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Dr. Mark Vierra is a board certified general surgeon and specializes in bariatric surgery.
Bev Schiavoni wasn't the typical patient walking into the office of a weight-loss surgeon.
She wasn't focused on losing weight as much as removing 40 pounds of skin from dropping a great deal of weight through nutrition and exercise.
Yet for Dr. Mark Vierra, Schiavoni was just the kind of patient he needed. Vierra, who helps run the bariatric surgery center at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, wants patients to understand that proper nutrition and exercise are key to keeping the weight off.
"He was my hero, and I was his," Schiavoni said.
Nutrition became integral to Vierra's treatment for his patients when he started in metabolic surgery at Stanford University in 1990. Many of his patients had a "complicated nutritional background" from cancer treatments or injuries that left them unable to absorb nutrients. He helped them gain weight through nutritional counseling.
At the same time, he started fielding patients who wanted to lose weight through surgery.
"I learned a lot about weight control because of studying the extremes," he said.
One-third of Americans are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though we spend significantly more on diet foods and diet programs than other countries, "We are getting fatter and fatter," he said.
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Monterey surgeon says lifetime habit changes are key to weight-loss success
