Joe and Dawn Wear both wear smaller sizes these days.

"These are 10s, and these are 18s," says Dawn, holding up an old pair of jeans. "I'm pretty proud of that. It's been awhile since I've been in a 10."

"So what we're saving in food," laughs Joe, "we're spending in clothes now."

Both lost 50 pounds, so far.

Both got the lap band procedure, but in totally different ways.

Dawn got a traditional laparoscopic lap band - with five incisions on her belly.

Joe got his with just one small cut.

Dr. Daniel Scott of UT Southwestern Medical Center performed the first single incision lap band in Texas in April. Since then, the requests and patients have been lining up.

"The upside," explains Dr. Scott, "Is that we think that it causes less pain, certainly less scarring and our patients just love it," he said.

Gastric banding involves putting a silicon closure around the top of the stomach. It prevents a person from eating too much. The ability to use only one or two incisions is considered a huge advance.

And, the risk and cost is about the same as the standard procedure.

Doctors say the next step will be invisible surgery through the belly button. Right now, the depth of body fat on an obese person prevents that.

"So we can't hide the scar. At least not yet," says Dr. Scott. "Until we get longer, more specialized instruments that'll let us go further go from further down."

Doctors are coming from across the country to UT Southwestern in Dallas to learn the even less invasive technique. A single or double incision lap band does take more time in the operating room but may also result in less recovery time for patients.

"It probably took me three to four days to get off the pain medication," says Dawn, who got the traditional surgery.

"I think I recovered a little bit faster than her," says Joe, who received the single incision operation.

Joe has fewer scars on his stomach, too.

Though both are thrilled with their loss of weight and gain in energy.

E-mail jstjames@wfaa.com.