Banded March of 2009 at 275lbs and over the next 3 years only managed a 20lb sustained weight loss! (pretty far from my 100lb goal)..............I consider the surgery to have been only slightly better than worthless.

After 3 years of failure I regrouped and I am now down to 210 (or a 65lb loss)......How????? I went back to the tried and proven (for me anyway). I transformed into a HFLC lifestyle.....For those of you who do not know HFLC stands for "High Fat Low Carb"............Basically the old "Atkins" diet............I know many people here don't want to hear it. They want to think (as I did) that without any effort that a surgery would fix their problem..........I learned the hard way once again that "there are no shortcuts!"...

What made the difference for me being able to follow this diet is that I educated myself endlessly for hundreds of hours about the research behind it. I now know that not only is this the best way to lose weight, it is also the healthiest way to live. Almost everything we have ever learned about eating a "low fat" diet is EXACTLY WHY WE ARE FAT AND SICK!!

The truth is that some people can reduce calories down to near starvation levels and STILL not lose weight. The idea that its all about eating less is simply not true, as proven by countless recent credible research studies.

Read everything you can by Gary Taubes if you want a resource for all the research. Read his book "Good Calories Bad Calories" and see how credible studies have proven that calories are nearly worthless in the weight loss battle.

Here is a link to my Pinterest page with a lot of videos of Doctors and other researcher experts in the field explaining all of it......... http://pinterest.com...w-carb-experts/

I know we all have to find what "works for us".....I hope my experience helps someone else enjoy the happiness I finally am.........

Maybe it's because it's 4:30am or something, but I read this post slowly and carefully, and I'm Sorry, I don't get it.....

The band has been everything to me it was advertised to be....

Because of that, I always read posts carefully about "Failures", NOT to judge anyone, but in order for me to be forewarned of anything I need to be careful of so I do not succumb to the same fate....and I'm not getting anything.

Why was THE BAND a complete failure???

I'd rather not follow a diet whose creator is dead because he followed his own plan. High fat? Who does that?!?

Dr Atkins dying from his own diet plan is an old internet hoax. Dr Atkins died by slipping on some ice while walking in NYC and suffered major head trauma. As a former Atkins follower I can tell you Atkins done correctly can be healthy if you can adapt your lifestyle to that plan. Most cannot do it long term which is why most gain the weight back. I guess its the same with any diet. I just found the low carb easier than the low fat. I am happy to say I do neither and I am successful.

There is so much talk about high cholesterol doing Atkins. Well if your eating high cholesterol foods then what would you expect? My own Cholesterol climbed up while doing Atkins and I had to take a step back and look at what I was eating. I was a 3rd shifter at the time so I was going home every morning and having 4 sausage links and 4 scrambled eggs. I switched to turkey sausage and egg beaters and my cholesterol came right back down to better than normal.

Again is all about the choices. I cannot live my life long term on the low amount of carbs that I took in during the 18 months of success I had with Atkins. So I got banded and now I am just doing strictly portion control with no deprivation and it is obviously working.

Whatever works for anyone an individual is great as long as you can:

A. lose weight healthy

and

B. Keep is off

To the original poster: Congrats on your success and I truly mean that. I loved the Atkins diet for a long and found it to be the easiest diet I ever tried. It was a no brainer to me that I cut out high carbs and the weight fell off. My problem was when I hit that happy place with my goals I started eating carbs again and lost sight of what I was doing and gained all the weight back. I hope you do better. For me I think what I am doing now is something I will live with for the rest of my life but it will remain seen as to whether I can keep it off and maintain and not fall back into that hole of hitting goal and being happy just to gain it all back again.

Sorry....long winded

Hi Jim. Thank you for the post! I agree with everything you said! As for me, I eat carbs, but like you said, I have portion control. I do not feel that I should stop eating carbs completely because if that was the case, I would have never gotten the LapBand and stuck to a no or low carb diet. My doctor never tells me what I shouldn't eat. The only thing he keeps stressing to me is exercise. I have been following doctors orders and I am doing great!