In clinical studies, candidates for the procedure who had multiple obesity-related health conditions questioned whether they could safely have the surgery. These studies show that selection of surgical candidates is based on very strict criteria and surgery is an option for the majority of patients. |
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| There are literally hundreds of diets available. Moving
from diet to diet in a cycle of weight gain and loss - yo-yo dieting
- that stresses the heart, kidneys and other organs can also be a
health risk.
Doctors who prescribe and supervise diets for their patients usually
create a customized program with the goal of greatly restricting
calorie intake while maintaining nutrition.
Many patients on Very Low Calorie Diets lose significant amounts of weight. However, after returning to a normal diet, most regain the lost weight in under a year. Ninety percent of people participating in all diet programs will regain the weight they've lost within two years.
If diet and behavior modifications have failed you and surgery is your next option, it is important to understand that diet and behavior modification will be instrumental to sustained weight loss after your surgery. The surgery itself is only a tool to get your body started losing weight - complying with diet and behavior modifications required by most surgeons would determine your ultimate success. |
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| Starting an exercise program can be especially intimidating
for someone suffering from morbid obesity. Your health condition
may make any level of physical exertion next to impossible. The benefits
of exercise are clear, however. And there are ways to get started.
A National Institutes of Health survey of 13 studies concludes that physical activity:
Examples to get you started:
Overall, walking is one of the best forms of exercise. Start out slowly and build up. Your doctor, or people in a support group, can offer encouragement and advice. Incorporating exercise into your daily activities will improve your overall health and is important for any long-term weight management program, including weight loss surgery. Diet and exercise play a key role in successful weight loss after surgery. |
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 New
over-the-counter and prescription weight loss medications have been
introduced. Some people have found them effective in helping to curb
their appetite. The results of most studies show that patients on
drug therapy lose around 10 percent of their excess weight and that
the weight loss plateaus after six to eight months. As patients stop
taking the medication, weight gain usually occurs.Weight loss drugs can have serious side effects. Still, medications are an important step in the morbid obesity treatment process. Before insurance companies will reimburse/pay for weight loss surgery, you must follow a well-documented treatment path. "Since many people cannot lose much weight no matter how hard they try, and promptly regain whatever they do lose, the vast amount of money spent on diet clubs, special foods and over-the-counter remedies, estimated to be on the order of $30 billion to $50 billion yearly, is wasted." (New England Journal of Medicine) |
Behavior
modification uses therapy to help patients change their eating
and exercise habits. Like low-calorie diets, behavior modification,
in most patients, results in short-term success that tends to diminish
after the first year.
New
theories focusing on the body's set point (the weight range in
which your body is programmed to weigh and will fight to maintain
that weight) highlight the importance of exercise. When you reduce
the number of calories you take in, the body simply reacts by slowing
metabolism to burn fewer calories. Daily physical activity can
help speed up your metabolism, effectively bringing your set point
down to a lower natural weight. So when following a diet to attempt
to lose weight, exercise increases your chances of long-term success.