For years, Gabby Beltre loved to run but felt her weight was keeping her from reaching her health and fitness potential.
The Massachusetts mom of three, who at one point weighed 310 pounds, would mostly run short 5K and 10K races for charity, but never completed anything longer.
This week, the 42-year-old achieved a major milestone: finishing 26.2 miles in the Chicago Marathon after dropping over 140 pounds.
"The people, the vibe, the crowd, the course, everything was amazing," Beltre told ABC News of how it felt completing her first marathon. "I'm super happy, because I really, really love the experience overall."
Beltre completed the Chicago Marathon with a finish time of 5 hours and 22 minutes, and her family, including her husband, kids, and mom, were there to cheer her on.
"It was so many emotions through the whole 26.2 miles, but just crossing the line, it was kind of like putting the cherry on top, just to prove to myself that everything is actually possible," Beltre said.
Beltre said her experience was especially meaningful, after all the work she put in to reach her goal.
Beltre said that about a decade ago, she consulted with her doctor and decided to undergo a weight-loss surgery called a duodenal switch.
"[Doctors] reduce the size of the stomach," Beltre explained of her procedure. "And they actually make, like, a shortcut in your intestines."
According to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, a duodenal switch is where doctors create a "tube-shaped stomach pouch," shaped like a banana, and connect this pouch to a portion of the small intestine. This allows for consumed food to bypass about 75% of the small intestine, causing the body to absorb fewer calories and nutrients and impacting hormones that can reduce the feeling of hunger.
After her surgery, Beltre, a professional nanny, went from 310 pounds to her current weight of 160 pounds.
However, she said the operation wasn't one-and-done.
"Ten years later, I can tell you that it's actually work that you have to keep on doing," said Beltre, who described the surgery as a "tool."
"It doesn't matter if you do the surgery or not, you still have to eat healthy, you still have to be active," she added.
Last year, Beltre started to seriously train for a marathon, working with a coach to realize her dream and prove to herself that she could go after her goals.
"Life can get very busy at times, but when you really make priorities very straight in your life, you definitely find the time, especially when you start seeing the benefits that come with it," she said.
She said her family even got active with her.
"It was now so normal for [my husband and kids], for me to get up at 5 [a.m.] and run on the treadmill or go out for a long run," Beltre recounted. "It actually has been a way of actually doing stuff as a family and being more active together, too. So it's been a win-win situation."
Now that she has completed the Chicago Marathon course, Beltre said she would love to run another major marathon. She said running the Boston Marathon in particular, near her home of Lynn, would be a "dream."
"I always said that I was going to do Chicago and be done with it, but I lied. I was probably halfway through it, and I was already thinking what was going to be next," said Beltre.
For others looking to follow her fast footsteps, Beltre's advice is to focus on how you feel, not just a number on a scale.
"At the end of the day, I feel like it's not so much to just think about how you're going to look, but also how you're going to feel," she said. "At some point during my process, I didn't care about the scale anymore, because what really mattered to me is to see that I could run a mile without stopping."
"You have to trust yourself and just go for it. You're never going to find out what's out there for you unless you try it," she added.
