Fred Calvert Success Story

Fred Calvert has big plans. In the next 30 years, he wants to explore Antarctica, expand his astronomy research and return to school to study theater and drama. At age 62, he figures he’s got time since many of his relatives have lived into their mid-90s. A few years ago, however, he wasn’t so sure.

Fred weighed more than 300 pounds and was on four medications – two for type 2 diabetes and two for high blood pressure. A visit to a New York restaurant and robotic sleeve gastrectomy weight loss surgery at St. Elizabeth Healthcare reversed his unhealthy course.

The Moment of Truth

Sitting down at one of his favorite restaurants during a business trip to New York, Fred opened the menu to find calorie information added. The salad, entrée, drinks and dessert he’d been used to ordering were a whopping 6,000 calories!

And that was just dinner.

“I thought, holy moly! You think you’re eating normal, but when you total it all up,” he says, “it’s the furthest thing from normal.”

An aviation safety director and air safety investigator, Fred was traveling about half the year, often for weeks at a time. All the fast food and dining out had taken its toll.

“What’s really bizarre is I never felt bad being that big. That’s the scary part. It gives you a false sense that you don’t need to do anything.”

Still, thoughts of losing his father to heart disease when he was only 8 weighed heavily on him.

“He didn’t have a healthy lifestyle,” Fred explains. “I was walking the same path, and I’ve got too much I want to do still.”

One of Fred’s many interests is astronomy, which he satisfies through his own back yard observatory in Cold Spring, Kentucky. He’s also a private pilot and aircraft mechanic, and he enjoys spending time with his wife, seven children and 16 grandchildren.

“I knew if I wanted to do these things, this had to change.”

The Road to Sleeve Gastrectomy

Fred contacted the St. Elizabeth Physicians Weight Management Center and met with weight loss surgeon Ryan Moon, MD. He appreciated Dr. Moon’s honesty and bedside manner as well as support from the entire staff.

“His approach with patients is absolutely phenomenal,” Fred says. “I’ve got his business cards in my car and desk and have handed them out to multiple people who’ve asked me about it.”

Prior to his January 2017 surgery, Fred lost 70 pounds with the help of the center’s dietitian and classes. She worked with Fred for about seven months, helping him adapt to the nutrition and diet program he’d follow after surgery. He lost another 50 pounds after surgery.

“A lot of what I learned with Julie and the team prior to surgery made things very easy to continue afterward.” Fred also appreciated the staff’s compassion.

“They were never judgmental or treated you like you’re a bad person because you’re like this.”

A Tool for Weight Loss

Fred says the biggest thing Dr. Moon made sure he understood was that the surgery was only a tool.

“It’s not a forever fix if you don’t use it in the proper way,” he says. “It’s a tool to keep you from going back to the old habits, such as overeating.”

He’s well aware that if he eats beyond his post-surgery stomach capacity, which is only about 20 percent of its pre-surgery size, or consumes foods he shouldn’t, he’ll feel ill instantly. “It’s a very good motivator,” he notes, and he respects the limitations of his new stomach.

Now, instead of three scoops of ice cream a night, he’ll treat himself to maybe one scoop a month. For a fast food breakfast, he’ll take a 300-calorie breakfast sandwich and remove the cheese and half the English muffin to reduce it to only 150 calories.

“So you can still have it but have it different,” he explains. “The classes and Julie helped clarify my thinking on that.”

It’s all about eating the right foods in the right amounts, Fred continues.

“You have to choose the right foods; the new stomach size helps you with the right amount. He recalls telling Dr. Moon after the surgery, “You right-sized my stomach to my lifestyle and the amount of food I need at each meal.”

Keeping Dreams Alive

These days, Fred maintains his new weight of around 185 pounds. He no longer has diabetes and no longer needs the four medications. His newfound health also has allowed him to regain his medical certificate for his pilot’s license, allowing him to fly again.

He credits St. Elizabeth and the surgery for keeping his dreams alive and for saving his life.

“It probably saved my life, literally,” he claims. “If I kept going on the road I was going, I would have probably been dead in 10 years.”

Fred has a few more years before he retires to pursue his dreams. For now, he’s content with his observatory, charting the night sky as his dreams await illumination.

“I have plans,” Fred confirms. “I have plans to do 30 or more years of living life to its fullest with my beautiful wife and family. If I hadn’t done this, it probably wouldn’t happen.”