West Texas chef loses nearly 750 pounds

MIDLAND, Texas -- When Robert Walls graduated from high school in 2000, he weighed 330 pounds.

Seven years later, he weighed 940.

"I was always a bigger guy, and I gradually started getting bigger," said Walls, who moved from Kansas to Midland last month to become kitchen manager at Riley's Bar & Grill. "I had issues just like any other big person did, but I never thought there was anything wrong with me. I was happy being 'Big Rob.' But as I started getting bigger and sicker, I started becoming more ashamed."

An aspiring chef, Walls had to leave culinary school because he was too sick. At his peak weight of nearly 960 pounds, he moved to Illinois to take up a graphic arts job.

"The job didn't work out ? it got to a point where I couldn't physically handle the job," he told the Midland Reporter-Telegram (http://bit.ly/19c2uCI). "I didn't have any family where I was. Before you know it, I found myself homeless."

Walls attempted different diets and weight-loss plans, but the pounds never stayed off.

"I would see 'TV weight loss' this or 'this diet' that," he said. "I was trying all this different stuff. I lost a couple hundred pounds from different diets, but even then, I couldn't sustain it. I would lose 200 pounds and then gain 50."

Eventually, Walls ended up in the hospital, where they made the decision to admit him to a nursing home.

"I couldn't go out and work. I couldn't stand on my feet 10 hours a day," he said. "It was like being in prison ? not being able to do anything for yourself."

Walls was in and out of nursing homes for a few years, a time he described as "very, very lonely."

"I spent a lot of time in those nursing homes by myself, staring at the walls, online chatting, doing graphic design work, even online dating," he said. "I was very standoffish with family and friends. I would go months, sometimes years, without talking to family. I would never visit family and friends because I was so ashamed. I went from being a very rah-rah, outgoing, front-of-the-crowd person to being more withdrawn."

But there was an upside to all the loneliness. Though he was stuck in hospital and nursing home beds, Walls decided to continue his education. He obtained a bachelor's degree in hotel restaurant management and degrees in culinary arts and graphic design.

Then, he met two people who he said saved his life.

Ron Goodman and Paige Whitney were both nurses at Walls' nursing home, and they introduced him to the gastric bypass surgery.

"They were telling me how they felt I was too young to be in a nursing home," Walls said. "I was 27, and I was seeing people die every day. I would go to breakfast with a lady who's 75 or 80 years old and have a conversation with her, and then I would go look for her at lunch ? and she'd be gone. I was living in a place where people go to die."

Walls was approved for the gastric bypass surgery, a procedure that divides the stomach and leads to a smaller functional stomach volume. When accompanied with diet and exercise, patients lose a large amount of weight over time.

Dr. Subhash Nagalla, a bariatric surgeon at Odessa Regional Medical Center, said people with a body mass index (BMI) over 40, or over 35 with life-threatening conditions, qualify for the gastric bypass surgery. A normal BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9.

First, Walls had to lose more than 100 pounds to prepare for the surgery. When he underwent the five-hour operation in September 2008, he weighed 844 pounds.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/10/3554542/west-texas-chef-loses-nearly-750.html

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