This is not a success story told from the finish line.
Carried Weight is the ongoing record of what it takes to rebuild a life after decades of severe obesity.
I once weighed more than 570 pounds. In December 2023, I underwent Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery and lost more than 100 pounds. Then I regained much of it.
That’s usually the part people leave out.
I started this site because the simplified version of weight loss — the dramatic decision, the medical intervention, the transformation photos — never explained what happened to me. Surgery changed my anatomy, but it did not erase the habits, emotions, health conditions, or circumstances that helped create the problem.
Eventually, I had to stop looking for the thing that would save me and start assembling the tools that could help me save myself.
Those tools now include bariatric surgery, medication, strength training, cardio, therapy, medical care, data tracking, better nutrition, and a great deal of trial and error.
Writing about it is another tool.
Carried Weight is where I document what is working, what is not, what I misunderstood, and what I am still trying to figure out.
Where to begin
You can read the site in any order. But these essays tell the clearest version of how I got here.
The Parking Lot Decision
The story begins outside a Houston hospital, after I learned I was too heavy for an MRI machine.
It was the moment I stopped pretending I could keep living the way I had been living.
Read “The Parking Lot Decision”
The Surgery Worked. I Didn’t.
Gastric bypass worked exactly as it was designed to work. I lost more than 100 pounds.
Then the old habits returned, the scale started moving backward, and I learned that changing my anatomy had not automatically changed the rest of me.
Read “The Surgery Worked. I Didn’t.”
Nobody Was Coming
In January 2026, I stepped on a scale and saw 520 pounds.
The number forced me to confront something I had avoided for most of my life: no doctor, medication, surgeon, spouse, trainer, or program could do the work for me.
Help matters. Tools matter. But I still had to show up.
A Toolbox, Not a Magic Bullet
There is no single intervention responsible for the progress I am making now.
Surgery is a tool. Zepbound is a tool. Therapy, exercise, medical care, data, and this website are tools.
The goal is not to find one perfect answer. It is to build a toolbox strong enough to support the life I am trying to create.
Read “A Toolbox, Not a Magic Bullet”
This Is the Way
Most mornings, I am waiting outside the gym when it opens at 4 AM.
That routine did not come from suddenly becoming more motivated. It came from removing the daily decision and building a system I could follow even when motivation disappeared.
The 3:30 AM Hole
Physical health was only part of what needed rebuilding.
This essay is about anxiety, therapy, the thoughts that tend to arrive in the middle of the night, and the tools that helped me stop those thoughts from running the show.
The Hormone Conversation Nobody Has
For years, I assumed exhaustion, low motivation, and a short fuse were simply part of getting older.
Testing and medically supervised testosterone replacement therapy changed my understanding of what was happening — and reminded me why treatment should be guided by real doctors and real data.
Read “The Hormone Conversation Nobody Has”
What you will find here
Carried Weight covers more than the number on the scale.
I write about obesity, bariatric surgery, GLP-1 medications, exercise, nutrition, sleep apnea, hormones, mental health, medical care, and the everyday realities of living in a very large body.
I also write about systems.
How routines are built. Why people avoid information they are afraid to see. How different treatments reinforce one another. Why progress can be real even when it is not linear. What the data shows — and what it cannot show.
Some articles are personal stories. Others examine a specific tool, question, mistake, or set of numbers.
All of them come from the same place: I am trying to understand what it actually takes to rebuild health after severe obesity.
What you will not find here
I am not a doctor, and this site is not medical advice.
I am also not selling a perfect program, presenting myself as an expert, or promising that what works for me will work for everyone else.
There are no miracle fixes here.
No dramatic 30-day transformations.
No insistence that discipline can overcome every biological, psychological, financial, or environmental obstacle.
Just one person documenting his experience as honestly as he can, with help from qualified medical professionals and a growing respect for how complicated health really is.
I am still in the middle of the story.
I have not reached my goal weight. I have not solved obesity. I still have difficult days, imperfect meals, changing numbers, unanswered questions, and a very long road ahead of me.
That is the point.
Carried Weight is not a retrospective written after everything worked out. It is a record of the work while the work is still happening.
New essays explore what I am learning along the way.