"I can't let food be my life or it will be my death," became Merisa's mantra as she made her decision to enter St. Vincent's Bariatric program a year ago. Extreme abuse in her childhood had lead to extensive therapy, but depression remained a problem."Food would take it away - temporarily,"explains Merisa, who was born in Jamaica and came to the U.S. as a young girl. But what overeating really was doing was pushing her up into a size 26 and down into more depression.

Alarmed at her weight (335 lbs), her physician referred her to St. Vincent's. At the free Bariatric seminar, Merisa came face-to-face with the reality that she could change her life. "I was scared at first," she recalls."But I saw people there who had gone through it. They had walked in my shoes. Like me, they had tried everything." She pauses."I was crying,"she adds quietly.

Self-confidence came surging back to this pretty young woman when she dropped her first 20 lbs after her gastric bypass. "The dark cloud left from over me," she says. With her goal weight in sight and the surgery helping her to establish the healthy eating habits that will get her there, Merisa praises St. Vincent's Bariatric staff to the hilt."I'm happy to tell anyone in my position that going through this program is the best decision I ever made in my life," she says.