Patient proves doctor wrong

Sacramento Bee

The pronouncement was stark, some might even say brutal, in its honesty. Ron Warren’s doctor of four years looked him squarely in the eye and didn’t mince words. He was dumping him as a patient.

“He said, ‘You’re going to have a heart attack. You’re going to die. There’s nothing more I can do for you,’” Warren, 45, recalls.

This brush-off came after years of imploring Warren to lose weight, to eat right, to exercise. It came after years of writing Warren prescriptions to treat maladies ranging from high blood pressure and high cholesterol to back pain. It came after this final tale of the tape: Warren weighed 296 pounds, and his blood pressure registered at 215/185.

Warren, a former Roseville, Calif., school custodian on disability after a workplace injury, left chastened and bewildered.

“I said to my girlfriend, ‘What can I do now?’” Warren recalls. “I was dumbfounded.”

Soon, however, Warren’s mood changed to defiance. He decided to do something at last to save his own life — and prove that doctor wrong.

“A little thing inside says, ‘Every time somebody tries to knock me down, I believe I can do it,’” Warren says. “So I said, that’s it. I’m going to get in shape. I started walking that morning. The next morning, it was a little harder. But it got easier after that.”

Day after day of exercise and watching his weight has paid off for Warren. In a little more than a year, he’s gone from morbidly obese to borderline svelte — 191 pounds on his 5-foot-11 frame.

Warren won’t lie to you. It wasn’t easy shedding the pounds. And it still isn’t a piece of cake, which probably is a poor choice of words, since cake is no longer part of his diet.

But as a feisty New Yorker who won’t back down from a challenge, Warren fought back.

“If the doctor hadn’t said anything, I might still be fat and taking all these medications,” he says. “So in a way, I guess he helped me. But I’m still not happy with him.”

Warren, justifiably, is happy with himself. But he knows now that weight loss is a lifelong endeavor.

“Everybody told me I’d gain it all back,” he says. “I’ve found the only way to keep it off is to run or walk every day. It’s got to be an hour a day to maintain it. If I slip two or three days, forget it — I can gain three pounds like it’s nothing.”

He is equally vigilant about his eating habits. Warren eschewed fad diets and adhered to the dictum of eating less (and balanced meals) and exercising more.

And that meant giving up some nasty habits, such as his unquenchable thirst for soda.

“I used to drink 10 sodas a day,” he says. “You know how it is: You’re sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. You pop a soda. Now I drink a soda every Saturday, just one. I tell you one thing, you enjoy it more now. Before, it was an abusive thing, popping a soda.

“And, like, food. I went from McDonald’s double cheeseburgers to bran muffins or half a bagel. Lunch now is a sandwich on pita bread. Dinner is chicken with rice. No more things covered with gravy. No more eating after 7 o’clock.”

There are exceptions. Warren is, after all, human.

“OK, if I do eat after 7 o’clock, it’s fruit like watermelon or grapes,” he says.

But one thing he forces himself to do is exercise.

“I still have mornings where I go, ‘Ugh,’ and my legs burn from my back injury,” he says. “But I don’t care if it hurts or it’s raining, I just go. I don’t want to fall back.

“I like the way I feel now. I was getting real bad migraines. No more. The most amazing thing is, my cholesterol and sugar blood, it’s all normal now. I’m not taking all this medication.”

His energy level is surprising to friends and family.

“My nieces and nephews always wanted to play PlayStation 2 when they come over,” he says. “Now, I’m like, ‘Let’s go to the park and play basketball.’ My girlfriend thinks I’ve got too much energy now.”