The other day I visited the doctor that performed my gastric bypass surgery. This was my 3-month follow up and I must report that all is going well. Since I started preparing for bariatric surgery I have lost about half of my excess weight. While I am certainly anxious to loose a lot more weight the drop will likely be slower from here on out. My body mass index BMI has dropped about 40 percent from my first visit to the Oregon Weight Loss Clinic. For those that may not be familiar with the BMI scale it works as follows:

BMI Range and Rating

Underweight 16.5-18.5

Normal 18.5-25

Overweight 25-30

Obese Class I 30-35

Obese Class II 35-40

Severely Obese 40-45

Morbidly Obese 45-50

Super Obese 50-80

Hyper Obese above 60

I started out being classified as Morbidly Obese and am now classified as Obese Class II. The important thing for all of us to remember is to try not to get caught up in all of these classifications. As you will see there is not a classification for Terminal Obesity. Terminal Obesity is a term to remind us that many of the diseases caused or exacerbated by obesity lead to early death.

Many people say why don’t they just call us fat instead of all of these gloomy names. The truth is I do not have a good answer for that other than to say that these obnoxious terms can be an incentive for each of us that has a weight problem to loose a few or a lot of pounds.

Speaking for many of us that are either dieting the traditional way or have had weight loss surgery we can get to our goals. We can get to where we are just a bit obese or even normal weight. It may take time but going down is certainly better than going up.

Below are a couple of pictures the one was taken just before my wife passed away due to complications to diabetes. The other picture was just taken and while I am still fat I am pleased at the progress that is being made. I know by site statistics that thousands of people are visiting Terminal Obesity each month though they are not posting. I would love to have you most and am sure that others are tired of hearing about me and would like to here your success stories so please email me with your stories and pictures so that we can share them with others.

In this video Dr. Alan Whitgrove is interviewed on Health Matters and discusses how morbid obesity often leads to early death, the benefits of bariatric surgery, the difficulty for morbidly obese individuals to loose and maintain an acceptable weight through dieting and related subjects. This is a good video that will give you a better understanding of bariatric weight loss surgery. You should watch it if you are considering the surgery or know someone else that is.