What happened to good old fashioned weight loss?

If you need another reason to scratch your head, check out this article.
http://www.neatorama.com/2010/02/25/strange-weight-loss-procedure-tongue-patch-that-makes-it-painful-to-eat/

It alleges that people lose on average 20 pounds a month after enduring a postage stamp sized piece of polyester affixed to their tongue with stitches.
A PIECE OF POLYESTER SEWN TO THEIR TONGUES?!
It makes it painful to eat, reducing people to a liquid diet.

I'm sorry. SEWN. ONTO. TONGUE.

I can't decide if this is more or less ridiculous than having your mouth wired shut, having a lap band or gastric bypass, or jumping off of a bridge.

I don't mean to imply that bypass is ridiculous. But it amounts to a surgical measure to reduce weight loss. I guess the difference is that with gastric bypass you still have the option to eat food but you have to do it in moderate portions. With the tongue surgery, which is temporary, you have to drink liquid. Realistically the only people on liquid diets for their entire lives are those who have feeding tubes. I'm excluding alcoholics here.

How successful do you think people are in maintaining this 20 pound weight loss? I am skeptical.

Whatever happened to old fashioned diet and exercise? I am fat and lazy. I lost weight doing NO exercise, just trying to be fairly reasonable about what I was eating. When I started exercising -- and this was only 2 or 3 days at most -- I lost more weight. Yes I have bitched and whined every step of the way about not losing fast enough but I didn't regain 20 pounds either.

I hope that at some point society will say, "Enough!" and just submit to the fact that diet and exercise are the most consistently proven ways to lose weight. I am tired of the pills and the shakes and the bars and the cleanses and weirdo thigh-zer-scizers.
I'm tired not only because they are rip-offs and some of them are downright dangerous, but also because I think that people who are attempting diet and exercise are even more likely to fall for these scams and forego real progress at altering life habits.

What is the likelihood that you will eat food every day for the rest of your life? Pretty high. And the likelihood that you are going to drink Slim Fast for the next 40 years? Small. That's my assumption anyhow. Why not save your money and frustration and invest your time, money, and energy in forming sustainable habits?

I mean, if there was a magic butt-fat-shrinking pill, don't you think I would have found it by now?!!

Speaking of my butt-fat, I'm going to Zumba. I now weigh 171 fricking pounds. If I find a pill, I will let you know.