed query the other day, “Thank you for trying.”)

Researchers had already found that patients tend to respond well to post-hospital instructions from computer-generated “discharge nurses.” Now, a new study finds that “virtual coaches” can help overweight people get more active, at least during a 12-week study.

(Of course I applaud anything that helps encourage exercise, but I’m having a dark vision at the moment: An AI-based coach built into my alarm clock, intoning, “You know you have to get up now to have time to work out, because it’s been three days and you’re up one pound and your blood sugar is a bit high from that ice cream and you know you’re hoping to fit into those jeans by Memorial Day!” On the other hand, maybe that’s what it takes…)

First, what is a virtual coach? There she is above, and Partners Healthcare’s Center for Connected Health explains in a press release:

“The Virtual Coach is a computer-animated advisor and simulated face-to-face conversation, including verbal and non-verbal communication, including goal setting, positive reinforcement, problem solving, education and social interaction. Dialogue was tailored based on the participant’s progress, current status against their goals and interaction with the Virtual Coach (i.e., asking the Virtual Coach a question or asked for help).” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Personal Health, diabetes, obesity, virtual medicine, weight loss

January 18, 2012 | 1:26 PM | Carey Goldberg

Boston Mayor Pledges To Lose 2 Lbs A Month; Councillors Up The Ante

Mayor Menino in a September interview at WBUR

The big news from Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s 19th State of the City speech last night was about overhauling the city’s school assignment system, but let’s not neglect the health elements in his address. WBUR’s Delores Handy covered the speech and reports on a “Biggest Loser” moment afterward.

WBUR's Delores Handy

In his speech, Mayor Menino noted that half of Bostonians are overweight, and said: “Look, weight is an issue that many of us struggle with. But what is daunting on our own becomes doable when we work together. So my goal is to see all of us combine to shed a million pounds this year.”

Delores reports that after the speech, Menino pledged personally to lose at least two pounds a month for the next year.

City councillor Tito Jackson one-upped the mayor and pledged to lose three pounds a month.

Councillor Felix Arroyo raised the ante just a bit, saying he’d go to 3.2 pounds a month, and that he could use help with his weight loss efforts.

Gentlemen, start your engines….

See Delores Handy’s excellent full report on the State of the City speech here.

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Personal Health, mayor thomas menino, obesity, weight loss

August 29, 2011 | 1:14 PM | Rachel Zimmerman

Let’s Do Lunch (Or Not): Lighter Midday Meal Eases Weight Loss, Study Finds

Easy on the mayo: Study finds lighter lunch helps shed the pounds

When I worked at a big daily newspaper, everyone went out to lunch. I hated it. The guys would get these large pasta dishes with bread, or big plates of Thai noodles, or massive meat-laden sandwiches. Even the salads weren’t salads. They had bacon bits and raisins and nuts and lots of ranch dressing. If I joined them, I inevitably felt exhausted, bloated and guilty for the rest of the day. I always felt better with my little cup of yogurt and fruit.

Well, a new study today vindicates my anti-lunch position:

Researchers at Cornell report that simply eating a lighter lunch can help people lose weight fairly painlessly.

Their research, published in the October issue of the journal Appetite, found that people who grazed on “portion-controlled” lunches didn’t make up for those calories by stuffing themselves later in the day. That, according to a Cornell press release, led researchers “to believe the human body does not possess the mechanisms necessary to notice a small drop in energy intake,” and could be a path to modest weight loss.

“The study closely monitored the food intake of 17 volunteers who ate whatever they wanted from a buffet for one week. For the next two weeks, half the group selected their lunch by choosing from one of six commercially available, portion-controlled foods, such as Chef Boyardee Pasta or Campbell’s Soup at Hand, but could eat as much as they wished at other meals or snacks. For the final two weeks, the other half of volunteers followed the same regimen.

While eating portion-controlled lunches, each participant consumed 250 fewer calories per day and lost, on average, 1.1 pounds.”

Doctoral student Carly Pacanowski, who co-authored the study with David Levitsky, Cornell professor of nutritional sciences and of psychology is quoted saying: “Making small reductions in energy intake to compensate for the increasing number of calories available in our food environment may help prevent further weight gain, and one way of doing this could be to consume portion-controlled lunches a few times a week.” She adds: “Over a year, such a regimen would result in losing at least 25 pounds.”