I had to lost at least 200lbs. So far I've lost about 40 in about 3.5 months. No surgery, no "diets", no killing myself on the treadmill, no cost, no hassle, no giving up the things I like to eat forever.

I think that until you can provide the research that IF is as effective as WLS LONG TERM, then nobody here is going to take you very seriously. I've lost weight with IF, Atkins, Low Fat, you name it. I've kept it off for greater than 6 months even, but never long term. You can call me weak minded, duped, whatever you want, but the fact is, that I chose WLS because of the research that showed long term results. It's not an easy or light decision to make, and many of us wait years to make the decision, so that we can try one last method to try to get the weight off and keep it off. In the meantime, we face people like you, who tell us all the reason we are wrong, duped, shills. Yeah, may I suggest a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People?

I'm probably the best "qualified", of the current members, to answer this. When Eric started the site, in 1998? 1999? WLS was not at all as "In vogue" as it is now. When I joined, in 2001, we had ONE forum, and a chat room. PERIOD. We were all in those 2 places--surgery or not.

I find that Paleo blogs have great WLS-friendly recipes.

I had a long response all typed up and then I said "Why bother?" You have absolutely no credibility to me. None. You have managed to stick it out six months. That means nothing to me. Check back this time next year and I'll be impressed. Six months. Jeez. What a joke. I can't even believe you are boasting about that. I would be embarrassed to tell people that I have the magic answer after only six months. I could stick to most diets for six months. What I could never do without surgery is maintain a normal BMI for seven years. That impresses me.

Dial me up in seven years and I will be impressed. Hell, check in a year from now and you might have my attention. Until then I would just keep quiet until you have some long term success under your belt before you start telling people to forget surgery and jump on your bandwagon.