March 6, 2023 • 21 mins
Welcome to the South Aussie with Cosi Podcast.
I’ve always been ‘the big fella, the fat kid, the fat guy’.
My whole life I have been addicted to food. The same way a junkie is addicted to drugs. Food was my poison.
In November last year I was weighing in at a monster 142kgs.
After 5 years I decided that I needed to make a change. I wanted to see my kids grow up. I didn’t want to miss out on the living.
This year I underwent surgery that would change the course of my life.
I am 35kgs lighter and this is my story….
Thank-you Ali Clarke a dear friend of mine for helping me tell my story, and the team at MIX 102.3
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was over one hundred and forty kilos being fat
on my life, so I made the fairly extreme decision
to cut out eighty percent of my stomach. And I
want to talk about it because I want to help
remove the stigma around weight loss surgery. My name's Cozy
from South Australia and I'm joined by Ali Clark, who's
a dear friend of mine for what's some twenty years.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, long time because and I've actually seen you go
through this and I will say battle, but that is
generally the word battle with your weight. Right, So let's
start right back in the beginning. When did you first
get or when were you first aware that you were
maybe a bigger kid?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah? I was always the fat kid at school, always
the fat kid. I was a kid that didn't want
to like take their shirt off because I was embarrassed.
And I was always teased about, you know, just being fat.
And that's you know, no, I'm no Island. There are
lots and lots of people struggle with that. And I
was never like bullied, super bad or anything like that.
I was just a waste of fat kid.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And did you not get bullied a lot? Because you
then got on the front foot and made the self
deprecating stuff about yourself. And well, not when I was.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
A little kid. Certainly as an adult I was always
joking about, you know, that I was a fat guy.
But as a child it was fairly evident that I
was just like addicted to food. Now, when you say
that you're addicted to food, I feel as though in
my life my addiction to eating food is the same way.
And alcoholic craves a beer, or a junkie craves a
hit or a gambler must have a punt. I'm kind
(01:26):
of like that with food. I think it's the sugary foods,
like the you know, the sweet foods like the chocolates
and the takeaways and all that kind of stuff. It's
just I have an insatiable appetite for it, and I've
never been able to shake that. And I think there'll
be people listening right now that go, yeah, I hear
what you're saying there. And I also think there'll be
people listening right now that go, well, just don't eat it.
(01:47):
And I know it's so simple, because I know if
you eat heaps of calories and you don't do any exercise,
you get fat and I know how simple that is.
That equation is so simple, but in my whole life,
I've just never been able to nail it, which has
led me down the path of eventually having this extreme surgery.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
There's, without a doubt studies that have shown that it's
the sugar. You know that the hits the you know
changes basically almost a physiology, you know, the hormones in
the way that our brain reacts to things. And so
there is that physiological training where we go, right, let's
have a bit of sugar. Oh, now I'm craving more sugar.
All now I want even more, right, Yeah, So what
about the emotion of it all? Because I know I'll
(02:24):
put my hand up. I'm absolutely an emotional eater.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, one hundred percent, I think for me, and I've
tried to research flat out, like why do I eat
so much food? Or why do I have this addiction
to food? And what I've sort of found is that
if you look back at your life when you're a child,
lots of good things are celebrated with junk food. So,
for example, when it's your birthday, you have birthday cake.
(02:48):
If it's a Friday night, you know, that was our
takeaway nine was your treat. Now, you know, that's where
we'd have junk food at Christmas time. You eat, eat,
and drink lots of junk food. As a child, Easter
is surrounded by Easter eggs and chocolate, and these examples
are endless. You go to the movies, what do you do?
You have popcorn and chocolate and drinks and stuff. So
(03:08):
it's like the good times in your life are surrounded
by junk food. A psychologist told me once that because
of that fact, your brain is wired to crave these
foods you have during these good times to try to
recreate that good feeling because you loved those moments. So
for me, that's certainly true. If I had a good
dart work, I'd go bager it. That was a successful
(03:29):
jail yourself. Yeah, I'm going to have a block of chocolate.
But then the reverse was also true. If I had
a bad day, or if I was sad or yeah, tired,
I would just go for the junk food flat out.
So and as a result of that, just got bigger
and bigger, up to just nearly one hundred and forty
three kilos. So yeah, at that point it's like life
threatening and for me The decision to have this weight
(03:51):
loss surgery was purely because I thought in the last
couple of years that it wouldn't have surprised me if
I died. Like I actually ranged my life insurance mob
maybe two years ago, and I tried to like double
my life insurance because I was pretty sure at some
point in the next few years I could very well
drop dead. And so I went and had the blood
test and everything done for that, and I was my
(04:12):
BMI and that was all too fat, so they wouldn't
ensure me anymore, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So that that was two years ago, even that wasn't
enough to make you go, right, I've got to do something.
Yeah drastic here.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I know, I know, and it's just so crazy to
think to think that, but yeah, it's just it's just
something that has been a constant battle. And then you know,
I ended up on The Biggest Loser, which is a
TV show, a weight loss TV show, and I was
on that show for four and a half months. So
when I left The Biggest Loser, I thought I'd be
gone for like a week, maybe two, And then I
(04:43):
came home four and a half months later, and I
lost fifty two kilos in four and a half months,
and I left there saying, oh, never put the weight
back on, like, I'll never This is great, I'll never
be fat again. But it's an unrealistic environment in there,
because of course you've got no kids, no work, no stress.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Monitored yeah, given space to exercise.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
There's no junk food, and so losing weight. Anyone could
lose weight in that environment, and everybody did. Out of
our series, I think maybe three people kept the weight off.
