By the time he was in his early thirties, Paradiso was confined to his home, where he spent the majority of his time thinking about his father, who suffered a fatal heart attack at age 42. “I realised that if I continued down that road, I wasn’t going to make it to 40,” he told WFLA.
So, in 2014, he made a decision: He gave up junk food, went from eating between 5,000 and 10,000 calories per day, took up a high-protein diet, and started walking in his pool. He logged his progress on his Facebook page SalOdyssey and eventually lost 113 kilos. After that, he opted for weight-loss surgery, which took off another 50 kilos.
“I never thought I would be here at 141 kilograms lost it seemed so far away when I started,” Paradiso told 10News. “What you’re looking at here is excess skin.”
While insurance covered his weight-loss surgery, which was deemed medically necessary, insurance generally doesn’t cover surgery to have the excess skin removed, because it’s seen as a cosmetic issue — despite the fact that Paradiso suffers from regular irritation, pain, and skin infections, and can barely move or exercise. After consulting with a surgeon who told him that removing the 20-30 kilos of hanging skin would take multiple surgeries and cost upward of $100,000, Paradiso launched a GoFundMe account to raise the money. Currently, he’s raised almost $4,000 of his $100K goal, but he’s not giving up.
“These people who message me continue to push me on days where I’m tired or I just don’t want to go work out,” Paradiso told 10News. “The shell of what’s left is a constant reminder of a place I never want to be at.”
This article was originally published on MensHealth.com
