James' is a fairly typical story: high school student (180 lbs) plays sports, graduates, enters satisfying career and happy marriage, learns to cook Italian (quite well), settles into comfortable life, gains weight, shifts away from activity but not from pasta plate, gains more weight, visits doctor ("355 lbs!"), diagnosed with hypertension, high cholesterol ("triglycerides through the roof!"), and type 2 diabetes ...

"I tried managing with medications," says James," but the side effects got to me. Then my general practitioner told me about the Bariatric program at St. Vincent's. I went through the seminar, decided on Lap-Banding and had surgery a few weeks later." Having suffered quietly from depression, he remembers feeling positively upbeat that day. "The surgeon came in and asked if I was comfortable. And, you know, I really was." His St. Vincent's experience, says James, was nothing short of "the greatest! "

Delighted with his steady downward progress (90 lbs to-date), James has brought four friends into the program and says he hasn’t had this much energy in years. He's in control of his life, eating the foods he likes but smaller portions and not eating within three hours of going to bed. "I go to the gym, but mostly I walk. I grab every opportunity, like after my son’s baseball practice. He chuckles.That's when I get to walk the high school track," he says.