Rosie O'Donnell Loses 40 Pounds Through Surgery

At a luncheon sponsored by the American Heart Surgery Association in Detroit on Friday, Rosie O'Donnell revealed that she underwent vertical gastric sleeve surgery, People reports.

Since having the procedure in July, O'Donnell says she has lost 40 pounds and currently weighs 190 pounds.

The weight loss surgery reduces one's stomach size by approximately 25 percent and thereby limitshe amount of food your stomach can hold. "I did it to save my life," O'Donnell, who suffered a heart attack in 2012, said. She also had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and was pre-diabetic.

O'Donnell, 51, also started a healthy diet, which involved a reduced intake of red meat, carbohydrates and sugar. She also increased her exercise by taking daily short walks with her wife Michelle Rounds.

The comedian and former talk show host initially tried to lose weight naturally, but she was unsuccessful. Her doctor gave her one year to lose weight and told her she had to be under 200 pounds one year after the surgery.

"She tried to lose weight but it wasn't working," O'Donnell's spokesperson Cindi Berger tells the magazine. "It was a lifesaving surgery. But it's only a tool, not a cure."

O'Donnell recently showed off her slimmer figure on The View last Friday.

If this is the only way people can lose weight so be it, but I find it laughable. This is goes back to people being lazy and ignoring the old ways of just sweating it out at the gym and dieting the correct way. There is enough diets/drinks and exercises where removing a quarter of your stomach isn't needed. Must be nice to have enough money to just piss it away on vertical gastric sleeve surgery.

Plus you have more chance with the surgery to even go wrong, so basically its almost paying money to put yourself in that position. The only healthy way to lose weight, gain muscle is to eat healthy and exercise. That is all there is to it. What people don't want to do is find out how to eat healthy, and how to exercise. Yes, I am overweight myself, and I blame myself for getting the way I am. But you are right, people are lazy, and they will go out of their way, even if it costs them MORE, to avoid doing the right way of doing things.

Must be nice to be able to afford that...I'll just go the old route, thanks. :)