Everyone's returned back to their original weight or gone high,
and a bunch of them have had the same kind
of surgeries I have had as well.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So when you come off that show and you were
in you know, you know you dropped fifty something kges,
can you remember the moments where you might be you
might catch yourself eating, going oh no, I shouldn't do this.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Something that's so crazy. The show was filmed in Sydney
and I got I got kicked off the show and
then I went back to my hotel room. So suddenly
I'm back out in the real world. And for four
and a half months, I hadn't touched money, I hadn't
driven a car, I hadn't used a phone, I hadn't
seen any news radio TV. So I was very isolated.
I said with Biggest Loser. It was like you were
in prison, but the inmates are a lot fatter, and
(05:52):
you were essentially locked up. So when I got out,
I went to my hotel room and then it's like, okay,
so now I'm all out of my own So I
ate healthy, probably for a day. And then when I
got to the airport in Sydney, I flew home with
another contestant that had been kicked out, and I loaded
up on Crispy Kreme donuts and junk food at the
airport and like, and then I just hoed into them
(06:14):
on the plane. I'm just like, what am I doing?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
And also, though you learned about how bad this stuff
is for your else, you still hadn't been able to
work on that switch because everything had been switched off
for you. They'd forced you to not do it. But
then all of a sudden, it's your own free will.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I remember eating it all on the plane, and I'm
talking not just one or two, half a dozen and
eight of these donuts and whatever, and I remember they're
just feeling so disappointed. After four and a half months,
I still couldn't beat that craving or that addiction to
nail that junk food. And I'll tell you something else.
When you've eaten healthy for four and a half months,
you put even donuts in your system. I felt very sick.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, I can.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
The last ten minutes of that plane ride, I was
at the back of the box so much.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
But because he just so we just how heavy were
you your ebsolute heavyest?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Well, just I was one hundred and forty three and
when I went into because Lose, I was one hundred
and forty one. So I came out and put on
two more kilos and I did on the show.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
And just tell me and give me an indication of
the type and amount of food you'd eat heaps, so
you know it's okay. So say you've gone, you've been
working in butt off all day, you get in the
car to drive home. What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, I would stop all the time, fast foods, you know, servos,
just grabbing junk wherever I could, which would be which
would be just a daily occurrence. And because I sawt
of I work really hard, Like this is the thing.
I'm not like a sort of fat slob on the
couch like I work long days and hard days, so
I just eat whatever's convenient, whatever comes past me. But
to put in perspective, if I let's say we had
(07:45):
pizza for dinner and we order to take away pizza,
I would have a full pizza, no worries, So I'd
now a full takeaway pizza. Then my two daughters would
never ever finish all of their meals, so I would
eat the leftover of that. I'd eat the garlic bread.
And my wife she would only ever eat a fraction
of her meal, so I'd hoe into that and I
would be like a line on a carcass. Always I'd
(08:06):
feel myself to complete, like just uncomfortable. And isn't that
just so stupid, like what you think you're full stop eating?
And that's right. I fully understand that people listening might go,
we just don't eat the food. You're fat, idiot, you know.
But the reality is there's something in your brain that
just makes you consume way more food than you need.
When I was actually in Africa on the line thing,
(08:28):
I was doing a safari and we watched a line
eating a carcass, and the tour guide he said that
he thinks why people are overweight nowadays is because we're
wired with our caveman brain. And he said, the reason
so many people in the Western world are fat is
because they're just like this lion. This line kills an animal,
(08:48):
and he thinks in his mind, I might not eat
now for one or two weeks.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Get on board.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
So a line will gorge itself and eat to absolute
exhaustion and then just lay under a tree and hard
to be able to move because it's so full. The
tour guide he said the same thing about humans. That's
how some of us are still wide like that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I also think too though, it is down to sizing
and portion sizing. And now when so much value is
seen on okay, I want value for money. Yeah, if
you're going out and doing something like that, you want
to see a parme the size of your blake. You know,
it's not that it's not a good deal and it's
not a good place to go, But do you know
what I mean, say that all you can eat restaurants
(09:25):
or you know that that's that entire mindset.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, And and that was my addiction to food is
something that I've just never been able to fix. So
that led me to the last five years looking into
this weight loss surgery. For me, all I wanted was
a gastric band. So basically a gastric band. You know,
when you swallow food, it goes down the tube into
your guts. The gastric band sits on that tube and
stops the food from flowing freely through into your guts.
(09:52):
It sort of then backs up or whatever, and it
slows you down so you can't eat as much. Sounds horrible, yeah, yeah,
But what I liked about that was that you can
actually have removed a verse cutting your guts out. When
you cut your guts out, you don't get it back.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
So why did you do that? Why did you go
for this thing that is called a gastric sleeve where
they remove part of your stomach.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Well, because I went in asking for a band and
the surgeons were like, we don't really do them anymore.
In fact, they take a lot of them out, and
they said nowadays, the gastric sleeve is the way to go.
And I said, well, what's a gastric sleeve and they
said they actually first time they drew it on a
piece of paper. They drew my stomach and they put
a line through it, and they said, we go in
and we take out seventy five eighty percent of your stomach.
