Dr. Joan Irizarry Alvarado and his wife Angela, both Mayo Clinic employees, underwent bariatric surgery and experienced dramatic weight loss, improved health, and a renewed zest for life.
It was supposed to be a fun family cruise, but Dr. Joan Irizarry Alvarado was alarmed by how much his weight was slowing him down. At 325 pounds, he felt out of breath walking short distances and couldn’t keep up with his wife and children as they explored the ship. “I could barely go up a single flight of stairs. Even going downstairs, my joints were hurting,” Irizarry Alvarado, 47, an internal medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, tells TODAY.com.
“Here I am straggling behind. That made me sad. The fact that I saw the scale keep creeping up on a daily basis made me more anxious.” Less than two years later, he’s lost 120 pounds, inspired by his wife, who lost 175 pounds — both with bariatric surgery that changed their lives, they say. “Now we can go off and do things and hike and go walk 20,000 steps and not even notice a difference. We’re like, ‘Oh, we just walked all day. It didn’t bother us,’” Angela Irizarry, 49, tells TODAY.com. Her weight-loss journey showed him what was possible. Weight-loss surgery ends her severe acid reflux Irizarry, who is a nurse practitioner at the Mayo Clinic, says her weight gain started after college. Busy at work, she was overeating and not exercising, and the number on the scale just kept climbing after pregnancy. “I was a very big fan of Oreo cookies and potato chips,” she says. “Anytime I was under stress, I would eat.” Whenever she tried to lose weight, she’d gain it right back. Reaching 315 pounds at 5 feet, 7 inches tall, Irizarry had pre-diabetes, sleep apnea, high blood pressure and “absolutely horrible” acid reflux — a common problem in people with obesity. It forced her to sleep in a chair at night because if she lay flat, the acid would come up and choke her or lead to a sore throat. “I was miserable all the time,” Irizarry recalls. When doctors said weight-loss surgery could help end her severe heartburn, she decided to get the procedure — a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, which she underwent in February 2021. The surgery involves dividing the stomach into a smaller top portion — a pouch that’s about the size of an egg — while bypassing the larger part, according to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. The pouch holds less food than the whole stomach, so the patient eats fewer calories. The surgery has a “profound effect” on decreasing hunger, resulting in reliable and long-lasting weight loss, the society noted. Almost four years later, Irizarry weighs about 140 pounds, describing herself as “active and healthy.” She says her heartburn is gone, and she no longer has high blood pressure or pre-diabetes. The physical changes are so profound that Irizarry had to get a new badge at work because people didn’t recognize her from her previous photo. Weight-loss surgery allows him to be active Watching his wife feel full with very small amounts of food after her surgery, Irizarry Alvarado began considering the same procedure. He had obesity since he was a child, with his weight just “creeping up and up and up” as he became an adult. The problem was stress eating and generally consuming large quantities of food at every meal. Irizarry Alvarado was able to lose 100 pounds on his own before the COVID-19 pandemic, but regained all of it amid the stress of the lockdowns. Weighing 325 pounds at 5 feet, 8 inches tall, and constantly out of breath on that cruise with his family crystallized the danger to his health. “I knew that I had to do something, seeing Angela’s success,” Irizarry Alvarado recalls. He was offered a GLP-1 weight-loss drug, but he didn’t want to keep injecting himself and wanted a more permanent solution, so he underwent a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass in July 2023. He had the same Mayo Clinic bariatric surgeon who performed his wife’s procedure. Irizarry Alvarado now weighs 205 pounds and says he can take the stairs to his office on the 8th floor without a problem. “I can be on my feet all day without my joints hurting. That’s really a relief. I can keep up with my kids,” he notes. Both husband and wife say they feel “100% better.” Lifestyle changes after weight loss Since they now have much smaller stomachs, the couple says there’s less desire to eat and it’s physically impossible to overeat. “I forgot what hunger is,” Irizarry Alvarado says. Weight-loss surgery patients must make sure they get enough protein while eating smaller portions, the National Library of Medicine notes. They may not absorb enough important vitamins and minerals such as calcium after the procedure, so they need to take vitamin and mineral supplements for life. Irizarry carefully measures out food for every meal, and stays on top of the couple’s protein and vitamin needs. Some foods are off limits. “If you have something inadvertently that’s high in sugar or fat, it can make you feel nauseous,” she says. “I can still have an Oreo, but I can only have one Oreo and that’s it. Not six or seven or eight of them,” she adds with a laugh
WEIGHT LOSS BARIATRIC SURGERY ROUX-EN-Y GASTRIC BYPASS HEALTH BENEFITS LIVESTYLE CHANGES OBESITY PRE-DIABETES ACID REFLUX SLEEP APNEA
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