Essential Things to Know About Weight Loss Surgery

We live in an era where life has become somewhat sedentary and less physical than the life lived by our forefathers. Resultantly obesity has become a serious issue that has affected children and adults alike. If this sounds familiar to you, you might want to know your options and how you can change your lifestyle to lose weight.

Here are your options:

Examine Your Diet

The first thing to examine is your diet and see if you consume liquid calories, such as soda, alcohol, and juices. There is absolutely no reason why one should be drinking many calories, so you should stick to water.

Try to stick to foods high in protein and relatively lower in carbs. Ideal food choices include lean meats, eggs, and cheese as these are high in protein and excellent at keeping the blood sugar pretty equal throughout the day.

Take Your Time When You Eat

An interesting thing about the brain is that it needs time to catch up with the stomach to assess when it is full.

So, if you sit down and gulp down a meal in five minutes, your brain will keep signaling you that you are still hungry. Undoubtedly, you will be eating more than if you took twenty minutes to eat your meal.

This happens because, with time, you will realize that you are full, and most likely, you will never finish that whole sandwich.

Weight Loss Surgery Options

However, let us say that you have reached a limit where you have no other choice but to opt for weight loss surgery; in that case, you might want to know your options.

Let us explore the four general different surgical options for weight loss:

1. Sleeve Gastrectomy
2. Gastric Bypass
3. Duodenal Switch
4. Gastric Band

We have come a long way from the earlier days when doctors/ surgeons used to perform open surgeries – now, with the help of technology, we have robotic surgery; the surgical tools have gotten better over the decades.

All of these surgeries are generally very safe and are minimal and basic. Most require small cuts on the belly, such as in the case of a single anastomosis duodenal-ileal sleeve, and the doctors work on a TV screen.

Depending on the surgery type, the surgery takes anywhere from one to two and half hours. More and less, all of the surgeries mentioned above have the same kind of preparation leading up to the surgery as well as a similar type of hospital stay (no more than two nights) and a similar recovery period outside of the hospital that is approximately somewhere between two to four weeks.

The Recovery Period

During the recovery period, you will be performing your daily tasks as it doesn’t require you to stay in bed. You will be gradually transitioning back into your normal life. Amongst the most common weight loss surgery, you will find sleeve gastrectomy, and patients usually only stay for one night.

However, it is important to understand that even if one opts for weight loss surgery, one must follow a certain lifestyle and make the right food choices to keep maintaining the weight loss and improve the quality of life.