(10:29):
We cut it out, we pull it out through a
keyhole surgery, and we toss it in the bit at
the hospital and you never see it again. So people say,
what said, where's your stomach now? And I'm like, I
always just say, well, it's out there to dump somewhere
in some seagulls, even it's gone. And that scared me
relentlessly because I was like, I don't want to I
don't want part of me to be cut out, and
what if it doesn't work and I'm left with like
(10:49):
twenty five cent my gus, hey you're.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Changing your physiology.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, it fully scared the shit out of me, so
so much so that I first saw a surgeon and
then that scared me so much I didn't go back
for another year. And then I was up on a
holiday and one of my mates who works in the
hospital was here in South Australia. He was up there
with me and it was a day with all of
our staff and stuff who are on the booze and
he just said to me, mate, like you're a ticking
(11:13):
time bomb, Like what are you doing? You know? And
you got to go and see someone. Then he got
in my wife's here and he said, go and see
this surgeon and go and have another chat about it.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And because I would imagine it have been really hard
for your wife, Sam, and she has also tried to.
I mean it got to the stage where she even
put like a padlock on the cupboards at home. Didn't
it like a code on it that you didn't know?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, And a lot of people find this very funny
that in our house that when you come to our house,
our pantry has a lock on the door and it's
like a key you need a key code to get in.
I don't know that key code, and it's been there
for like six or seven years. Only my wife does
so and that was she was just sick of me
eating all the food, so she paid someone a few
ound of bucks and put this coat on. And to
(11:53):
this day, I still don't know how to get into
my pantry. So if the door's locked, I'm stuck out here.
But that's the level. Now since I've had this weight
loss surgery, door is now open. It's always been locked,
it's now open, and I have no desire to get
in there.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Well, let's get to this all right, so you have
the gasrick sleeve. How long is the recovery?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Okay? Yeah, So I make the decision to do it,
and for me and a lot of people say, what
was the moment you decided to actually do this. So
I'm sitting with the surgeon and he's telling me all
of this information. He's looked at my BMI, He's looked
at my height, weight, my weight history, he went through
my blood results, he did my blood pressure, and then
he said something to me that made me go stuff.
(12:31):
But this is something that I'm going to do. And
he said to me, right, because you we've looked over everything.
He said, I'm not trying to sell your surgery. I'm
not trying to convince you to do this operation, he said, because.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
He's still got his golden hovercraft and his yacht.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
He doesn't need my business. But it was really reassuring.
He's like, mate, look, I'm busy for flat out. I'm
flat out. I'm not trying to sell your surgery, he said.
But I'll tell you this, I've looked at all of
your medical history. I've looked at your blood tests and
your BMI stuff like that. He goes, what I can
tell you is that if you do this surgery and
do it as fast as you can, you will live
(13:05):
longer than if you continue to go how you're going
at forty three years old, he said, Statistically, if you
haven't got your weight sorted at forty three, at fifty three,
you'll be the same, sixty three, you'll be the same,
and you'll die. I had things like, you know, hard attack, diabetes,
all these things, strokes, all these things just knocking on
my door. And I knew that because I could actually
feel it.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Ye yeah, so that hole, moving, chasing, just doing everyday
life and you feel the strain on your body. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah. Like we've got a farm and I run a
few sheep and cows, and that i'd climb to the
top of a silo, for example. I'll get to the
top of the silo, I just just be puffing and
go cricky. I feel like I could bloody pass out.
Like it just just so so heavy. So that sentence,
he said, was like your life will be longer with
this surgery, and it's hard to argue with. So then
and there, I got my calendar out and I went
(13:51):
stopped delaying it. You thought about it for five years
and I just talked to him about Okay, well when
can we do it? And then you know, I booked in,
I went out and paid money, and then yeah, where
we go.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Okay. So I am presuming that there are all the
normal risks sodiet associated with any serious surgery. So anyone
listening to this, this is not an you know, this
is something that has worked for you and took all
of that into consideration. So therefore you go in. So
then to the recovery, like how long you've taken? How
long until you back up on your feet?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
And look, the major thing with this is like, I'm
not telling anyone to go and get a gastric sleeve
or bypass or whatever. I'm just telling you what happened
to me. And I'm not a medical expert. But what
I do know is this has changed my life, and
I feel like this has saved my life. And I
also feel like there's a lot of stigma around weight
loss surgery, and I reckon lots of people have it
(14:40):
and they never tell anyone. In fact, lots of people
in the media have it done and they will never
tell anyone. And that makes me sad because I think
that everyone should just feel comfortable with the decisions they make.
You know, this was a decision I made for me
and my family, and I want to talk about it
purely because I want other people that have done it
or are going to do it to feel comfortable to say, hey,
I've tried everything, now I'm doing this and it's what
(15:01):
I decided to do.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, but you also don't want to lead people down
the wrong path by people watching you on TV and go, oh,
he's lost thirty five kgs. I wonder how he's done it.
You know, he must be tired or anything else. You're
being very open and honest about it.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, so signed up for surgery and I'll give you
the rundown of how it works because I was really
interested in the whole How long am I going to
be out of action for? So it was three nights
in hospital. I went to Ashford Hospital. My doctor was
a guy called doctor Michael France, like who I would
recommend highly. I'm just blown away by the whole process
of him, his team and Ashford Hospital was just absolutely brilliant.
(15:35):
So pretty much I went in Monday night, three nights
in hospital and I got out Thursday. So to talk
about my recovery. The best probably why I could describe
it was on Thursday and Friday, I hosted five shows
and went and did five speaking gigs, and I was
sort of back at work Thursday Friday. Now I could
(15:56):
have run a marathon, but I was good enough to
be able to go and do my job and talking
in front hundreds of people. And I went in Monday night.
