A man who was previously morbidly obese but then lost more than 20 stone has had a life-changing surgery to remove the huge amounts of excess skin that had plagued his life.
John Allaire, from San Diego, California, was wearing 8XL shirts and had to go to the local fish market so that he could be weighed on their commercial scales. He was simply too big for any other scales to be able to weigh him without breaking.
To his credit, he turned his life around dramatically when he joined a fitness programme. The pounds began falling off him, and before long he had lost more than 300lbs of weight.
He went from weighing more than 38 stone (about 540lbs) to 230lbs (16st 6lbs) which is damn good going by anyone's measures.
However, that gave him an added problem. He was then stuck with an excess 20lbs of skin that he couldn't shift. It began to affect his life drastically for the worse.
So, he had to go under the knife. After his procedure was performed in March, he has had the unwieldy (not to mention unsightly) flaps of skin removed and can finally enjoy his vastly improved and healthier life.
He said: "It is a blessing to be able to move freely. There are just so many constant little things throughout the day that I think most people take for granted.
After his surgery was successful, he's returned to the gym and is still battling to overcome the demons of his past - namely, his relationship with food.
He continued: "It's one thing to be obese and it's another thing when you reach morbid obesity,
"When I was about 20 years old I tried to go to the doctor and they couldn't weigh me. So, they found a fish market where I lived in Florida and I had to get weighed on a commercial scale in the back of a fish market.
"There were people there and we had to explain why we were there, but I have no recollection of any of those interactions - I think I just completely blocked it out."
The turning point for John was that he didn't want his now-wife - Navy member Caila - to have to deal with his inevitable health problems that stem from his weight.
After committing to his diet and fitness regime, he managed to get himself back to a relatively normal weight.
Now, the two childhood sweethearts now live in Japan and are happy as can be.
He said: "Even though Caila loved me as I was, and she was ready to commit to marrying me at 540 pounds, I was like, "There is no way that I can, in good conscience, drag this woman through the difficulties that I am going to go through the rest of my life if I don't lose weight.'"
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Fair play to the guy. He turned his life around.
Featured Image Credit: Barcroft TVTopics: America, Weight Loss, News, Weight, Surgery, Fitness, Diet, Health