Tama area brothers heading to China for weight loss contest
By RYAN BRINKS, TIMES-REPUBLICAN
POSTED: May 10, 2008
After 20 minutes of wrestling with a new pair of size 62 bib overalls, David Anderson emerged from a dressing room, sweating profusely with buttons still undone.
Then the 50-year-old, 350-pound Tama area native landed in the hospital with congestive heart failure.
“The doctors more or less said, ‘We don’t want to see you in here again,’ and I don’t want to see them again,” he said.
Anderson’s older brother Walt is even bigger and faces knee surgery. Both have diabetes and high blood pressure.
“I don’t know how we got so big, we just did,” Anderson said. “We always had big suppers and I’ve got to be feeding my face the whole time I’m watching TV. ... Giving up food is like alcoholism, giving up the bottle.”
But for the chance to turn their lives around, the brothers are willing to go to great lengths.
They will quit their jobs and sell a car for plane tickets to the other side of the world.
Awaiting them and a 646-pound Wisconsin man, however, is half a million dollars worth of weight loss therapy at a Chinese hospital, all free as part of a new Winners In Life contest by the Marshalltown-based China Connection.
The therapy focuses on acupuncture, Chinese herbs and massage, along with diet and exercise.
“The more they have to lose, the faster it comes off,” said Ruth Lycke, China Connection CEO, who stumbled upon Chinese therapy through a foreign exchange student in 2004 after surviving a stroke and has brought nearly 100 Americans back for stroke rehabilitation.
“I don’t know what to think, but whatever comes, bring it on,” Anderson said.
The challenge is certain not to be all work and no play. Part of the success of the China Connection is the growing intrigue of medical tourism, Lycke said.
“They’ll get to see all kinds of things while losing weight and learning new habits. It’s a win-win situation for them,” she said. “... There’s a traditional Chinese proverb that says the patient is god. People are treated entirely differently than people are treated in the states.”
The hospital in Tianjin, China’s third largest city, claims Guiness Book of World Records titles for weight loss treatment, Lycke added, and she expects the brothers to shed approximately 200 pounds each in the six months to a year they are likely to stay overseas.
“I’d just like to come back pencil thin and walk into the casino [in Riverside where he worked] and have people say, ‘Who are you?’” Anderson said.
The brothers are expected to leave for China at the beginning of June. Video podcasts and blogs are expected to be posted online throughout their experience at www.chinaconnection.cc
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Contact Ryan Brinks at 641-753-6611 or rbrinks@timesrepublican.com
Member Comments
View Comments: | 1-4 | Post a comment
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Crunch4130
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05-11-08 10:23 PM
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You go, guys! Wish I was going with you. I believe in Chinese medicine - after all it was practiced a lot longer than Western medicine and not nearly as many people died in those days.
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morsecoderain
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05-10-08 10:43 PM
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I just wonder if it is necessary to travel all the way to China to get excercise and diet. Surely there are facilities in the United States that could remove them from their current temptations for 30 days? Maybe someplace that relies on PROVEN and MODERN methods for weight loss rather than ones developed before modern science. I also wonder if by selling their car and quitting their job to move halfway around the world they are putting an awful lot of hope on third-world pseudoscience like acupuncture and magical herbs.
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CycloneMom
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05-10-08 8:21 PM
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The problem with staying here today is that we are constantly surrounded by the things that have caused their bodies to become so unhealthy, that the best possible way to see change is to remove them from all the triggers and temptations and place them in an environment created to improve their health and lower their weight. It only takes 30 days to make or break a habit; after six months to a year, they'll be ready to take on the temptations and avoid them once they return. Don't knock something just because you don't understand it.
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morsecoderain
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05-10-08 5:26 PM
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Does this seem shady to anyone else? These guys are quitting their jobs, selling their cars and moving to China for cheap "acupuncture and Chinese herbs" in addition to diet and excercise. I'm pretty sure diet and excercise work just as well in Tama as they do in China. Too bad that traditional Chinese medicine is not based on knowledge of modern physiology, biochemistry, nutrition, anatomy, or any of the known mechanisms of healing. Nor is it based on knowledge of cell chemistry, blood circulation, nerve function, or the existence of hormones or other biochemical substances. I wish them the best of luck getting their "chi" unblocked.
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