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TV weatherman Al Roker says it was his dying father’s last wish for him to slim down that finally made him tackle his obesity and lose 140 pounds.

The 55-year-old NBC personality recalled his years-long battle Monday on “Today,” saying he hit a low point when he got to his peak weight of well over 300 pounds.

“At my highest I got up to — I’m ashamed to admit — 340 pounds,” Roker told “Today” co-hosts Matt Lauer and Ann Curry. “I just kind of let myself go.”

It wasn’t until his father Al Roker Sr., dying of cancer in a hospital, pleaded with his already-famous son to lose weight that something clicked, compelling him to finally get serious about his health, he said.

“One morning he said to me, ‘Look. You’ve got to promise me that you’re going to lose weight,’” Roker remembered. “‘We both know I’m not going to be here to help you with my grandchildren. So you’ve got to promise me.’ That was a real moment for me.”

That night, according to Roker, his dad’s condition worsened and he lost the ability to speak. He died three weeks later. His son, meanwhile, had already begun taking his request to heart.

Eight years ago, when he was in such bad shape that he could barely walk with all the weight he carried around, he underwent gastric bypass surgery and slowly dropped almost 140 pounds.

He then had a setback after his operation and gained 40 pounds. But Roker says it’s a perpetual battle, one that requires him to be “constantly vigilant.” Now, instead of visiting his father in the hospital every morning before work, he exercises. Twice a week, he runs four miles in Central Park. On Monday he showed off a 204-pound frame on the “Today” show — about 115 pounds slimmer than he was before the gastric bypass surgery.

He also has cut out a lot of the red meat, processed foods and gluten that used to be staples of his diet and eats much smaller portions than he once did.

“In the old days, I could sit down and polish off two quarter-pounders. I don’t do that now,” he said on “Today.” “It’s much smaller portions. I might have a bite of this, a bite of that, and that’s it.”

Dr. Douglas Husbands, a nutritionist with a practice in northern California, said winning the fight against obesity is challenging because it involves kicking some long-held habits that are hard to break.

“People get comfortable with those habits — eating too much, not planning your meals, not planning exercise into your day,” Husbands told AOL Health. “It’s difficult to make changes when you’re obese.”

Differences in the environment today versus a century ago also have played a part in the modern-day obesity epidemic, with higher levels of toxins in the air contributing since the body stores them in fat, according to Husbands.

“Ongoing studies have shown that toxins are partly responsible for the increased amount of worldwide obesity,” he said. “Toxins are stored in fat cells and they perpetuate the deposition of fat. It is a very complicated problem.”

But Husbands says he would have advised Roker against a “quick fix route” like gastric bypass surgery — which can be dangerous and often yields only temporary results — and instead focused solely on helping him change his diet, fitness and lifestyle.

Like most overweight people, Roker knew he had a problem, but actually doing something about it was another story. And forget about responding to advice from loved ones.

“You can nag, you can cajole, you can browbeat — it doesn’t really matter,” Roker said. “It may even make it worse. We know we’re fat. We don’t need you to tell us. We know that, and when we’re ready to change, we’re going to change, so stop bothering us.”

In the end, he did listen to someone who loved him. His father’s advice drove Roker to overcome his own obesity.
“I was going to lose one of the most important people in my life, and I had to make a promise to him,” he said. “That’s why I ended up doing it.”

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