There after the operation, there was zero pain. It was
annoying because I was on a drip for like a
couple of days, but that was just more of an
annoyance thing having something stuck in your arm just to
rehydrate you. I was just I recovered very very quickly,
and I was on you gotta be a liquid diet
(16:18):
for like two weeks, protein shakes and stuff like that,
which I found actually riddly quite easy. And then you
go on to mash food for another couple of weeks,
and then you slowly get back into your normal eating.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
And so can you now go to a restaurant with
your family, with your mates and eat what you know,
some stuffs there, And also, what does it feel like?
Is it just that you're not thinking about food, you
don't want food, or is it that you feel full
of sooner and you just have to stop.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, we're talking about pizzas earlier, the best way to
describe it. And we had pizza for lunch yesterday. Now,
normally I would have done what I said before, nailed mine.
I would have eaten, you know, one and a half
two pizzas. Yesterday, I eat the first piece just like normal,
and the second piece. By the end of the second piece,
I'm just feeling full. So it's twofold. You just physically
can't fit the food in you anymore. And because of that,
(17:02):
I've lost a lot of weight because yesterday lunch, for example,
I ate two pieces of pizza instead of one and
a half pizzas, so much less calories. My calorie intake
is like my stomach is like seventy five eighty percent less,
So the weight just falls off you. But secondly, and
I don't know the whole physiology of it, you could
google it or ask your doctor, but essentially, the part
(17:23):
of your stomach that they take out controls the hormones
and all the things that make you crave food. So
now like I don't crave food at all, So whereas
I used to if there was a block of chocolate
in the pantry or in the in the house somewhere,
I would think about it all the time until I
ate it, whereas now I don't think about it like
I haven't. I haven't bought a block of chocolate in
the last four months or.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
But just as importantly, you're saying that even if you had,
or Sam your wife had, or whatever, there was chocolate,
that you wouldn't then go and hunt it down and
have to finish it up.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
No, and even if I sat down to a block
of chocolate now I physically couldn't eat the whole thing.
And that that has been what has changed my life dramatically.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Couzie, what would you say to people listening to this
that's saying hard Nope, you've taken the easy way out.
Why didn't you get just exercise? And why didn't you
get over it or go see a side? Can get
over this food stuff? You know everybody can do.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
This, surely, Yeah, I know, and I understand that people
would say that and that, and that's that's totally fine.
I guess those things you could also say to anyone
that battles addiction. You could say that to a gambler,
just stop punting. You know, you could say that to
a heroin addic, an ice addic, Well, just don't take
the ice, And it sounds so simple, but the reasons
that they do are so complex. And I think I
(18:32):
have an addictive personality. So I think I'm someone that
if I did try it, you know, ice heroin, I
would get addicted very quickly. And I'm same with you know,
gambling and things like that. I've got a very addictive personality.
And I think my adiction here is is with food.
And it sounds so stupid because it is just don't
eat the food. And I know that sounds crazy, but
people listening right now would be divided into two. Some
(18:53):
of them would be going, I feel exactly what he's saying.
I have the exact same battles, and some people will
be going, the guys are fucking tall, Like, just don't
eat the food. It's so simple. Calories inverse, calories out,
Like I know all that. And it's not like I'm
a lazy person. I'm actually quite physically active. But as
physically active as I am and as hard as I work,
(19:13):
I just can't like burn the calories of the that
I was consuming a day. So Yeah, it's insane. So
after I had the operation, you know, I worked it
out the other day, like maybe three weeks ago. I
worked it out like I was sort of losing like
four hundred grams a day. Now that's obviously going to
slow up now that I've hit thirty five kilos. The
(19:34):
surgery reckons I lose forty. But it has definitely saved
my life. Like there's been so many things that have
changed through having the surgery. It's just been it's just
been so for long.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So I guess is the ultimate message here that this
isn't necessarily for everyone, but this is what you've chosen
and this is what has worked for you.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, And I want anyone that's had the surgery to
feel comfortable talking about it, and I want anyone that's
considering the surgery to take my story into account when
they're weighing up whether they did it. My surgeon said
something to me which now rings true after having had
the surgery done. He said, do you know what, causey
everyone comes back and says the same thing. I wish
I did it five years ago, and I feel exactly
(20:16):
the same. If I could have had this feeling and
been this healthy and had it five years ago that
I would have. But I'm just so glad at forty
three I made the decision to do it, and that
I didn't wait till last fifty three or sixty three.
And now I have moments where my little girls like
wrap their arms around me and say things like, oh
my gosh, Daddy, I can put my arms all the
way around you, or you know, like you have so
(20:37):
much more confidence and everything. It's just it's just been
absolutely wonderful. One of my team that I work with,
she sort of followed my weight loss, so she has
also had the same surgery done at the same hospital
by the same surgeon, and she had that done like
three weeks ago, and she's just over the moon as well.
