Huntington Beach resident racks up miles biked, pounds lost
On most mornings, Chris Hill will send his wife Teresa a picture of himself.
Once Chris reaches Warner Avenue in Huntington Beach on his bike ride, he sends the photo. Then, he rides south back down the beach path to the Santa Ana River trail, before veering east to their home near Magnolia Street and Indianapolis Avenue to complete his 22-mile journey.
Teresa, who works as an executive assistant at Hoag Hospital, has visual evidence that her husband is continuing to take care of himself.
The proof is in the pudding — or lack thereof — for Chris, who has transformed his life with the help of his wife’s place of employment.
“I feel better than I have in 40 years,” said Chris Hill, now 64. “I feel fantastic. To not think about food, it’s really strange.”
He has nearly cut his weight in half since having a gastric sleeve surgery at Hoag in December 2021, through the hospital’s Bariatric Surgery Weight Loss Program.
After Dr. Adrian Dobrowolsky performed the surgery, Hill said he had the majority of his stomach removed. He no longer has the hunger pangs that are associated with the hormone ghrelin. In fact, now he has to remind himself to eat, and he sticks with a high-protein diet.
Hill said his weight went up drastically over the years following the birth of his two children, Joshua, 38, and Elizabeth, 33. When he went to the doctor earlier in 2021, Chris Hill said he had developed Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
His peak weight, in September 2021, was 428 pounds. He was down to 224 before a recent bike ride last week, not far from his goal of 215 pounds.
“For 20 years, I kept saying, I can do it on my own,” said Hill, adding that his wife had her own Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery about 20 years ago. “I’m a guy, I can do it on my own. I’d lose 20 or 25 pounds a year, then gain back 30 or 35 … but then it hit me that I didn’t have too much longer to go.”
That checkup two years ago served as a reality check. There were other little things, too. On his final trip to Disneyland before the surgery, he couldn’t walk due to his arthritic knees. He had to use an electric cart.
Now, Hill can walk around the Happiest Place on Earth with no problems. A retired guitar maker and United States Air Force veteran, he’s able to work around the house much easier, as well.
“I see other people in those carts,” Hill said. “Something stops me from doing it, but I want to go up and just tell them, ‘Look into this surgery.’ It’s really something that’s changed my life. I feel like I’m going to live a lot longer now.”
Hoag’s Bariatric Surgery Weight Loss Program, within its Digestive Health Institute, recently earned accreditation as a Comprehensive Center from the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program, which sets national standards for bariatric surgery centers with a goal of advancing safe, high-quality care for weight-loss surgery patients.
“We are honored to receive recognition for Hoag’s dedication to meeting the needs of metabolic and bariatric surgery patients by providing multidisciplinary, high-quality, patient-centered care,” Dobrowolsky said in a statement. “Our team offers a whole-person approach to weight loss to ensure each patient has the optimal support to embrace their new lifestyle.”
Hill is certainly enjoying his new lifestyle. He said he’ll likely skip a second elective surgery that would get rid of the excess skin that his weight loss has caused.
The thought of being idle kind of scares him.
“I’m very busy now,” Hill said. “The more weight I lose, the busier I get. And the busier I get, the more weight I lose.
“It’s just a great cycle,” he added with a laugh.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
