After a life long struggle with obesity a Duluth Doctor has joined the thousands of Americans each year who turn to weight loss surgery to regain their health.

But there's a twist to Dr. Walt Medlin's story.

Not only did he opt for surgery he is also a "specialist" is weight loss surgery.

Like a lot of heavy people I basically went to bed every Sunday night... thinking tomorrow I'm going to start doing something different.

But he didn't do something different and Doctor Walt Medlin's weight climbed to 305 pounds.

Like a lot of people I didn't get on the scale those last pounds so I never saw over three hundred but I saw 299 a lot.

Dr. Medlin tried to eat right and he came here to the gym three times a week.

Despite his best efforts he failed to lose a significant amount of weight.

But he did manage to lose twenty pounds and kept it off for more than two years.

Here's what he looked like during an interview in 2007.

Probably the important part of all weight loss surgery is that people feel full sometime in the first time ever in their life.

Doctor Medlin performs weight loss surgery at St. Mary's Medical Center.

He's preformed hundreds of Lap Band and Gastric bypass surgeries and his patients have experienced considerable weight loss.

Janice Welsand's lap band was just the tool she needed to lose almost one hundred pounds.

I've tried many diets, and lost weight and gained it back. It was time to lose the weight for good and get healthy again.

According to statistics Dr. Medlin's prior 20 pound loss qualified as a weight loss success story.

But at 285 pounds he still had high blood pressure.

My health was really beginning to suffer.

It was no longer an impairment it had become a danger.

Last September, Doctor Medlin underwent a relatively new procedure called a sleeve gastrectomy.

Basically there is no foreign body implanted it is basically a surgical shrinkage of the stomach turning a football sized stomach into a banana size stomach.

They remove part of the stomach.

Remove the excess portion of the stomach thru the little surgical hole.

Just one week after the hour long, minimally invasive surgery Dr. Medlin was back at work.

Soon after that he was back in the gym.

His transformation is remarkable here he is before surgery.

And here he is sixty pounds lighter and on track to reach his goal weight.

It is very empowering to go and eat a meal and know that I have control rather than the food having control.

Tomorrow night take a closer look at how this surgery is changing Dr, Medlin's life and inspiring others to follow his lead.

For more information about weight loss surgery contact the SMDC Weight management program.

The number is (218) 786-7830.