Celebrity Bariatric Patient is an Inspiration

Before & after photo posted on Bart's Twitter feed.

Friday morning on the drive to work I was listening, as usual, to K-Love Radio. It's a contemporary Christian music station and they are on location this weekend for the K-Love Fan Awards in Nashville (which will be hosted by Phil and Jase from Duck Dynasty - love them!).

So they've got a lot of nominated artists on the air with DJs all throughout the weekend. And Friday the K-Love Morning Show crew, Craig, Amy, and Kankelfritz, were chatting with Bart Millard (yes, follow him on Twitter, he's hilarious!) of the band MercyMe about his progress with weight loss surgery. I first heard an interview with Bart about a year ago when he first announced he'd gotten WLS and was really impressed with the way he talked about his experience and how he's changing his life to become healthier.

This morning's interview was equally inspiring and I wanted to share it with you, the WLS community. Here's a link to listen to the interview:

Some highlights from the interview:

• Bart is 1.5 years out from RNY Gastric Bypass Surgery
• He's lost 122 pounds lost. The surgery allowed him to lost the first 70 pounds, then he had to "work at it" after that.
• Pre-surgery medical conditions included: Type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea,  hypertension, high cholesterol, the start of congestive heart failure and a family history early mortality due similar co-morbidities. Most co-morbidities were eliminated within two days after surgery
• Weight loss surgery is NOT for everyone. You have to be in the right mental place for it to work. 
• WLS and psychological therapy need to go hand-in-hand. 
• Many people think that WLS is the "easy way out" -- but don't let pride get in the way of what is best for your health and what God has planned for you.
• "If they made a pill to fix alcoholism, who wouldn't take it?  Or if the doctor can insert a pin to set a broken ankle, you'd use that.  So if this operation works to lose the weight and cure diseases, why wouldn't you do it?"

Thank you Bart for inspiring so many of us with your music. And for being the voice of WLS that we can be proud of within our community. So many celebrities who go through bariatric surgery don't say the right things and lead many people astray, but your words of wisdom are spot on and I'm so thankful that you're open and honest about your experience. 

And to leave you with one of my favorite songs by MercyMe -- The Generous Mr. Lovewell.