Health

What factors ultimately influence someone to pursue living a healthier life?

Is it a trending diet, encouragement of a loved one or gaining new knowledge and understanding? For Chaston Pruitt, it was his doctor’s advice.

“Chaston, if you keep living the way you’ve been living, you may not make it to age 40 or even 35,” said his primary care physician when Pruitt was in his early 30s.

At the time, Pruitt topped the scales at 430 pounds and battled high blood pressure, diabetes, a fatty liver and kidneys that did not work well. His knees and back always ached.

Shenell Mobley, a library circulation clerk in Jacksonville, Texas, is working hard to live a healthier life and care for her growing family.

Thanks to successful gastric sleeve surgery by Keith Charles, MD, and Mobley’s efforts to improve her lifestyle and eating habits, the future looks brighter for the 29-year-old.

It wasn’t always this bright.

For Shelby Grimes, a 30-year-old single mom in Lufkin, her dependency on food for comfort started in her teens.

“I used to dance and was very active in high school,” she recalled. “But eventually I got into different extracurricular activities, started working a job and my activity level changed a lot. I even lost a lot of the friends I had, so I started turning to food to feel good about myself.”

At the start of high school, Shelby weighed around 135 but doubled her weight by graduation to a total of 280 pounds.

Yvonda Gilliam, a 62-year-old resident of Troup, didn’t grow up overweight.

As a youngster, she played all kinds of sports and enjoyed lots of different activities. Even as an adult, she was an avid walker and weighed an average weight.

But that all changed in her 30s when she dealt with the dual issues of depression and relationship problems, which together caused both issues to get worse. To comfort herself and forget her troubles, she turned to food.

When expecting parents prepare for the arrival of a new baby, especially their first, they usually have a long list of things to do: paint the nursery, decorate the walls and put the baby bed together.

For Hidai and William Sanchez, their list included all of the above items plus one more: William’s bariatric surgery.

A 32-year-old welder for Trane Technologies in Tyler, William had suffered through a number of health issues due to his excessive weight.

While spending years on the road hauling freight as a team truck driver with her husband, Marie Graham kept trying to lose weight, but without much success.

“We tried all kinds of stuff,” said the retired 59-year-old Tyler resident. “Medications, exercise, dieting – nothing would take the weight off. Since I also had a fatty liver, I needed to lose weight because I didn’t want to go through a liver transplant. That’s when I looked into bariatric surgery.”

The holidays bring both excitement and stress in our lives. Managing health and weight goals can be especially challenging this time of year. Here are some tips to help reduce anxiety and keep you on track.

Don’t show up too hungry.
It can be tempting to skip meals earlier in the day if you have an event planned, but this can lead to making poor choices and overeating later in the day. Stay on track with balanced meals throughout the day.

When most people think about bariatric surgery, weight loss is what comes to mind. However, the benefits of bariatric surgery extend much further than seeing lower numbers on the scale. Over the course of several future blog posts, we will discuss other reasons to have bariatric surgery.

Bariatric Surgery for Type 2 Diabetes

Main points:

Considering weight loss surgery but don’t know where to start? Ian from the UT Health Tyler Bariatric Center gives an overview of the preparation process.

Bariatric surgery can help you regain your freedom and live a longer, healthier life. These procedures also can improve and in some cases resolve health issues such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, joint pain and more.

BMI is a term that gets used quite a bit in discussions about weight, obesity and bariatric surgery. The term has been the source of a lot of confusion.

BMI is short for “Body Mass Index.” It is simply a number calculated from a person’s height and weight. The more a person weighs in relation to their height, the higher their BMl. The formula used to calculate BMI is weight divided by height squared, and it is usually calculated in kg/meter². Most times the units are not listed but assumed. For example when you say, “BMI of 35,” it is assumed that you mean “35 kg/meter².”