Having five slices of pizza, a full box of cereal, pasta, and chicken breasts led 30 year old Jacob Stevenson's weight to reach 441 pounds! A food addict and with obesity running in the family, Jacob was more prone to putting on weight. Lack of exercise was a contributing factor too.
In an interview with TODAY, Stevenson said, "I basically had a food addiction. I just liked the feeling of eating, and I would literally eat until I would throw up." The 30 year old lives in Adams, New York.
The alarming point
Gradually his overweight took a toll on his health. He developed sleep apnea and everytime he woke up he felt exhausted.
Read: Dumped by girlfriend for being 'too fat', guy loses 70 kilos
It was then his doctor revealed that he was barely breathing at night.
Stevenson said he would wake up with a severe headache as he was not getting sufficient oxygen the entire night while sleeping.
In September 2020 he weighed 441 pounds and that's when he decided to lose weight.
Surgery in October 2020
In October 2020, Stevenson decided to undergo Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. "During the weight loss surgery process, I had to go through numerous nutrition classes. In these classes, they would drill it into our brain that we have to stay under this amount of calories to be "successful", we have to eliminate as many carbs from our diet as possible, and we certainly can't eat fatty food," he writes in a long Instagram post.
What is Roux-en-Y gastric bypass?
In Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, a small pouch is created from the stomach and this pouch is connected to the small intestine. It is one of the most common type of weight loss surgery performed in the United States.
This type of bariatric surgery is performed on those individuals on whom diet and exercise don't have any effect.
Post-surgery
"What do you do to celebrate losing half of you, you go and scout some public land to hunt this coming year. At 440lbs, I never would have made it 20yds from the truck. Let alone climbing hills, dead trees, etc. Sometimes it is hard to believe that is me and that I have lost 220lbs. I still see myself as old me," he has captioned a picture uploaded on Instagram.
