Stephen Shipler: My name’s Stephen Shipler. I am a CFO of a surgery center. And I’ve always been a runner, I’ve always been athletic. Always worked out. Basically just I was interested in doing a triathlon, so I picked up a book on swimming to try and get more efficient at swimming, and found myself not having time to really not only get to the swims, but to get to my runs. And working a lot of hours at the office. And just started gaining weight. And was looking kind of for an opportunity to have a tool. Of course I wouldn’t want to starve myself, and I wouldn’t want to do an invasive surgery, of course. So I thought this would be a good tool to use where I could do these balloons and hopefully have some success with it. Kind of retrain my thinking. And be able to get out and do my runs and do my swims. And try to lose 25 to 30 pounds.

I was at 219. I’m about eight and a half, almost nine weeks out now. I am 10 pounds down. So if that keeps tracking the way it is, let’s say at a third. I should lose 30 pounds total, which would be amazing. I grew up. It took my mom probably until I was a junior in high school to even get me to take Tylenol. So I’ve always been very against anything in my system that doesn’t really belong there. I’ve been against taking medications, going to the doctor, any of that stuff. Like, I just was against it. I don’t know why that is. I just was. I didn’t want to interfere with my normal course. And so.. And then of course, my junior year in high school, working out and I get a headache. And my mom finally told me I had to take Tylenol. I was like, “Man, I could have taken this a long time ago.”

And so the analogy is a good one in a way because I realize now that there are tools that can help people. I think this is one of those tools. And of course in this case I trust Dr. Shay with my life, and so that was a no brainer for me because I wanted to accomplish this goal. And I also have this amazing trust with this person. So it was an easy transition for me to do the balloon. Of course, I don’t want to have an invasive surgery either. And I think that the balloon offers a vehicle to not have to go right into a more invasive type surgery. I’ve talked to thousands of people that just don’t want to be cut. And that’s the bottom line. And so this is another tool or another vehicle that helps them maybe get a grip on some of their weight management.