PORT NECHES — One day while seated on his bed Charles Budd looked over to his dresser mirror and thought, good God, is that me?

The man in the reflection was morbidly obese, not ‘big boned’ as he had been telling himself.

Years as a police officer eating fast food on the run and unhealthy meal choices had pushed him to over 400 pounds. The scale, he said, stopped at about 420 pounds and yet even with the dire prediction from a heart doctor who told him that if he didn’t lose weight he’d be dead in a year didn’t sink in.

His weight loss journey — and yes he has lost weight, 200 pounds of it in three years – is unlike other weight loss tales. Budd suffers from life threatening Crohns’s disease and colitis and has undergone over 17 surgeries and 40 procedures so eating healthy for him takes on a whole different meaning.

Budd finally took his tale of weight loss, life with Crohn’s and colitis, depression and his faith and penned the story into a small book titled The New Me in hopes of helping others.

A Nederland High School graduate, Budd graduated from the Police Academy in December 1998 and started work with the Lufkin Police Department in March 1999. He worked part time for the U.S. Marshal’s Office from 2001 to 2002 and started with Groves Police Department in November 2002 where he was a K9 handler. He struggled with weight issues and painful stomach issues and even died and was brought back before learning his diagnosis.

Crohn’s Disease causes inflammation of the entire digestive tract and is an abnormal response to the body’s immune system. The inflammation caused by Crohn’s often spreads deep into the layers of affected bowel tissue; can be both painful and debilitating and may lead to life threatening complications, according to the Mayo Clinic. There is no known cure.

So, the stress poured on.

“I lost my ability to work and it was a struggle to do any activity,” Budd said. By Aug. 31, 1999 he went into medical retirement. “It was a lot of stress to get disability. It still took me going to court, sitting down in front of a judge, hiring an attorney, it was a process to get approved.”

Food was a comfort and he was always trying to find that one thing his body could tolerate. Sodas found a way into his diet.

“Coke,” he said of the soft drink. “It was one, then two and then a case a day. Nothing could fill those voids. People would say, you put some weight on, are you ok? Well yeah, I put on a few pounds.”

Being obese and morbidly obese does not happen overnight and is not something Budd strived to be. Besides the obvious health problems there are other issues at play. Clothing is one of those. Not every store carries the sizes of clothing he required — 58 to a 60-inch waist and 4-5x shirts – and such clothing aren’t cheap.

He ended up spending two to three times the amount he would have spent on something in, say, Walmart. And the clothes weren’t comfortable, just functional.

He also learned that eating healthy was not cheap either. Going out with friends he might have looked towards a chicken sandwich then learned, while using a fitness app, that the sandwich with mayonnaise and other fixings had as many calories as a typical number one meal combo at a fast food joint not to mention a high sodium count.

“The prices make it much easier to eat unhealthy, especially fast food,” he said. “You pay $14 for a salad or you can get 10 burgers for $10. For me, being single, there was a financial factor. Then I realized I needed to start cooking healthy at my own home.”

Cutting out sodas was one of his first choices and it paid off; he dropped 20 pounds in two weeks. A friend suggested the fitness app and also helped him with modified exercises.

After his weight loss people who hadn’t seen him in a while thought he had had gastric bypass surgery for weight loss. No, he explained: “I did it the natural way.”

Budd will always deal with Crohn’s and colitis and he has good days and bad days. Meal planning is difficult — where others may be able to eat roughage his condition doesn’t allow it and what his body accepts one day may cause flare-ups the next day.

Medication is another issue for Budd. He was previously taking Humira once per week at $1,000 each but it quit working. Currently he’s taking Entyvio every six weeks in Houston. The cost is $6,000 per vial. He has applied to a foundation to help with costs.

His journey isn’t over though and he’s ready to share his story.

His book, The New Me can be found at www.outskirtspress.com/TheNewMe or for more information you may email him at thenewme375@yahoo.com.