With the alarming increase in obesity and overweight in the U.S. in recent decades, it’s no surprise that more people are using medical weight control procedures to help them lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately, medical or surgical assistance like gastric bypass operations are considered by many to be the “easy way out.” What people who haven’t experienced gastric bypass don’t realize is that there’s really nothing easy about it. Gastric bypass surgery is one of the most difficult and dangerous procedures you can undergo, especially when your health is so fragile to begin with.
Many people don’t realize that after gastric bypass, you have to change your attitude toward food just the same as if you hadn’t had the procedure at all. Your stomach has been reduced to the size of a lemon, and you can only ingest a few bites at a time before becoming full. If you have compulsive or food addiction problems (as many obese patients do, which is often how they became obese), you will have to overcome them to be able to maintain a healthy weight loss program. It is possible to continue to overeat and stretch the usable pocket of stomach, and gain all the weight back again.
If you get gastric bypass surgery to lose weight, and you continue to overeat, you may also burst the stitches and create more complications for your recovery. Without addressing the psychological or external factors that caused you to gain the weight in the first place, you won’t be able to make the necessary lifelong changes to maintain your new weight. Not to mention that the surgery is very hard on your heart, your gastrointestinal system, and your other internal organs, as well as your psyche.
There is nothing shameful about taking advantage of medical weight control options, and there’s nothing easy about weight loss surgery. For many, it’s their only option, and for most, it is far more difficult to undergo surgery than it is for an already-healthy person to change a few of his or her worst habits. It’s difficult, but it can also save your life.