So and another Made of Minds booked in't to go
and do it next week. So suddenly I find myself
(20:59):
this ambassad Forget your Guts Cut Out. But it's it's
you know, like I said, Charles.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
You were never going to be the ambassador of expensive handbags.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, exactly. So here we are talking about get your
Guts cut Out. But in the next episode, we're going
to look deeper into the effects this has had and
what happened after the surgery and stuff as well. But
for now we better wrap it up and let people
do their things. But thank you so much for you know,
having a chat to me about it.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Well, thank you. And it's as always you are only
ever honest and to hear your point of view has
been illuminating.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
It's weird now and I say, you know what, I've
got a gut feeling that, and then people go, your
gut feelings crap now because it's like eighty percent less,
I have less gut feelings
I was over one hundred and forty kilos being fat
on my life, so I made the fairly extreme decision
to cut out eighty percent of my stomach. And I
want to talk about it because I want to help
remove the stigma around weight loss surgery. My name's Cozy
from South Australia and I'm joined by Ali Clark, who's
a dear friend of mine for what's some twenty years.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, long time because and I've actually seen you go
through this and I will say battle, but that is
generally the word battle with your weight. Right, So let's
start right back in the beginning. When did you first
get or when were you first aware that you were
maybe a bigger kid?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah? I was always the fat kid at school, always
the fat kid. I was a kid that didn't want
to like take their shirt off because I was embarrassed.
And I was always teased about, you know, just being fat.
And that's you know, no, I'm no Island. There are
lots and lots of people struggle with that. And I
was never like bullied, super bad or anything like that.
I was just a waste of fat kid.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And did you not get bullied a lot? Because you
then got on the front foot and made the self
deprecating stuff about yourself. And well, not when I was.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
A little kid. Certainly as an adult I was always
joking about, you know, that I was a fat guy.
But as a child it was fairly evident that I
was just like addicted to food. Now, when you say
that you're addicted to food, I feel as though in
my life my addiction to eating food is the same way.
And alcoholic craves a beer, or a junkie craves a
hit or a gambler must have a punt. I'm kind
(01:26):
of like that with food. I think it's the sugary foods,
like the you know, the sweet foods like the chocolates
and the takeaways and all that kind of stuff. It's
just I have an insatiable appetite for it, and I've
never been able to shake that. And I think there'll
be people listening right now that go, yeah, I hear
what you're saying there. And I also think there'll be
people listening right now that go, well, just don't eat it.
(01:47):
And I know it's so simple, because I know if
you eat heaps of calories and you don't do any exercise,
you get fat and I know how simple that is.
That equation is so simple, but in my whole life,
I've just never been able to nail it, which has
led me down the path of eventually having this extreme surgery.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
There's, without a doubt studies that have shown that it's
the sugar. You know that the hits the you know
changes basically almost a physiology, you know, the hormones in
the way that our brain reacts to things. And so
there is that physiological training where we go, right, let's
have a bit of sugar. Oh, now I'm craving more sugar.
All now I want even more, right, Yeah, So what
about the emotion of it all? Because I know I'll
(02:24):
put my hand up. I'm absolutely an emotional eater.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, one hundred percent, I think for me, and I've
tried to research flat out, like why do I eat
so much food? Or why do I have this addiction
to food? And what I've sort of found is that
if you look back at your life when you're a child,
lots of good things are celebrated with junk food. So,
for example, when it's your birthday, you have birthday cake.
(02:48):
If it's a Friday night, you know, that was our
takeaway nine was your treat. Now, you know, that's where
we'd have junk food at Christmas time. You eat, eat,
and drink lots of junk food. As a child, Easter
is surrounded by Easter eggs and chocolate, and these examples
are endless. You go to the movies, what do you do?
You have popcorn and chocolate and drinks and stuff. So
(03:08):
it's like the good times in your life are surrounded
by junk food. A psychologist told me once that because
of that fact, your brain is wired to crave these
foods you have during these good times to try to
recreate that good feeling because you loved those moments. So
for me, that's certainly true. If I had a good
dart work, I'd go bager it. That was a successful
(03:29):
jail yourself. Yeah, I'm going to have a block of chocolate.
But then the reverse was also true. If I had
a bad day, or if I was sad or yeah, tired,
I would just go for the junk food flat out.
So and as a result of that, just got bigger
and bigger, up to just nearly one hundred and forty
three kilos. So yeah, at that point it's like life
threatening and for me The decision to have this weight
(03:51):
loss surgery was purely because I thought in the last
couple of years that it wouldn't have surprised me if
I died. Like I actually ranged my life insurance mob
maybe two years ago, and I tried to like double
my life insurance because I was pretty sure at some
point in the next few years I could very well
drop dead. And so I went and had the blood
test and everything done for that, and I was my
(04:12):
BMI and that was all too fat, so they wouldn't
ensure me anymore, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So that that was two years ago, even that wasn't
enough to make you go, right, I've got to do something.
Yeah drastic here.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I know, I know, and it's just so crazy to
think to think that, but yeah, it's just it's just
something that has been a constant battle. And then you know,
I ended up on The Biggest Loser, which is a
TV show, a weight loss TV show, and I was
on that show for four and a half months. So
when I left The Biggest Loser, I thought I'd be
gone for like a week, maybe two, And then I
(04:43):
came home four and a half months later, and I
lost fifty two kilos in four and a half months,
and I left there saying, oh, never put the weight
back on, like, I'll never This is great, I'll never
be fat again. But it's an unrealistic environment in there,
because of course you've got no kids, no work, no stress.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Monitored yeah, given space to exercise.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
There's no junk food, and so losing weight. Anyone could
lose weight in that environment, and everybody did. Out of
our series, I think maybe three people kept the weight off.
