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Bariatric surgery helps NY mom sustain weight loss
05/27/2025
Learn how a New York mom lost an impressive 28% of her total body weight and an astounding 88% of her total body fat with the help of Nuvance Health Northern Dutchess Hospital, part of Northwell Health. “I finally feel like I’m in control of my cravings and have power over food.”
Struggling with long-term weight loss
Karen Johnson struggled with being overweight ever since early adolescence. Shortly after college and joining the workforce, Karen’s weight increased even more and at her heaviest, she weighed nearly 315 lbs. Like most people, Karen found losing weight to be difficult but somehow always managed to overcome that difficulty, sometimes losing as much as 100 lbs.
Despite her efforts, Karen’s weight always came back. These up and down fluctuations of weight, commonly referred to as ‘yo-yo dieting’ impacted Karen’s ability to maintain long term weight loss and increased her risk of becoming obese, developing type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cancer, bone fractures and even death, according to the National Library of Medicine.
“I tried dieting, and I attended weight management groups, but my weight just kept going up no matter how much I lost,” Karen said.
In addition to losing weight and always gaining it back, Karen was challenged by a bombardment of daily intrusive thoughts about eating her next meal— something Karen calls ‘food noise.’
“I was constantly thinking about food. What I was going to eat and when were most important to me,” she said.
Although these thoughts may seem typical for an average person to have, Karen said quieting the thoughts seemed impossible.
Despite her struggle to maintain weight loss, Karen led a very productive and successful life. Karen was successful at accomplishing all her life and career goals but still, she found it difficult not to criticize herself about her weight and how frequently she thought about food.
“I always told myself, ‘I can do anything I have ever set my mind to so why can’t I lose the weight?’” she said.
Weight loss motivation through tragedy
While trying to manage her own health, tragedy struck Karen and her family in 2005 when her husband of 20 years died while waiting for a liver transplant.
Through her grief, Karen said the death of her husband made her realize that she needed to make serious changes to her lifestyle to better manage her weight so she could be there to raise her daughter.
Karen joined a gym. She consistently worked out several times a week for about five years and through her efforts in the summer of 2014, she lost 100 lbs. and reached a new weight of 183 lbs.
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Feeling reenergized after her weight loss goal, Karen decided to set another one and go back to school to get a degree in exercise science.
Karen also completed her personal training certification but what sticks out in her mind today are not her accomplishments in school but when she began gaining weight again.
“I kept the weight off that I had lost in the gym for a year and then it began floating up to the 220’s and that’s where I stayed for about five years,” she said.
Weight loss challenges during a global crisis
As frustrated as she was Karen remained committed by hitting the gym a few times a week. She tried her best to lose the extra pounds that she had gained back.
In 2019, right before the COVID-19 pandemic, she found love and began dating a man who would later become her husband.
Karen was smitten, but when the gym was forced to shut down because of COVID-19 she was stuck inside her house. Feeling hopeless, the weight came back, again.
At the height of the pandemic, Karen’s weight had crept back up to 261 lbs. and she felt stuck all over again.
“The pandemic certainly did not help, the gym shutting down didn’t help and menopause did not help,” she explained.
With most of the world locked down, it was becoming even harder for Karen to find a solution for sustained weight loss.
On top of navigating life as a newlywed through a global pandemic, Karen faced yet another setback in her health when she was diagnosed with a thyroid condition called Hashimoto’s syndrome, a chronic autoimmune condition that affects the thyroid gland, often leading to hypothyroidism or an underactive thyroid.
The condition is listed among the most common endocrine causes of obesity, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine and is four to 10 times more common in women than in men.
A time for change through bariatric surgery
Still, Karen’s ‘can do’ attitude and ironclad determination led her on a mission to manage her weight and reclaim power over her body and her constant thoughts about food. In the summer of 2021, she contacted Dr. Brian Binetti, a board-certified and fellowship-trained minimally invasive surgeon for a consultation.
Dr. Binetti, who also serves as the chair of surgery and director of metabolic and bariatric surgery at Northern Dutchess Hospital, worked with Karen for over a year and a half prior to her elective sleeve gastrectomy.
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“The team at Northern Duchess Hospital is so positive and encouraging. Even when it felt like I wasn’t ever going to be able to get the surgery, the staff always reassured me that I would get to the finish line,” Karen said.
Finally, after nearly two years of preparation for her sleeve gastrectomy, on March 15, 2023, Karen underwent bariatric surgery. Following the success of her surgery, Karen was back at work in just two weeks and experienced no pain or discomfort, she said.
Today, Karen has lost a total of 76 pounds since the surgery, an impressive 28% of her total body weight and an astounding 88% of her total body fat. Karen said she currently weighs 185 pounds and that she feels great.
“I feel very free. I finally feel like I’m in control of my cravings and have power over food,” she said.
Most importantly Karen has kept the weight off and she is so incredibly grateful for the weight management surgery at Northern Duchess Hospital that has changed her life for the better.
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The focus of and rapid advancements in bariatric medicine are highlighted in the many services offered in the Comprehensive Weight Management Program, which can give people such as Karen who suffer from being chronically overweight a chance to reclaim their health.
Weight loss support and long-term sustainability
A year after her surgery, Karen said she started attending group therapy sessions through the Comprehensive Weight Management Program at Northern Duchess Hospital once a month. She said the group sessions are just as critically important to her as the bariatric surgery.
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Karen said group sessions are open to patients waiting for their bariatric procedures, those who are adjusting to their new lives following bariatric surgery, like her and to those simply looking for support among the constant inner chatter of ‘food noise’ and daily struggles that come with chronic obesity.
Although everyone in the room is at a different stage of their weight management journey, they are all there for the same reason, Karen said, with the goal to heal themselves and their relationship with food.
“It’s so important for me to hear other people’s stories. When we share our successes and our struggles, the idea is that you never know when these stories are going to encourage someone else. Sharing my own experiences or hearing someone else’s is an important reminder of how we can all offer advice or just listen to what others have to say,” Karen said.
For Karen, the decision to undergo bariatric surgery was an easy one. Her unwavering determination to take control of her body and reclaim her health has proven to be the main driving force. No longer constantly tormenting herself with the question, 'how come I can’t lose weight?’ Instead, she now reminds herself that she already has lost weight and this time it’s for good.
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Disclaimer: Outcomes from bariatric surgery vary from person to person. No individual results should be seen as typical.