It's been about a month since my surgery and I'm feeling good.
But I had an appointment with Dr.
now a few days ago, and he told me I haven't lost as much as I should have this past
month. And he thinks it's because some of my emotional issues.
Hey, Mike. I'm Dr.
Paradise. Come on in.
Look.
You can see right there.
Okay. So he wants me to start therapy to make sure I keep making progress.
Welcome. Tell me a little bit about yourself.
From central Ohio.
I have four kids with my ex wife.
How long did you get divorced?
Three years ago.
Okay. What was.
What was childhood like for you?
Busy. Always active.
Playing sports.
Lot of energy. Yeah.
You're a big guy. What sport you play?
Football, basketball, baseball.
So being a little overweight probably wasn't.
Wasn't a bad thing for football.
Got a full ride football scholarship from it and everything.
So.
Where did you go to college? Where'd you get Saint.
Francis University in Pennsylvania.
Okay. How'd that work out?
It started the first five games as a freshman.
Got two concussions, lost my memory, lost scholarship.
Wow. Okay.
So what happened after you lost your scholarship?
Football was my life.
And when taken away from me is when my depression started.
In the first, let's say, nine months, I gained £150.
Wow. In just less than a year, you gained £150.
Yeah. So food replaces football?
Yup.
So roll me ahead in the future.
Somewhere in there, you meet your ex wife.
I met my wife after I got back from college.
What happened after.
That? We were engaged in six months and got married within two years.
Oc When do you know you're having marriage problem?
It was about, let's see, middle of 2018.
She calls them and says, Hey, and we're getting a divorce.
She announces that to you?
Yes, in front of the kids.
She took the house, took the car.
I was not to have anything.
I couldn't see the kids.
You know, Mike, I'm noticing, though, this pattern of, like, something bad happens to
you that has an element of, like, bad luck, bad, something like that.
And then it, like, rolls downhill from there that you take a setback and you turn it into
something really, really big.
But I want to figure out a way for you to recognize, okay, I'm having a setback now.
I need to step up.
What'd you do when you guys were down in a football game and you didn't go sit on the
sideline? Right?
Try to figure out what we need to do to win.
So what are we going to do to make sure you're not going to sit on the sideline and
wait out the rest of the game?
Continue what I'm doing.
Yeah. Losing the weight.
Keeping your exercise up.
Tell me how things are going with your kids right now.
Oh, everything is going great.
Trying to see if I can get them down here for a weekend.
What's a goal you could have with your kids?
More physical activity.
Go outside and shoot hoops, play catch.
I really think you can be a huge success.
I'm really glad you came.
I'm looking forward to hearing all your progress.
Thank you.
Whoa. Take it.
Easy.
Thank you. I think talking and doing this today has been a help to help me move
forward. And I know Dr.
Now had some concerns about me going back home.
But my kids and being able to see them more is the biggest part of my life that's
missing. So no matter what, I'm going to do everything I need until I have everything
I've been working hard for back in my life.
I've been back home for about a month and I feel like I'm doing well and staying on
track. Milk soup, cottage cheese pudding, jell tuna.
It's a good list. That'll be good for a while.
Well, I'm out of here.
Before I left, I had an appointment with Dr.
Now, and I was down to 545, so I lost another £17 over the previous month.
Dr. Now says I was getting back to being on track, but I don't know how much I've lost
since I've been back home, and I won't know my weight until I go back to doctor now, next
month. Dr.
Now wanted me to talk to my parents about making sure my environment here is supportive
and how things used to be for me changes.
And both my mom and dad have been completely on board eating what I eat.
So I'm not around bad food.
My mom helps me make my meals and my dad helps me with my workouts and does them with
me. So they're really helping me.
But I know this is all still mostly on me, so I'm taking the initiative to make sure I
have what I need every day doing healthy and not stray from my diet.
And so far I haven't.
The weight loss surgery has really cut my appetite down, so I can't eat much.
I still have some cravings every now and then, but not nearly like I did before
surgery. Good.
