Gastric bypass surgery - a successful alternative

“Obesity can damage the body by its mechanically and metabolically adverse effects on normal bodily function; not to mention the psychological anguish it can also bring.”

Gastric bypass surgery is a very successful alternative to normal dieting for the obese and overweight, and is an operation that makes the stomach smaller and causes food to bypass part of the small intestine. As a result, a person feels fuller quicker when eating compared to before gastric bypass surgery. The amount of food consumed is less and therefore fewer calories are absorbed - the end result being weight loss.

There are several forms of gastric bypass surgery:

Roux-en-Y Bypass: This is probably the most common gastric bypass being done today. This procedure involves making a small gastric pouch high in the abdomen and just below the esophagus. A segment of small bowel is then divided and attached to this pouch, sometimes behind the colon and remainder of the stomach. The remainder of the small bowel is then attached to the bowel leading from the liver and pancreas in a shape that resembles a ‘Y’. Despite its popularity, there are some risks associated, including a narrowing at the connection between the stomach pouch and the small intestine which may require stretching at the opening, and the risk of a slowing down of the emptying of the pouch and small bowel, causing nausea and vomiting.

Mini Gastric Bypass: This gastric bypass was developed by Dr. Robert Rutledge in 1997. The mini gastric bypass creates a small gastric pouch much lower in the abdomen than the previous technique and incorporates a loop connection with the small bowel that provides for a malabsorption effect similar to that used by the Roux-en-y bypass. A patient who has undergone a mini gastric bypass must be careful to avoid calcium and iron deficiencies. Risks from this operation include leaking, bowel obstruction, blood clots, and pneumonia.

Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass: A Roux en-Y gastric bypass performed laparoscopically. Even though this operation takes slightly longer than the standard Roux en - Y, the recovery time is shorter.

Gastric Banding: This gastric operation also limits food intake by placing a constricting ring completely around the upper end (fundus) of the stomach, creating a shape similar to that of an hour-glass.

Gastric bypass is not an operation for everyone who is obese, as it is a major procedure that poses significant risks and side effects that can require permanent alterations to one’s lifestyle. However the contented customers are numerous – including many figure-conscious celebrities.

Writing for your weight loss success

Motivation is one of the key variables for the equation that yields long term weight loss success. The question is how do you maintain the motivation to attain the ultimate goal? Regardless if your weight loss goal is 20 pounds or 100 pounds you must change your thinking to change your behavior and writing makes that happen.

Weight loss really does begin in your head. Every successful athlete understands that his thinking process is either working for him or against him. The same holds true with weight loss. If your internal dialogue is negative, your results will eventually manifest the same result! You can’t degrade yourself to a healthy new you! You must change your thinking to work for you, to build your resolve, and to maintain that all important motivational factor.

Writing is an exercise that will help your mind change its thinking! It allows you to process the negative emotions and helps to instill the positive changes. Start with these simple exercises:

1. The Negative Emotions Daily Dump: Many success coaches advocate writing out your negative thinking on a daily basis. Simply spend approximately 15 minutes writing out all the frustrations, bad feelings, and discouragement. This helps you to process these bad feelings out of your system so that you can make room for positive affirmations. Do not reread the entries and do not keep them. Write it out, and then throw it out. We call this the Negative Emotions Daily Dump.

2. Affirm Your Goals: Prepare a list of affirmations that will help your subconscious work with your conscious brain to make those all important behavioral changes. Then write your affirmations at least twice a day. Write them once after you have written your Negative Emotions Daily Dump. Don’t do the Negative Dump without filling it with the positive affirmations. You should always end with this. Write the second set of affirmations either right before you go to bed or first thing in the morning. Read your affirmations several times a day.

3. Understand your Motivations: In order to stay motivated you must understand your real reasons for losing weight. In other words, understand why YOU want to lose weight. Not why your spouse or friends want you to lose weight but why losing the weight is important to you. Do you really want more energy? Do you just love skinny clothes? Do you want to participate in an activity that would be easier if you were slim and healthy? Write these motivations out in detail so that you can solidify them in your head and they can continue to motivate you through the entire weight loss journey.

4. Accountability: Keep a food diary. Keeping a food diary has been proven time and time again to increase your weight loss success by as much as 50%! A food log is your accountability factor. It keeps you honest with yourself.

5. Visualize: Visualize yourself enjoying the portions of your weight loss program that you are currently struggling to do. For instance if you hate the cardio portion of your day, start seeing yourself loving it. See it as “”your time”. It can be your time to read while you’re on the stationary bike. Or your time to watch all those movies you feel guilty watching any other time. Once you begin to visualize positive feelings about a certain activity the easier that activity will become.

6. The Pat-On-The-Back: Keep a written log of your weight loss success. By writing down your weight loss on a weekly basis you are validating your efforts and giving yourself a pat-on-the-back. This will go a long way to keeping you on track.

Keep in mind that if you are utilizing the assistance of a personal fitness trainer or weight loss professional that they may use techniques to help you face your self-defeating habits. This might feel harsh and negative, however it isn’t. Honesty is necessary to motivate change and this is different than running yourself down! Sometimes we have to hear the hard words to make the hard changes. Keep in mind that these professionals are seeking your ultimate success. Your success is their success. Let’s face it, the weight gain started with you and to change that behavior you may have to deal with some uncomfortable feelings. A good trainer will help you feel cared about while still insisting that you deal with your bad habits. It’s a good thing to be pushed past your comfort zone to becoming a better you!

Writing is the new “exercise” that can make all the rest of your weight loss efforts including good nutrition, exercise, and resistance training work for you because you will be working with these principles instead of against them. You will start seeing these weight loss techniques as a positive and permanent part of your life, instead of a temporary device. That will result in faster results that last forever!

