I've been overweight my entire life.

Even back in elementary school, I had the Sears "husky" size pants.

Inmy 30s, I was diagnosed with type II Diabetes. It's more or less controlled but I'm on three meds and I can't see that gettng better without serious weight loss.

My maximum weight was a few years age when I weighed 315 or so. Subsequent program dieting knocked 10-15 lb off here and there.

I've done all of the diets, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers and even that awful OptiFast. They all worked. I lost weight on all of them but the food limitations, cravings, counting this and that all caused my patience to wear thin and they all fell by the wayside.

Tonight is the first educational meeting at PAMF, Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Palo Alto. My MDs at PAMF suggested that I look in to bariatric surgeries and the lap band looked the safest and most doable.

I've been reading these boards and I've found that the lab band lifestyle as it turns out is a lot more complicated and difficult that I had thought but it seems effective. I've read the success stories and I hope to become one. There are also failure stories, probably a lot more than mentioned here but I hope to learn from the failures.

This really is the end of the line. If I cant make this work, I'm in for a much harder life.