TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online
Pastor On Weight-Loss Mission
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Published: March 27, 2008
It was with great relief that I read in my church bulletin recently that our pastor, the Rev. Desmond Daly, had taken a drastic step to lose weight.
There was no denying it. Daly was obese, and it was affecting his overall health. I couldn't have been alone in worrying about whether he would make it through another Mass, his face bright red, wiping sweat from his brow, obviously uncomfortable.
As the pastor of Christ the King Catholic Church, a large, busy parish in South Tampa, he was having difficulty physically keeping up with the demands of the job. Long hours, the stress of a major fundraising campaign and high blood pressure were taking their toll.
"I would find comfort in food," he says.
Something had to change, and Daly decided it would be his weight. So two years ago, he started researching his options, "realizing if I didn't do something, and do something radical, I would just have to retire or keel over with a heart attack."
Daly says he started seriously trying to lose weight 40 years ago and has the records to prove it. The 67-year-old admits he's not the most organized person, or the best record keeper. But he kept meticulous notes through the years about his many diets and weight-loss attempts, starting back in 1967, when he tried hypnosis and acupuncture along with a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet. He lost weight, sure. Did he gain it back? You bet.
He met with the most success on the Opti-Fast plan, a physician-supervised liquid diet that even helped Oprah fit into size 6 jeans for a day. Daly lost 83 pounds. "Oh, it works. There's no question that it works," Daly says, "But you regain the weight when it's over." Daly's records show he regained the 83 pounds plus some.
This time Daly decided to consider weight loss surgery. At 5-feet-7-inches tall and 319 pounds, his doctor said Daly was beyond morbid obesity, he was in the super obese range. His body mass index was 58. A man his age and height should have a BMI of 23.
Daly consulted with all of his personal physicians and a nutritionist. He did hours and hours of research on the Internet, met with people who succeeded and failed with weight-loss surgery and spent a fair amount of time praying about it. He decided on the lap band procedure.
The Lap-Band Adjustable Gastric Banding System was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2001. The ring-shaped device is placed around the upper part of the stomach and tightened to reduce the amount of food the stomach can hold. Doctors work through small incisions in the abdomen and patients go home the same day. Daly had his procedure at 7 a.m. on Feb. 29 and was home by 10 a.m.
At the time of surgery, Daly weighed an all-time high of 319 pounds. Six weeks later, he's down to 282 pounds. He survived two weeks of eating only clear broth and has graduated to drinking thicker nutritional shakes. Next, he'll introduce puréed foods and then small amounts of solid food. He's also been getting up early every morning to take a brisk 30-minute walk.
Daly's goal weight is 175 pounds, a number he hasn't seen on the scale since high school. I hope he makes it. Daly knows his life depends on it. "We're all going to die at some point," he says. "I'd like to die in the saddle, not in the bed."
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