I hear ya Slcmommy! I've been fat all my life, under 5 feet 2 and 185 when I had my band done. I've done the diet thing countless times, with success, failure, success failure and on and on it goes!!!Each time, my self-esteem lost the weight while I got fatter! I do believe that my problem could never be solved by dieting alone, I needed an actual tool that prevented me from overeating. When people say it is the "easy way out", I say B.S.! How long should one continue on this road to nowhere before they are allowed to actually take a path that is successful? I'm pretty sure that no one getting this done has been fat for a short time! We all have a longstanding problem that we have tried countless times to address, to no avail. This tool is here for us, and we are gonna use it!