I’ve been overweight all my life, pretty much from a young age and over the years it has kept creeping up.

And to me it was what it was. About three years ago I had a medical problem which I almost died. So I basically had to go through multiple surgeries for medical issues I had. I chose to have weight loss surgery, and it was great. Best thing I ever did.

My biggest concern was worrying about gaining the weight back. And they helped a lot here. They provided a lot of education for us. The proper preparation they did to get you ready to have the surgery was very helpful. From the dietitians to the actual counseling they did with us was really helpful. They answered a lot of questions that did help you to get through the surgery. So my interaction with the staff here has been great. They’re all good friends of mine right now. My wife and I both enjoy coming here. They make you feel very welcoming and you feel like family here.

So it’s really helpful and makes it not such a scary process.

The whole process from the beginning and to me was very quick. We went through a three month process where we did different things and checklists and things like that which was all very helpful to get you ready. It’s a mental thing; you have to be ready to do this from the consultations to the diet. The dietician was great. You have start learning how to eat properly. And that’s what this is all about. It’s a good tool to get you to get on track pretty quick. It’s a scary process. But it was very exciting. It was exciting to get it going and to do it. The building up to that was probably the hardest part was the liquid diet for the first couple of weeks was the toughest part about everything. The surgery itself was a very minor surgery; it’s not a bad surgery. I don’t think it’s very painful at all. After that, you’re already starting your journey back to the normalcy, I guess you’d say. So it was it wasn’t that bad. You follow the directions they make very clear for you, what you have to do. You can call them whatever you want, which is great. You can call them in the middle of the night to just ask my question, and they are very helpful with all of that and they let you know what you got to do. It is a very quick process – It wasn’t a long, drawn out, painful ordeal. So to me the whole experience is great and the results make it all worthwhile.

Emotionally it was all exciting. You don’t think about it. And you know the reasons why you’re doing it. But once you realize how much you changed it’s pretty amazing what happened. It’s changed my life. I mean it really has changed to greatness. I can run now, for awhile I couldn’t run. You know I’m 45 years old – I’m already fairly old, but I couldn’t run before or go to the gym. Now I run on a treadmill – I can actually run, I can do things I haven’t done in 20 years. So it’s amazing, it’s a real life change. It really is about the things that we can do as a family. Now look back now I’m mad at myself for how I was you before. It’s amazing. My advice to anybody who’s talking about having the surgery is, you need to do it. It’s life changing – it’ll make your life, I guarantee you

You’ll be a lot happier person for doing it. It may be scary; you have these life changes but that’s what it’s all about. It’s so worth it; it’s life changing, it really is. I can’t recommend it enough. I want to go to people on the street when I see them and say, ‘hey, you know you should look into this. Think about doing this. It saves your life; it really does saved your life. It makes you a whole new person. It makes you happier, I guarantee.