In 2001, Al Roker’s father, Albert Lincoln Roker Sr., was told by doctors that he had lung cancer. Sadly, by the end of the year, the former bus driver had died from the illness. But in the period between his diagnosis and passing, he managed to inspire his son to make a life-changing decision about his weight.
Recalling the times he regularly visited his dad in the hospital, Roker told Parade, “We’d talk and joke, and then one day he got serious and said, ‘Look, we both know I’m not going to be here to help you with my grandkids, so you gotta promise you’re going to lose weight.'” Just a few weeks after losing his father, Roker and wife Deborah Roberts found out they were about to become parents themselves again.
Taking his dad’s wise words to heart, the weatherman booked himself to undergo bariatric surgery. Over the following eight months, he lost a remarkable 100 pounds. “I don’t know if you’ve ever had to make a deathbed promise to someone you love, but if you have, you know the kind of guilt and massive responsibility I felt in that moment,” Roker later wrote in his 2012 memoir, “Never Goin’ Back: Winning The Weight-loss Battle for Good.”