Everyone's returned back to their original weight or gone high,
and a bunch of them have had the same kind
of surgeries I have had as well.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So when you come off that show and you were
in you know, you know you dropped fifty something kges,
can you remember the moments where you might be you
might catch yourself eating, going oh no, I shouldn't do this.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Something that's so crazy. The show was filmed in Sydney
and I got I got kicked off the show and
then I went back to my hotel room. So suddenly
I'm back out in the real world. And for four
and a half months, I hadn't touched money, I hadn't
driven a car, I hadn't used a phone, I hadn't
seen any news radio TV. So I was very isolated.
I said with Biggest Loser. It was like you were
in prison, but the inmates are a lot fatter, and
(05:52):
you were essentially locked up. So when I got out,
I went to my hotel room and then it's like, okay,
so now I'm all out of my own So I
ate healthy, probably for a day. And then when I
got to the airport in Sydney, I flew home with
another contestant that had been kicked out, and I loaded
up on Crispy Kreme donuts and junk food at the
airport and like, and then I just hoed into them
(06:14):
on the plane. I'm just like, what am I doing?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
And also, though you learned about how bad this stuff
is for your else, you still hadn't been able to
work on that switch because everything had been switched off
for you. They'd forced you to not do it. But
then all of a sudden, it's your own free will.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I remember eating it all on the plane, and I'm
talking not just one or two, half a dozen and
eight of these donuts and whatever, and I remember they're
just feeling so disappointed. After four and a half months,
I still couldn't beat that craving or that addiction to
nail that junk food. And I'll tell you something else.
When you've eaten healthy for four and a half months,
you put even donuts in your system. I felt very sick.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, I can.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
The last ten minutes of that plane ride, I was
at the back of the box so much.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
But because he just so we just how heavy were
you your ebsolute heavyest?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Well, just I was one hundred and forty three and
when I went into because Lose, I was one hundred
and forty one. So I came out and put on
two more kilos and I did on the show.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
And just tell me and give me an indication of
the type and amount of food you'd eat heaps, so
you know it's okay. So say you've gone, you've been
working in butt off all day, you get in the
car to drive home. What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, I would stop all the time, fast foods, you know, servos,
just grabbing junk wherever I could, which would be which
would be just a daily occurrence. And because I sawt
of I work really hard, Like this is the thing.
I'm not like a sort of fat slob on the
couch like I work long days and hard days, so
I just eat whatever's convenient, whatever comes past me. But
to put in perspective, if I let's say we had
(07:45):
pizza for dinner and we order to take away pizza,
I would have a full pizza, no worries, So I'd
now a full takeaway pizza. Then my two daughters would
never ever finish all of their meals, so I would
eat the leftover of that. I'd eat the garlic bread.
And my wife she would only ever eat a fraction
of her meal, so I'd hoe into that and I
would be like a line on a carcass. Always I'd
(08:06):
feel myself to complete, like just uncomfortable. And isn't that
just so stupid, like what you think you're full stop eating?
And that's right. I fully understand that people listening might go,
we just don't eat the food. You're fat, idiot, you know.
But the reality is there's something in your brain that
just makes you consume way more food than you need.
When I was actually in Africa on the line thing,
(08:28):
I was doing a safari and we watched a line
eating a carcass, and the tour guide he said that
he thinks why people are overweight nowadays is because we're
wired with our caveman brain. And he said, the reason
so many people in the Western world are fat is
because they're just like this lion. This line kills an animal,
(08:48):
and he thinks in his mind, I might not eat
now for one or two weeks.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Get on board.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
So a line will gorge itself and eat to absolute
exhaustion and then just lay under a tree and hard
to be able to move because it's so full. The
tour guide he said the same thing about humans. That's
how some of us are still wide like that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I also think too though, it is down to sizing
and portion sizing. And now when so much value is
seen on okay, I want value for money. Yeah, if
you're going out and doing something like that, you want
to see a parme the size of your blake. You know,
it's not that it's not a good deal and it's
not a good place to go, But do you know
what I mean, say that all you can eat restaurants
(09:25):
or you know that that's that entire mindset.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, And and that was my addiction to food is
something that I've just never been able to fix. So
that led me to the last five years looking into
this weight loss surgery. For me, all I wanted was
a gastric band. So basically a gastric band. You know,
when you swallow food, it goes down the tube into
your guts. The gastric band sits on that tube and
stops the food from flowing freely through into your guts.
(09:52):
It sort of then backs up or whatever, and it
slows you down so you can't eat as much. Sounds horrible, yeah, yeah,
But what I liked about that was that you can
actually have removed a verse cutting your guts out. When
you cut your guts out, you don't get it back.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
So why did you do that? Why did you go
for this thing that is called a gastric sleeve where
they remove part of your stomach.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Well, because I went in asking for a band and
the surgeons were like, we don't really do them anymore.
In fact, they take a lot of them out, and
they said nowadays, the gastric sleeve is the way to go.
And I said, well, what's a gastric sleeve and they
said they actually first time they drew it on a
piece of paper. They drew my stomach and they put
a line through it, and they said, we go in
and we take out seventy five eighty percent of your stomach.
