 Hi, I'm Gail Gorman. Five and a half years ago I had bariatric surgery and I've lost a hundred and ninety-two pounds. And I'm her husband Ron, and I had surgery down in 2012, bariatric surgery, and I've lost a little over two hundred pounds, and I've managed to keep that up. I decided to have bariatric surgery when I started getting really, really heavy. My father died at fifty-two from a massive heart attack, and I was afraid that if I didn't do something drastic and permanent, I was going to follow in those shoes. And I weighed four hundred and twenty-six pounds. I was on four different blood pressure medicines. I had a very difficult time getting around, being athletic at all. And my doctor told me, he said, if you want to see sixty, if you want to see grandkids, you need to make some decisions. Bariatric surgery has changed my life drastically. When I weighed four hundred and twenty-six pounds, I was not healthy and couldn't do the things that I'm doing now. We own horses and we horseback ride, and now I have no trouble jumping up in the saddle and being able to do the things that I couldn't do then. We have done three half-marathons together. We've done many five K's. Getting down and playing on the floor with my granddaughter when she says, hey grandma, will you play tag with me? And being able to actually get up and run has just been fantastic. Having the surgery is the beginning step. It's a tool, but it takes a lot of commitment and a lot of time from you to go ahead and do the exercising and change the eating habits. And realizing that it's going to just make your life so much longer, so much richer. My advice to somebody that is thinking about it would be to get educated, go to some meetings and find out and then make some smart rational decisions about what you want to do. If somebody was considering and thinking about having the weight loss surgery, I would say do it sooner rather than later because you are missing out on some wonderful time of having the weight gone, having your body feel good, and just living life to the fullest that you should and deserve to have.