Robert Walls, 34, an aspiring Lawrence chef who battled obesity by losing more than 750 pounds, died Monday, the Douglas County Coroner’s Office reported.

At one point, Walls weighed as much as 962 pounds, but by last year he had managed to drop to 205 pounds.

Robert Walls, of Lawrence, before and after his weight loss surgery in 2008. At one point, Walls weighed as much as 962 pounds, but by 2014 he had managed to drop to 205 pounds.

Chris Berry, an investigator with the coroner’s office, said Walls died at his home in Lawrence and the cause of his death was unknown. The coroner is waiting for laboratory results, Berry said.

Dove Cremation and Funeral Service in Topeka is handling the services and an obituary should be published on its website by tomorrow, a spokesman said.

No one from the family could be reached Thursday.

Walls’ struggles with obesity were publicized last year when a woman who worked at an area restaurant with him emailed his unique story to several news outlets.

Walls’ goal was to try to persuade people to prevent themselves from becoming obese.

“I’m willing to do anything I can do to help others not get to where I was,” Walls told the Lawrence Journal-World last year. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I’m going to tell them I was so big I couldn’t fit behind the wheel of a car. I’m going to tell them the real horrors of where obesity could get them.”

In 2008 Walls had gained so much weight — he weighed almost half a ton — that he was placed in a nursing home. He decided to have gastric bypass surgery but first he had to lose 100 pounds before doctors could perform the procedure.

After the surgery and while he was losing the weight, he had to go through years of rehabilitation and large-scale lifestyle changes, he told the newspaper.