(10:29):
We cut it out, we pull it out through a
keyhole surgery, and we toss it in the bit at
the hospital and you never see it again. So people say,
what said, where's your stomach now? And I'm like, I
always just say, well, it's out there to dump somewhere
in some seagulls, even it's gone. And that scared me
relentlessly because I was like, I don't want to I
don't want part of me to be cut out, and
what if it doesn't work and I'm left with like
(10:49):
twenty five cent my gus, hey you're.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Changing your physiology.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, it fully scared the shit out of me, so
so much so that I first saw a surgeon and
then that scared me so much I didn't go back
for another year. And then I was up on a
holiday and one of my mates who works in the
hospital was here in South Australia. He was up there
with me and it was a day with all of
our staff and stuff who are on the booze and
he just said to me, mate, like you're a ticking
(11:13):
time bomb, Like what are you doing? You know? And
you got to go and see someone. Then he got
in my wife's here and he said, go and see
this surgeon and go and have another chat about it.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And because I would imagine it have been really hard
for your wife, Sam, and she has also tried to.
I mean it got to the stage where she even
put like a padlock on the cupboards at home. Didn't
it like a code on it that you didn't know?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, And a lot of people find this very funny
that in our house that when you come to our house,
our pantry has a lock on the door and it's
like a key you need a key code to get in.
I don't know that key code, and it's been there
for like six or seven years. Only my wife does
so and that was she was just sick of me
eating all the food, so she paid someone a few
ound of bucks and put this coat on. And to
(11:53):
this day, I still don't know how to get into
my pantry. So if the door's locked, I'm stuck out here.
But that's the level. Now since I've had this weight
loss surgery, door is now open. It's always been locked,
it's now open, and I have no desire to get
in there.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Well, let's get to this all right, so you have
the gasrick sleeve. How long is the recovery?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Okay? Yeah, So I make the decision to do it,
and for me and a lot of people say, what
was the moment you decided to actually do this. So
I'm sitting with the surgeon and he's telling me all
of this information. He's looked at my BMI, He's looked
at my height, weight, my weight history, he went through
my blood results, he did my blood pressure, and then
he said something to me that made me go stuff.
(12:31):
But this is something that I'm going to do. And
he said to me, right, because you we've looked over everything.
He said, I'm not trying to sell your surgery. I'm
not trying to convince you to do this operation, he said, because.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
He's still got his golden hovercraft and his yacht.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
He doesn't need my business. But it was really reassuring.
He's like, mate, look, I'm busy for flat out. I'm
flat out. I'm not trying to sell your surgery, he said.
But I'll tell you this, I've looked at all of
your medical history. I've looked at your blood tests and
your BMI stuff like that. He goes, what I can
tell you is that if you do this surgery and
do it as fast as you can, you will live
(13:05):
longer than if you continue to go how you're going
at forty three years old, he said, Statistically, if you
haven't got your weight sorted at forty three, at fifty three,
you'll be the same, sixty three, you'll be the same,
and you'll die. I had things like, you know, hard attack, diabetes,
all these things, strokes, all these things just knocking on
my door. And I knew that because I could actually
feel it.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Ye yeah, so that hole, moving, chasing, just doing everyday
life and you feel the strain on your body. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah. Like we've got a farm and I run a
few sheep and cows, and that i'd climb to the
top of a silo, for example. I'll get to the
top of the silo, I just just be puffing and
go cricky. I feel like I could bloody pass out.
Like it just just so so heavy. So that sentence,
he said, was like your life will be longer with
this surgery, and it's hard to argue with. So then
and there, I got my calendar out and I went
(13:51):
stopped delaying it. You thought about it for five years
and I just talked to him about Okay, well when
can we do it? And then you know, I booked in,
I went out and paid money, and then yeah, where
we go.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Okay. So I am presuming that there are all the
normal risks sodiet associated with any serious surgery. So anyone
listening to this, this is not an you know, this
is something that has worked for you and took all
of that into consideration. So therefore you go in. So
then to the recovery, like how long you've taken? How
long until you back up on your feet?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
And look, the major thing with this is like, I'm
not telling anyone to go and get a gastric sleeve
or bypass or whatever. I'm just telling you what happened
to me. And I'm not a medical expert. But what
I do know is this has changed my life, and
I feel like this has saved my life. And I
also feel like there's a lot of stigma around weight
loss surgery, and I reckon lots of people have it
(14:40):
and they never tell anyone. In fact, lots of people
in the media have it done and they will never
tell anyone. And that makes me sad because I think
that everyone should just feel comfortable with the decisions they make.
You know, this was a decision I made for me
and my family, and I want to talk about it
purely because I want other people that have done it
or are going to do it to feel comfortable to say, hey,
I've tried everything, now I'm doing this and it's what
(15:01):
I decided to do.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, but you also don't want to lead people down
the wrong path by people watching you on TV and go, oh,
he's lost thirty five kgs. I wonder how he's done it.
You know, he must be tired or anything else. You're
being very open and honest about it.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, so signed up for surgery and I'll give you
the rundown of how it works because I was really
interested in the whole How long am I going to
be out of action for? So it was three nights
in hospital. I went to Ashford Hospital. My doctor was
a guy called doctor Michael France, like who I would
recommend highly. I'm just blown away by the whole process
of him, his team and Ashford Hospital was just absolutely brilliant.
(15:35):
So pretty much I went in Monday night, three nights
in hospital and I got out Thursday. So to talk
about my recovery. The best probably why I could describe
it was on Thursday and Friday, I hosted five shows
and went and did five speaking gigs, and I was
sort of back at work Thursday Friday. Now I could
(15:56):
have run a marathon, but I was good enough to
be able to go and do my job and talking
in front hundreds of people. And I went in Monday night.
