Father, son lose 260 pounds after weight loss surgery

(CNN) -- Mike Cianciullo hated the stares.

Whenever his family went out to eat, strangers' eyes would follow -- gawking at the sizes of father and son, judging the food on their plates. At 5 feet 7 inches, Cianciullo weighed 321 pounds. His son, Matt, was 5 feet 3 inches and weighed 333 pounds.

"It's like they'd never seen a fat person before," Cianciullo recalls.

For Mike, the decision to go through with weight loss surgery was about stopping those stares, getting in shape and, most importantly, saving his son's life.

In denial

When his dad first approached him about going to a weight loss clinic, 17-year-old Matt Cianciullo was hesitant. Unlike many children who are

Angeles. But often the biggest obstacle is denial -- they don't want to admit they can't do it on their own.

"The hardest thing for patients to do is pick up the phone and go see a doctor," Liu says. "They see it as a kind of defeat."

There are several types of bariatric surgery. Most cost between $18,000 and $30,000.

Gastric bypass has been the "gold standard," Liu says, since the 1990s. With

sleep apnea.

liquid diet for two weeks after surgery, and then ate only soft foods for another two weeks. It would be several more weeks before they learned what they could eat and how much.

"You have to chew your food really well, 20 to 25 times before you swallow," Mike says. "The more fibrous vegetables, they don't digest as well. The skin of peaches, apples, don't digest well."

Carbohydrates are pretty much off-limits as well, Matt says. Before the surgery, he would usually have a sandwich, chips and soda or a few pieces of pizza for lunch. Now he eats maybe half a chicken breast and half a cucumber. Dinners used to be double servings. Now he orders off the kids' menu at restaurants and can barely eat half.

"When food gets stuck, it's painful. It feels like you're having a heart attack or something," Matt says.

The results, though, have been phenomenal. Matt has dropped 160 pounds; his dad has lost more than 100.

"It's been fun and exciting to watch them," says his mom, Martha. "They're happy. Matt is always out now, compared to what he used to be. And my husband ... he likes to share his story with everybody. Even with people he doesn't even know."

Matt was named Liu's patient of the month. "He was so shy and introverted, never looked people in the eye," Liu says. "When he lost 100 pounds he opened up and came out of his shell. Plus the guy ate chicken all day long."

Liu likes when family members tackle weight loss together. They motivate each other to stick with the diet, keep junk food out of the house and keep moving. Matt and Mike had a sense of competition -- when his dad was losing weight more quickly, Matt took up basketball to catch up.

At 170 pounds, Matt is almost to his goal weight of 150. He plans to swim more and try other activities that he couldn't do when he was bigger. He also hopes to help other obese teens by sharing his story.

Mike is working on reaching his goal weight as well. He knows as an adult it's more difficult to lose the weight, but he keeps pushing forward.

"I really want to be as healthy as possible for my family."

http://www.cnn.com/2....html?hpt=hp_c1

Good to hear!

btw, this story is currently on the home page of the CNN website, huge, and dead center!

Great story and quite a motivator!! I was thinking about posting this on my Facebook page but that would just make people curious that I don't see often...

Folks make sure you go to CNN to see this article. It has before and after photos. Thanks for sharing Mis73!!

Mis73 thanks for posting, very inspiring

To bad the trolls are out in full force.

It is so good for them to post a good story about WLS instead of bad news!

I had to stop reading the comments on cnn it was pissing me off...people are so ignorant!!

I didn't even bother reading the comments. As Honk said, they're just trolls and not worth it.

Great story - thanks for posting Mis73

Amazing!!!! Thanks for posting!!

Great story!