Pamela Smotherman’s doctor was blunt when he told her to “shut up and listen to me” at her first appointment.

And she listened, because six months later, she was 100 pounds lighter. 

Smotherman is one of the patients Dr. Georges Jabaly of MN Angels Clinic: Adult and Pediatric Care, has helped to overcome obesity. 

Jabaly uses no drugs. No chemicals. No knife. What’s the catch?

“It’s all natural and according to blood type,” Jabaly said. [I] don’t give people a diet or special food. I think I have the coolest weight loss program,” he laughed. 

Jabaly said everyone is different and what suits one person may not suit another. 

“It’s no severe diet. It’s just eating in a moderate amount and exercising. That’s my weight lost program,” he said. 

Smotherman weighed 120 pounds when she married at 17. In February of this year she reached 352 pounds. She had back problems, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and found it very difficult to move around.  

“I was just stationary,” she said. “All I did was sit in a recliner. Everything I ate stayed right with me.” 

Smotherman was used to having one big meal — dinner — a day. 

“It was never a healthy meal,” she said. “I ate potatoes, meat, bread, vegetables, macaroni and cheese, rolls, biscuits and desserts.” 

She drank too much pop, milk and juice.

Smotherman has four kids of her own and adopted four other kids who were being abused. She had nine miscarriages, and fell through a period of depression — leading her to add the extra weight. At one point, she gained 45 pounds in a three-month period.

In mid-February, Smotherman went to the ER at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center due to the pain she had when she walked or stood up.

“I couldn’t walk and I had a mass in my back as big as a grapefruit,” she said. “It was like a crazy sci-fi movie.” 

Her body had swollen and her legs would go numb when she stood up for a short amount of time.

Her husband, Gary, called her mother in for help; she flew in from Michigan and took her daughter to the ER as her husband took care of their children. 

“My mom told the doctor everything,” Smotherman said. She said she was embarrassed by the situation. The doctor recommended she go to a family doctor and to get an MRI. 

Smotherman said losing the weight wasn’t tough. It was basically following Jabaly’s advice, eating five to six meals a day of whatever fit in the palm of her hand. She couldn’t have anything with sugar and nothing “white,” she said.

“If it’s white you might as well forget about it.” 

No pasta, potatoes, creamy cheese sauces, pasta, pizza, she said. 

Smotherman, who lost an average of five to 10 pounds a week, started reading the sides of the food products. 

“Everything I touched had sugar. I only got things that were sugar free.” Some things said 25 percent less sugar, but in reality they have more salt so it’s not healthier. “If it’s not sugar-free completely I don’t touch it.”

Six months later, she’s at 258 pounds, and went from a size 32 to a 22. 

She said she eats vegetables, cheese, protein such as chicken breast, and crackers when she gets hungry. Also she said Jabaly advised her, no matter what, to not skip breakfast.

Smotherman said she’s blessed with having an encouraging, caring family. She said it was weird letting people know what she had been through.

“There’s nothing extraordinary about me. I’m just a normal person who had a problem that nobody cared about in years until Dr. Jabaly.” 

A new wing will open in October at MN Angels Clinic office called Prestige Health Care Weight loss.

“It will target people with no insurance and people who have a health savings account,” Jabaly said.

It will include nutritionists, therapists, trainers, and psychologists.