There after the operation, there was zero pain. It was
annoying because I was on a drip for like a
couple of days, but that was just more of an
annoyance thing having something stuck in your arm just to
rehydrate you. I was just I recovered very very quickly,
and I was on you gotta be a liquid diet
(16:18):
for like two weeks, protein shakes and stuff like that,
which I found actually riddly quite easy. And then you
go on to mash food for another couple of weeks,
and then you slowly get back into your normal eating.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
And so can you now go to a restaurant with
your family, with your mates and eat what you know,
some stuffs there, And also, what does it feel like?
Is it just that you're not thinking about food, you
don't want food, or is it that you feel full
of sooner and you just have to stop.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, we're talking about pizzas earlier, the best way to
describe it. And we had pizza for lunch yesterday. Now,
normally I would have done what I said before, nailed mine.
I would have eaten, you know, one and a half
two pizzas. Yesterday, I eat the first piece just like normal,
and the second piece. By the end of the second piece,
I'm just feeling full. So it's twofold. You just physically
can't fit the food in you anymore. And because of that,
(17:02):
I've lost a lot of weight because yesterday lunch, for example,
I ate two pieces of pizza instead of one and
a half pizzas, so much less calories. My calorie intake
is like my stomach is like seventy five eighty percent less,
So the weight just falls off you. But secondly, and
I don't know the whole physiology of it, you could
google it or ask your doctor, but essentially, the part
(17:23):
of your stomach that they take out controls the hormones
and all the things that make you crave food. So
now like I don't crave food at all, So whereas
I used to if there was a block of chocolate
in the pantry or in the in the house somewhere,
I would think about it all the time until I
ate it, whereas now I don't think about it like
I haven't. I haven't bought a block of chocolate in
the last four months or.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
But just as importantly, you're saying that even if you had,
or Sam your wife had, or whatever, there was chocolate,
that you wouldn't then go and hunt it down and
have to finish it up.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
No, and even if I sat down to a block
of chocolate now I physically couldn't eat the whole thing.
And that that has been what has changed my life dramatically.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Couzie, what would you say to people listening to this
that's saying hard Nope, you've taken the easy way out.
Why didn't you get just exercise? And why didn't you
get over it or go see a side? Can get
over this food stuff? You know everybody can do.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
This, surely, Yeah, I know, and I understand that people
would say that and that, and that's that's totally fine.
I guess those things you could also say to anyone
that battles addiction. You could say that to a gambler,
just stop punting. You know, you could say that to
a heroin addic, an ice addic, Well, just don't take
the ice, And it sounds so simple, but the reasons
that they do are so complex. And I think I
(18:32):
have an addictive personality. So I think I'm someone that
if I did try it, you know, ice heroin, I
would get addicted very quickly. And I'm same with you know,
gambling and things like that. I've got a very addictive personality.
And I think my adiction here is is with food.
And it sounds so stupid because it is just don't
eat the food. And I know that sounds crazy, but
people listening right now would be divided into two. Some
(18:53):
of them would be going, I feel exactly what he's saying.
I have the exact same battles, and some people will
be going, the guys are fucking tall, Like, just don't
eat the food. It's so simple. Calories inverse, calories out,
Like I know all that. And it's not like I'm
a lazy person. I'm actually quite physically active. But as
physically active as I am and as hard as I work,
(19:13):
I just can't like burn the calories of the that
I was consuming a day. So Yeah, it's insane. So
after I had the operation, you know, I worked it
out the other day, like maybe three weeks ago. I
worked it out like I was sort of losing like
four hundred grams a day. Now that's obviously going to
slow up now that I've hit thirty five kilos. The
(19:34):
surgery reckons I lose forty. But it has definitely saved
my life. Like there's been so many things that have
changed through having the surgery. It's just been it's just
been so for long.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So I guess is the ultimate message here that this
isn't necessarily for everyone, but this is what you've chosen
and this is what has worked for you.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, And I want anyone that's had the surgery to
feel comfortable talking about it, and I want anyone that's
considering the surgery to take my story into account when
they're weighing up whether they did it. My surgeon said
something to me which now rings true after having had
the surgery done. He said, do you know what, causey
everyone comes back and says the same thing. I wish
I did it five years ago, and I feel exactly
(20:16):
the same. If I could have had this feeling and
been this healthy and had it five years ago that
I would have. But I'm just so glad at forty
three I made the decision to do it, and that
I didn't wait till last fifty three or sixty three.
And now I have moments where my little girls like
wrap their arms around me and say things like, oh
my gosh, Daddy, I can put my arms all the
way around you, or you know, like you have so
(20:37):
much more confidence and everything. It's just it's just been
absolutely wonderful. One of my team that I work with,
she sort of followed my weight loss, so she has
also had the same surgery done at the same hospital
by the same surgeon, and she had that done like
three weeks ago, and she's just over the moon as well.
So and another Made of Minds booked in't to go
and do it next week. So suddenly I find myself
(20:59):
this ambassad Forget your Guts Cut Out. But it's it's
you know, like I said, Charles.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
You were never going to be the ambassador of expensive handbags.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, exactly. So here we are talking about get your
Guts cut Out. But in the next episode, we're going
to look deeper into the effects this has had and
what happened after the surgery and stuff as well. But
for now we better wrap it up and let people
do their things. But thank you so much for you know,
having a chat to me about it.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Well, thank you. And it's as always you are only
ever honest and to hear your point of view has
been illuminating.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
It's weird now and I say, you know what, I've
got a gut feeling that, and then people go, your
gut feelings crap now because it's like eighty percent less,
I have less gut feelings
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