I've been overweight my whole life. I talked to my doctor. One said (yes he literally said this) Follow the SELAP diet. When I asked what he meant he said "Stop Eating Like a Pig". That was his advice. Another doctor said to get surgery.
I finally found another doctor that helped. He put me on a 1,000 calorie a day diet. Tons of people told me it was unhealthy, but I lost weight - 50 lbs. The information out there for dieting is so bad. I had people tell me that if I ate 1,000 calories a day, I would gain weight because of a slow metabolism. These were "professional" people. I've never heard of people who stop eating in food strikes in prisons get to the point where they weighed so much they can't leave their cell!
Unfortunately I couldn't keep that extremely low calorie diet up for the long term and when trying to increase it, I've now gained 25 of it back but it's been a year so I consider it somewhat of a success.
I'm glad to read about something that works for someone. The doctors you mention are pretty clueless in my opinion.