I rarely eat low-fat or even reduced fat dairy products. If I can get it, I eat full-fat Fage yogurt and full-fat cheeses. As for milk, I don't drink it often, but I only keep whole milk in my house since that's all my husband will drink, and I don't feel like buying two different milks. So, when I make a cafe latte at home, for example, I always use full-fat milk.

You just need to budget your calories accordingly. I don't think the fat is bad for you.

Back in my high school biology classes our teacher told us that milk is not very favorable for adults since the digestion is incomplete due to the absentia of the digestive juice casein.
the side effects are not very immediate but very sever some years to come for you will suffer from diseases like high blood pressure.

Good post. I love milk and most dairy products but whole milk is very fattening. I have been drinking skim milk for over 20 years now. It is an acquired taste, I will admit. Organic Skim Milk is actually what I drink except when my husband is doing the grocery shopping. I think if you tried to gradually cut down from whole milk to 2% and then 1%,etc. You could do it.
I do use half and half for my morning coffee, not giving that up. Also, for cooking, yes whole milk wins.

I'm typically a lurker (actually, I guess always a lurker here since this is my first post) but I just had to chime in, because dairy is something that's very important to me.

At this point in my journey I've lost a little over 30 lbs and one of the BIGGEST reasons for this is replacing horrible processed snack choices for a serving or two of whole, raw (unpasteurized and non-homogenized) milk. Now, I have my own cow and dairy goats. So I know what they eat, what they look like, how clean they are. My cow is a Jersey, so she has more butterfat than what you drink in store bought milk (which is mostly from Holstein cattle). I do skim from the top to make my own butter and sour creams and to get cream for coffee and whipped cream, but it's in NO way skim. That doesn't mean I'd keep losing weight if I drank a gallon of that milk and still ate a bunch of junky foods. It is all in moderation, and counting calories, just like everything. (Also, most of you folks can't get the real deal, but non-pasteurized milk contains lactase, which means if you're "lactose intolerant" you can drink it.)

I want to say too (since someone mentioned cattle and "how they live" and "where milk comes from") that my cow is a very conscious individual, hates being dirty and prefers any dry, clean area to a dry, dirty area or a muddy one. Big dairies where your pasteurized milk comes from is a different story...

Oh and one more thing. Humans are NOT the only animals that continue to drink milk into adulthood. Almost ALL animals love milk. Horses, pigs, dogs and cats (in moderation here, but they can still drink it if raw), chickens, of course rodents, and even adult cows. In livestock breeds, if the mare/cow/sow/goat doe/ewe does not have another pregnancy, the youngster will not usually willingly stop nursing and the dam will continue to let her offspring nurse indefinately.

Back to the topic at hand, if you're drinking 8 or 10 ounces of whole milk a day or every other day, and replacing something like cheez-its or a snickers or an other unhealthy snack, I wouldn't necessarily sweat that it's not skim.

In 2008 my HDL was 48 (you should have over 50 and the higher the better).
In 2009 it was 44.
In 2010 I had lost 80 pounds (thank you 3FC!!!), was eating much less junk food, and my HDL was up to 59.
In 2011 I switched to drinking only raw milk - unhomogenized, unpasteurized - a gallon a week and my HDL is now up to 86.

These results may not be typical but I know I really value my raw milk for what it has done for my health.