Navajo's biggest loser feels like a winner

OK, go ahead. Think of all the excuses you ever had for not losing those extra pounds.

Then read this story and see if they still hold water. Because if Robert Velasco can do it, you can too.

Velasco, 41, of Fort Defiance, must be hands-down Diné Bikéyah's biggest loser. Since May 15, he has shed 105 pounds.

He's got 122 left to go to reach his goal of 210 pounds on his 5-foot-10 frame, but when you start out at 437, 332 feels downright fit.

Velasco is sharing his incredible story in honor of Diabetes Awareness Month.

"It's kind of embarrassing," he said. "I'm not a person who enjoys the limelight, especially for something like this. But I want people to know it's not impossible to lose weight and get healthy, no matter where you start."

Velasco, whose mom is Tachiinii and father is Hispanic, wasn't always obese. A Window Rock High School football hero and former military man, he was known as a jock. Which made the ballooning of the last few years even more painful.

"This is my town," he said. "People know me. I didn't want them to see me like I was, so I didn't go anywhere."

It was a vicious cycle. Velasco slid into depression after a series of deaths in his family followed by his wife divorcing him.

"I don't drink, I don't do drugs," he explained. "So I took it out on food."

What would Velasco eat?

"Anything," he said. "I didn't care what it was. I didn't care how it was cooked."

He once went through an entire pound of cheese in one sitting. And sitting was pretty much his pastime.

"This was my life: TV, TV, TV, eat, eat, TV, eat, eat, eat," he said. "I couldn't throw a football with my son. I couldn't even take him to the movies, because I couldn't fit in the seats."

His son Nicholas, now nine, had to sleep with him to wake him up if he stopped breathing due to obesity-caused sleep apnea. Velasco needed help taking a shower and even going to the bathroom.

He wheeled an oxygen tank around, and had to stop and rest after walking 20 feet - with a walker.

"Your bones are just not designed to support 400 pounds," he explained.

Velasco's wake-up call came May 15 in the form of a massive heart attack. His doctor at the Fort Defiance Hospital, Christina Chong, did not mince words.

"If you want to live until Christmas," she said, "you need to make some major changes in your life."

Velasco looked up from his hospital bed and saw Nicholas crying.

"It was the first time I realized I wasn't just hurting myself," he recalled. "I was hurting everyone around me."

Velasco agreed to stay in the hospital for a month while the doctor, a mental health counselor and a dietitian started him on a plan for a new life.

But secretly, he had a friend sneak him daily treats. When Chong found out, she was livid.

"She put a sign on my door that said, 'Do Not Feed,'" Velasco recalled. "I penned in '...the Animal.' I was so embarrassed."

On his hospital-rationed low-fat, low-calorie diet, Velasco started losing weight right away. Six to eight pounds a week melted off his frame. But could he keep it up on the outside?

His dietitian, Susan Warren, agreed to call him every week or two once he was discharged to see how he was doing. She taught him to read the nutrition information on the back of all his groceries.

And she imposed a strict rule: No eating after 5 p.m.

"I used to have a midnight snack, and then wake up about 2 and eat again," Velasco said. "Eating was like a 24-hour thing for me."

That wasn't all. He would have to exercise. And if you think you know what mortification is, Velasco says, try waddling your 400-pound frame into the weight room at the Window Rock Wellness Center, holding your oxygen tank.

Velasco had pictured wiry people on treadmills sneaking horrified glances at him out of the corners of their eyes. But he found only support.

"It got to where I'd come in and announce, 'I lost four pounds this week,' and everyone would cheer," he said.

He screwed up his courage and went to a walk/run sponsored by the Special Diabetes Project. Pushing his walker, he didn't even make it a quarter of a mile before he was panting and had to quit.

But again, there were nothing but smiles and encouragement. The next time he made it a little farther; the next time farther still. Last month he walked in three 5 Ks and finished all of them.

"My next goal is to run one," he said.

After a few months, his doctor told him he could leave the oxygen tank at home. He soon found he didn't need the walker either.

Last Friday, they took him off his diabetes medication.

Velasco realizes he has a long way to go. Three-hundred and thirty-two is still way too much for a five-foot-10 man to weigh. But he knows he'll reach his goal.

"My doctor warned me about plateaus, and I'm on one now," he said. "I know the weight isn't going to come off the way it did in the beginning. But I also know I'm never going back to how I was."

To push himself, Velasco has vowed not to cut his hair or buy new clothes until he reaches his goal.

"I'm not a long-hair guy, so it's really bugging me," he said. "I can't wait to cut it."

Nicholas works out with his dad and has changed his eating habits too. He has lost five pounds and gone out for a youth flag football team. And this time, his father the former football star can teach him how to throw.

"We do yard work together, we throw the football around," Nicholas said. "I have my dad back."     

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