ree81:

My advice is to avoid gastric bypass and use that ONLY as a last resort. Gastric bypass is major abdominal surgery and 1 in 200 patients will die from the surgery or complications resulting from it. Further, in most cases the procedure leaves your stomach the size of a shot glass. And you will have to carefully watch your diet and take vitamins for the rest of your life. In a lot of cases you won't be able to enjoy things like ice cream or milk shakes as they can lead to some nasty side effects. Typically gastric bypass is reserved for people that are over 100 pounds over their ideal body wieght. At any rate there are great stories with gastric bypass but one has to consider this option VERY carefully.

Hell, when I was at the height of my worst depression I lost 45 pounds in about 3 months. The formula for loosing weight is relatively simple. Burn off more calories than you take in. Simple in theory, but hard in practice. For example, did you know that one McDonalds meal has more calories than the average adult needs for the entire day? And running 2 miles might burn off enough calories to compensate for eating two Oreo cookies.

I think a lot of the problem with loosing weight is that there are many misperceptions about the calorie content in food and how much calories you burn off with exercise. It takes a LOT more exercise than you think and eating a LOT less food than you think.

But, it can be done. I just think of how easily I lost that wieght when I was at the height of my depression. I never even intended it to happen. Now I could stand to put on a few pounds.

Good luck in your quest.