Hi. My name is Doug Milliken. I’m 49. I weigh 210 pounds and I live in Los Angeles. I grew up as THE FAT KID in a small town in Ohio and lived nearly my entire life between 350 and 520 pounds.
About 12 years ago, I started on my journey to weight loss and self-discovery. I lost about 100 pounds through diet and exercise, and after years of yo-yo dieting, I decided to get gastric sleeve surgery to help me lose weight for good.
After about a year and a half, I had lost another 200 lbs, for a total of 310 lbs gone. At my biggest, I weighed 520, and now I weigh 210 lbs.
I’ve changed my relationship with food. Now I focus on nutrition, work out 5 days a week, and will NEVER go back to eating the way I did, because I can’t eat more than 1/10 of what I used to be able to eat, thanks to the surgery.
As a result of this massive weight loss, I’ve got a tremendous amount of loose skin. In July of 2021, I had 13 pounds of skin removed from my abdominal area. That surgery cost about $18,000 and it was worth every single penny. As much as losing over 300 pounds did for me, the skin surgery changed my life. I’m even more active, feel so much better about myself, and don’t have health problems related to all that extra skin hanging around.
I’m asking for your help so that I can get a final skin surgery to remove the excess skin from my legs. All the cycling and working out has been very helpful, but I still have the skin of someone who weighs 520 lbs. on the body of a 210-pounder. It’s uncomfortable, embarrassing, and is the last thing I need to do to achieve my goal.
For years, I’ve asked anyone who would listen to donate to charity, but it’s much harder to ask for yourself. So I’m asking my friends, my family, my community, and some well-meaning strangers to help me finish what I’ve started.
The surgery and recovery will cost about $20,000. I’ve saved almost $10,000 and my surgery is scheduled for March 6, 2023. Please help me complete the journey I started over 12 years ago, when just walking around the block was hard as hell. Now I can ride my bike over 100 miles in a day, but I need your help to cross the finish line.