Opinion: weight loss method is to save lives

I've been struggling with weight problems in the past 20 years. I won and lost over 500 pounds in this 20-year period, weight gain every time I have tried to lose weight. It was a vicious circle that could not get out of me. He needed help.

There are about nine years old, at the age of 47, I went to the 350-pound mark. Despite all attempts, I could not go below this level. As I came closer to 50, my weight ballooned to over 380 pounds. At 5-foot-10, had to give something. It has become difficult to attract simple things like shoes, or simply play climbing stairs only with my grandchildren.

I had a good friend who has undergone gastric bypass surgery and had great success. She had lost about 120 pounds and looked great.

I went to a seminar about the different types of gastric operations. After much reading, I decided to have a procedure called "gastric sleeve". This is a method in which the stomach is reduced by at least 60 percent and at the end, remaining in the stomach in the form of a tube.

My weight rose to 394 pounds, and I had to lose 20 pounds before my doctor could even perform surgery. So my journey began. Over a period of three months I lost 12 pounds then, about 10 days before surgery, I had on a full liquid diet to go. I lost 10 pounds more, and July 27, 2008, two weeks before my 50th birthday I had the gastric sleeve surgery.

On the morning of the operation, after my doctor often say that everything that could go wrong and you could die, the nurse came to prepare me for surgery. My blood pressure was very high and almost did not take me because of it.

Finally, I returned to the surgery and the week was very difficult. My wife helped me a lot after surgery. As soon as I got home and I did exactly what my doctor told me to do it, the weight begins to fall and fall fast.

Over the next eight months, my weight dropped from a maximum of £ 394 to £ 278 a total loss of 116 pounds. I have about 17 pounds in the last five years.

Gastric sleeve surgery has not only given me saved my life, my life. During surgery, they have a liver biopsy and it was found that a so-called non-alcoholic steatohepatitis have (NASH). They told me that if I will not to lose weight and change my eating habits are not likely to live more than 55 years.

So it was very easy for me to do exactly what he was told to do. The liver is able to repair itself and that is what has happened in the last two years.

Page 2 of 2 - I'm so glad I had the surgery, and I turned everything over to God. If someone is considering one of several forms of obesity surgery, I encourage you to talk with your doctor and do some research on the different types and make an informed decision for you. It could change his life.

Ron Ellis Williamson is a district administrator and Chairman.