How are you?
Soup's hot.
You know, pretty soon you'll be sitting here over at the table because.
You won't need all the space over here.
Eventually, OC.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this food.
We thank you for Mike all the way.
He is staying to his diet and losing the weight he can.
I'm working with Dr. Paradise on my emotional issues and that's helping me stay motivated
and focused. I'm sticking to what I need to eat because my physical hunger is gone with
the surgery and I'm exercising every day.
You ready to take a walk? Yup.
So I feel a lot better than I have in a really long time.
Oh, man. Beautiful island.
Nice breeze.
And I feel like my life is starting to come back together.
You're keeping up with me?
I'm still fighting to have my kids in my life more.
Okay, let's turn around.
Got enough? You got touch.
Stop sign. You can turn around then.
That's.
We'll get you running here in a few months.
But I feel like my life is getting better.
I even started working again.
Before I left Houston, I started looking for an I.T.
job I could do from home, and I applied and got the job.
My dad and I made a workstation for me down the basement, and I work full time most days,
going from morning till late afternoon.
Without feeling rundown or too tired afterwards.
So it's been great to feel productive.
I know I still have a long way to go, but I'm proud of how far I've gone when I see my
life getting better like this.
I'm going to do everything I need to keep moving forward because I'm not going to let
myself mess this up.
I'm back in Houston for my next appointment with Dr.
Now. This time I made the trip without my dad, and that's another big step for me being
able to travel on my own.
I flew on my own just to make sure I keep this appointment and keep my commitment to
Dr. Now.
Michael.
Good morning.
Two months ago, I was down to 545.
Step up on the scale.
And Dr. now says for me to stay on track, I should at least have lost £20 a month at
minimum. So that means I should be down to 505 if I'm in the range I need.
We're going to room five.
Okay, cool. I'm just shy of the goal, but I'm almost in the four hundreds, so I think all
around. That's good.
Hopefully that's what Dr.
Now tells me, because I'm working hard to make this arrangement work and do this from
home.
Hey, Mike. How are you doing?
Good. How are you doing?
Great. All right, so you're down to 510 today.
Yeah.
All right. How are things going for you?
Very well.
All right. You lost £235 so far now, huh?
Oh, yeah, that's good.
Making good progress.
But you still on there Under what?
You should be losing each one, so that needs to improve.
But the good news is your weight loss is stable, but the problem is going to be if
that starts to slip.
And remember you back on the same environment that got you to be £745.
So you have to be careful because if you start gaining, you could gain a lot before we
have a chance to intervene and help you.
And if that happens, you could find yourself very easily putting all your weight back on.
So this is good.
So far you're staying consistent, but keep working to lose a little bit more each month.
But if you don't and you start to gain, then we have to bring you back to Houston.
And so you're going to be away from that environment that got you to eat for the
stress and whatever issue you had.
Okay.
Absolutely. I'm not going to let that happen.
I'm doing meal prepping, making sure I have everything set up for the day so I don't have
any temptation to go into fast food or anything.
So doing that and enjoying smaller portions and not getting hungry at all.
So.
Okay. Oh, well, that's good too.
So you keep it up and stay with it.
You also need to keep up with your psychotherapy so you don't go back to old
eating habit. You think you can do that?
Absolutely. I can do that.
And I am. I've been keeping my virtual appointments with Dr.
Paradise.
That's good. I'm glad to hear that.
So how is right now the extra skin doing in your abdomen and your leg?
It's doing pretty good. Haven't had any issues with this so far.
Okay, so I'm getting there so I can tell I'm losing the weight.
I feel better.
Okay. All right.
Keep it up. And once you get to 300 and then we're going to be able to do some skin
surgery and remove excess skin, that's going to be a problem.
But remember, you will have to stay down here for a while to recover from that.
Once we get to that.
Point, I can do.
That. All right, Mike, I'm proud of your progress.
You keep it up, but you still got 300 more to go.
Absolutely.