Half-ton man loses 573 pounds in one year

Deuel was a fast-food junkie hooked on pizza, chips, beef jerky and chili dogs. He also gobbled down cherry blintzes and ambrosia (a creamy fruit, marshmallow and coconut concoction). Even now, his face brightens when he mentions his favorite foods.

While those days are over, Deuel doesn’t believe in total deprivation.

He exercises with bar bells and weights, but still smokes (he’s cut down to a pack a day), saying he can’t kick two bad habits at once. And he defiantly refuses to consider any foods taboo.

“If you have a craving and don’t take care of it, it’s going to grow and grow and grow and it’s going to make you do something stupid — binge,” he says.

Small indulgences
About twice a month, Deuel indulges in foods most dieters would consider off-limits: a small piece of chocolate, an ice cream bar, Taco John’s nachos on his van ride home from visiting his doctor in South Dakota.

“I’ve lost 102 pounds in 70 days, eating what I wanted,” he says. “Tell me it doesn’t work. ... For me, the easiest way to stay on my diet and not go absolutely crazy to is eat (to satisfy the craving), get that out of the way and get back on the program.”

The Atkins and South Beach faithful might shudder, but not Dr. Fred Harris, the Sioux Falls surgeon who operated on Deuel last fall.

“Patrick is over 21 and he can do what he wants to do,” he says. “He’s a free individual who has to enjoy his life.”

Harris’ empathy has some personal history. Three years ago, he had bariatric surgery and is 100 pounds thinner. He declines to be more specific.

“An occasional indiscretion is OK,” Harris says. “Every once in a while you have to have a piece of chocolate, providing you’re not carrying the bag around all the time.”

Harris suspects Deuel is a lot more careful about his diet than he admits.

“He’s a naughty boy when he’s trying to show off,” he says. “I think he has made up his mind he wants to be more mobile.”

Smaller stomach
Practically speaking, Deuel can’t eat as he once did. Surgery initially reduced his stomach size from two to three liters to the end of a thumb. Now, with the swelling long subsided, he can eat four to eight ounces of food. Anything more, he’ll likely feel pain and vomit.

Deuel concentrates on high-protein, low-salt foods: cottage cheese, refried beans, spinach, asparagus, non-breaded shrimp, steak, roasts, cheese. He avoids potatoes and bread. And milk makes him sick.

So far, so good.

Some doctors say bariatric surgery works if a patient loses more than 40 percent of excess body weight — something Deuel has done.

“Any way you slice it, we did what we set out to accomplish,” Harris says. “If Patrick wouldn’t lose another pound, I’d think he had been a success. ... Anything else I get out of him is gravy.”

Or, Harris says, look at it this way: “He’s lost two NFL defensive linemen.”

When Deuel loses more weight, Harris plans to remove his panniculus, an apron-like layer of abdominal fat. It makes walking feel like he’s carrying giant sacks of flour. That surgery could trim another 40 to 70 pounds.

It was Deuel’s hometown doctor who called Harris last year after she arranged for her patient to get emergency care for neglected dental work and realized he needed more help.

“It was clear we had a dying patient,” Harris says. “I told him, ’We don’t have weeks. We have days or hours.’ I said he could die in the bed ugly or accept admission (to the hospital).”

Even now, Deuel says he thinks he could have lost weight without surgery.

At the hospital, Harris’ medical team had to design extensions for an operating table.

By last October when Deuel had surgery, he had dropped more than 400 pounds, a lot of that water.

Harris says Deuel’s weight problems are not simply from overeating.

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