For very overweight individuals who fail to see results from diet and exercise alone, weight loss surgery has become the safest and most effective way to achieve significant weight loss. In fact, research has shown that with diet and exercise alone, almost 95% of obese patients will get all the weight lost again in 5 years. On the other hand, the long-term success rate for weight-loss surgery - including the LAP-BAND procedure - is very high, allowing patients to maintain a loss of between 50-70% of their excess weight.