You might have everything else in the world, but, as the saying goes, if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything. When you abuse your body with bad food and no exercise, you will not be able to fully enjoy the quality of life you may want. Fortunately, being overweight or obese can be solved with some effort on your part.

Diet and exercise alone may not have worked for you in the past, however. You may feel you’ve tried everything to lose weight, only to watch the scale creep ever so slowly (or quickly) back up to former levels and beyond. It’s incredibly frustrating when you are surrounded by people who seem to easily lose weight whenever they want to.

One way for you to get back to being healthy and fully participating in life is to look at weight loss surgery. Gastric bypass or lap band surgery, combined with the lifestyle changes of eating only highly nutritious foods and getting enough exercise have helped thousands of people regain control over their weight for the long term.