A few years ago, Mr Lionel Wong could not buy his belts off the shelf.

He had to have them custom-made because store-bought ones would not fit around his ample waist.

But things changed when the Ngee Ann Polytechnic lecturer decided that he had to reduce his weight drastically.

That was six years ago. Mr Wong who is 1.75m weighed 132kg then (see picture below), with a body fat content of 49.6 per cent.

Now, he weighs a healthy 85.6kg, with a body fat content of 24.4 per cent. And that custom-made belt can go 21/2 times around his waist.

'I loved food. I was a fat child and carried on eating as I grew older and bigger,' said MrWong, 32.

'Everyone always accepted me for who I was, and I was used to being that size'.

However, the risks of obesity hit home when a close friend, a doctor, told Mr Wong in a no-holds-barred conversation that if he kept on eating that way, 'it would be a miracle if I lived beyond 40'.

The married lecturer took his first step: He checked into the Weight Management Programme at the Health for Life Clinic, Alexandra Hospital, in December 2001.

The clinic's team put him on a weight management diet but it took him a long time to shed a few kilos. And it hardly made a dent in his pursuit of a healthy body weight.

Going for more drastic measures, Mr Wong underwent surgery to put in a laparoscopic adjustable gastric band in 2002. It was meant to put a physical bottleneck on his food intake.

It's a minimally invasive surgical procedure, said Dr Tan T'zu-Jen, assistant consultant, department of surgery, Alexandra Hospital.

It involves placing a soft silicone band around the top of the stomach, creating a small pouch and a narrow opening which slows down the transit of food through the stomach.

When the 'mini-stomach' created by the band fills up, one gets the sensation of satiety; hunger hormones are suppressed and so one feels full, Dr Tan said.

After the procedure, Mr Wong became very selective about what he ate as he could consume only a certain amount of food at a time.

'I still gave in to my cravings. It's just that I now had them in much smaller portions,' he said.

'I also had to be careful that I had the necessary nutrients like fibre in my food.'

While the surgery reduced MrWong's food intake, the psychological and emotional support from his friends was just as important.

'It wasn't an easy journey to take,' said MrWong, 'but the payoffs were tremendous.'

There were plenty of lifestyle changes as the kilos were shed. For instance, he is now able to walk into a clothing store and pick out what he wants to wear.

'Previously, it was more of a if-it-fits-I'll-buy-it attitude toward clothes,' he said.

He has recently taken up Hong Kar Kuen, a form of martial arts that he had always wanted to try but could not because of his size.

'Even squeezing into the crowded MRT train is easier now as I can just slip in easily. Now, I want to share with others how there is a way to shed weight, and have their lives changed as I did mine.'

A total of 360 laparoscopic adjustable gastric band procedures have been performed in Alexandra Hospital since 2002.

It is a well-tested, low-risk procedure with a proven 40 to 60 per cent durable excess body weight loss over a five-year period, when combined with diet, exercise and lifestyle modifications, said Dr Tan.

He said he would recommend it to people with morbid obesity, with a body mass index (BMI) of over 37.5, and those with a BMI of over 32.5 with existing medical problems due to their obesity.

This story was first published in the Mind Your Body supplement on Feb 27, 2008.