I am thrilled to find this forum!  My husband and I read Doug's book over a year ago and have both lost the weight and are much healthier and happier.  For those of you just starting, I wanted to encourage you because this is what we have discovered.  Once the initial weight has come off and you learn what puts the weight on in the first place, the maintenance is so easy.  We have developed an eating program, based on Doug's book, and our own "cheating system"  that works well for us and doesn't make us feel like we can never have our favorites again.  We both follow the book during the week, but on weekends, we usually eat pizza and loosen our 20g/day rule.  We have not put the weight back on because it is the exception rather than the rule.  Our outlook on food has changed so much and honestly the pasta and bread doesn't even look appealing anymore.  The one thing we had to drill into our heads, is that you can not buy something that is pre-prepared.  No frozen meals, no canned soups - don't even try.  Just get used to buying everything separate and putting it together in a healthy fashion.  Also, we both just had annual check-ups and our Doctor was impressed with our weight loss and all of our blood work was good.

One more thing - Doug mentions in his book about men losing weight quicker than women.  That was true for us.  I got put out after a few months when my husband's weight was melting off and mine wasn't.  Stick with it - I had to work a little harder than he did, but I remembered what Doug said and did not give up.

One note of caution - women, your husbands will feel friskier and livelier than ever