My body makes these funny noises from time to time that closely resemble the sound of my coffee maker…

I'm no "Mr. Coffee," but it's really weird. There I am watching my favorite sports show in my cave (as my wife calls the bedroom) and I'll hear the weirdest noise from down under.

By the way, I'll bet you didn't realize that the human body has enough atomic energy to blow up a city the size of Orlando.

I know the difference between having gas and other noises. This isn't gas. The best answer is I'm probably hungry.

I'll be holding my sweet grandbaby, Ashley, and she'll pass some gas. I never knew a 17-month old could get embarrassed, but she does.

Several years ago I had a gastric by-pass, commonly known as a stomach staple. I eat about six times a day now because I can only consume about five ounces of food per setting. It has allowed me to drop over a hundred pounds and get off of insulin twice a day and the 22 daily pills I was consuming to stay alive.

I was taking pills to offset other pills. I asked my doc why this was and he stated simply that we have to clean up your kidney. We're running so many meds through there that you're wearing out your kidney.

That was when I decided to take drastic measures to solve a drastic problem. I'm convinced I'm a food-aholic. I'm addicted. Even today I never met a cheeseburger I didn't like. I simply can't consume more than half of one before I'm full.

My bride, who is a nurse by profession, quickly said that I could die from such surgery. True enough, but I'm well insured. In fact, I'm in the life insurance business and I'm my best client. My response: "Wear black, keep your head down at the funeral and try not to giggle. I don't have any problems that death ain't going to clear up."

So in 2003 I had laparoscopic surgery done and the rest is history. Something weird happened in the middle of my surgery… I woke up. I don't recall much about it, but the intensive care nurse said something to me in ICU later.

"Did you realize there was an altercation during surgery?" she asked. I recall something but couldn't remember what it was. "You assaulted the anesthesiologist." I did what? "Yeah, you decked him." How could that be? I remember being tied down. "Somehow, you got loose and you were having nothing to do with that breathing tube that was down your throat." Is the guy all right? "Yeah, but I think you might have broken his jaw. Nobody liked him anyway."

I survived the surgery, which about 14% of patients don't do, according to some of the statistics on that kind of procedure. The day I got out of the hospital, I did 4 miles on a treadmill. Now I'm back to my high school playing weight when I ran fullback for Coach J.W. Ingram. I'm not as fast, but then I wasn't exactly a speedster back then either. Coach accused me of running in one place too long.

I had gotten well above 300 pounds at my peak, which made me look like the Goodyear blimp. I really didn't know exactly how fat I actually was because most scales stop at 300, and I wasn't going to get on a livestock scale to see how much I weighed. I got on one scale that stopped at 300 and it said politely "to be continued."

Kids would come to my house at Halloween and say "Trick or meatloaf." I'd get my shoes shined at the airport and I'd have to take the guy's word for it. I used the refrigerator as my personal lunch box.

I tried exercising but it's impossible to exercise enough to offset four plates of food per meal. I even used those jingles: "Touch your toes, touch your toes and wish you had skipped the Oreos."

Let's face it; back then the most exercise I was getting was back and forth to the refrigerator. My wife would hang signs on the refrigerator: "If you can read this, you're too close to the refrigerator."

So I'm healthier today thanks to taking some action. In the coming New Year, don't wait to solve your problems. Remember the old axiom: "It's not surgery that kills; it's delayed surgery."