Boost energy control hunger

Protein is found in all of your body's cells. It is the essential nutrient that is responsible for the maintenance and repair of all of your organs, tissues, muscles, brain and bones. This individual built in repair kit occurs at the cellular level in our bodies. Protein regulates everything - our blood circulation, our metabolism and our immune system. Individuals who lack sufficient protein in their bodies have weaker immune systems than people who consume adequate protein in their diets. Also, people who are constantly on yo-yo diets where they lose and gain weight back frequently usually become protein deficient and have weaker immune systems. This fact has been proven by researchers who have found that these yo-yo dieters have about a third lower the number of killer cell activity than normal individuals. The so-called killer blood cells are essential for the immune system to function properly.

All foods are sources of energy; however, protein provides a greater boost in energy levels since it is absorbed slowly and thus produces a constant source of energy. Protein has real energy-staying power for your active, healthy, lifestyle. Fats and carbohydrates produce quick bursts of energy but cannot be relied upon to provide the body with a continuous source of energy, since they are digested and metabolized more quickly than protein. Fats and carbohydrates also tend to be stored as fat the body for later use. The Protein that we're discussing is lean protein (lean meats, skinless poultry, seafood, egg whites, low-fat dairy products, legumes and beans, soy and tofu foods, skim and low - fat cheeses, and good-fat nuts). Lean proteins are also excellent sources of selenium, which. Is a mineral that protects the body against dangerous tree radicals that can destroy normal cells in the body. These free radicals can damage many different types of cells including connective tissue, which causes joint and muscle inflammation.

High-saturated fat protein products like fatty meats, hard cheeses, whole fat milk dairy products, whole eggs, mayonnaise, luncheon and smoked meats including bacon, sausage, and hot dogs are definitely not good sources of energy production. The reason for this is, that even though these products have some protein content, its value is offset by the saturated fat content of these foods. The saturated fat content of these foods do more harm to the body (heart disease, strokes, hypertension, high cholesterol and some forms of cancer) than the protein portion of the food can repair. These are called harmful proteins and are not recommended for any healthful weight-loss program.

For appetite control, lean protein tops the charts for staying power. By adding a small portion of lean protein to your meal, you'll control hunger pangs for hours. Lean protein also has the advantage of being lower in calories than many foods, particularly saturated fat protein product refined carbohydrates and saturated fat foods. Once you substitute saturated-fat protein products, you defeat the appetite-controlling factor of the protein. The fat content of saturated - fat protein foods prevents the brain's appetite-control center from shutting down. In other words, you'll get hungry soon after your meal of a saturated protein food.

Your body needs between 15-30 of your total daily calories, however, can be dangerous, because it strains the kidneys. This is one of the reasons among many why low-carbohydrate, high saturated fat protein diets are dangerous to your health.

Strategic weight loss

One of the first things that you'll do when you decide to lose weight is to set a goal weight. For most, that goal will be their 'ideal weight', but for many, that 'ideal weight' may be exactly the wrong weight for them to be aiming for.

Years of dieting or being overweight have the physiological effect of moving the body's concept of the 'ideal weight' from what is truly considered ideal. The 'set point' is the weight at which your body naturally feels most comfortable. If you've been overweight for a very long time, or if you've consistently 'yo-yoed', your body may respond to your initial weight loss by lowering its metabolism because it believes that you are starving to death. This slowing leads to discouraging plateaus that often knock people off their diets entirely, and lead to regaining all or part of the lost weight.

Instead of aiming for an 'ideal weight' that calls for you to lose weight steadily for months or even years, many experts recommend aiming for shorter-term attainable goals. Since the bulk of diet research shows that most dieters lose weight steadily for about 12 weeks, then hit a plateau, that's the number that they suggest you aim for. The strategy that many have found works best for them is one of alternating periods of weight loss and maintenance, each lasting 8-12 weeks.

Choose a realistic amount of weight that you can lose in 8-12 weeks. Figuring that the most reasonable and healthiest weight loss rate is 1-2 pounds per week, 30 pounds in three months is not unreasonable. Diet until you reach that goal, or for 12 weeks, whichever comes first, and then switch to a maintenance diet.

Why switch to a maintenance diet at that point? In part, you're giving yourself a 'breather', a break from more restrictive eating. The other part, though, is that you're re-educating your body and letting it establish a new 'set point'. Once you've maintained your new weight for 8-12 weeks, set another weight loss goal, and move back into weight loss mode. By giving your body a break from 'starvation', you'll have overcome its resistance to losing more weight, and be back to dieting for 'the first two weeks' - the weeks that most people lose weight more rapidly.

You'll also be giving yourself a chance to 'practice' maintaining your new, healthier weight. Researchers have found that more than half of the dieters who take off significant amounts of weight do not maintain that weight loss once they go 'off' their diet. By practicing weight maintenance in stages, you'll be proving to yourself that you CAN do it, and removing a powerful negative psychological block.

This will work with any long-term weight loss diet, no matter the focus. You'll find it much easier to do if you choose a diet that has concrete 'phases', like the South Beach or the Atkins, since the weight loss and maintenance phases are clearly laid out for you to follow. Regardless of the diet you choose, though, by alternating between weight loss phases and maintenance phases, you'll teach yourself and your body how to maintain a healthy weight.

Weight loss myths

Every regime has its supply of useless folk lore and

half-truths that get passed on down the line from

person to person. But I'd put weight loss up against

any of them for what has to be the most time wasting and

even the most dangerous myths out there.

There is a ton of free advice seen in the media these days

and if it is taken seriously, can really set you back on your

weight loss endeavours. This can lead to the kind of frustration

that makes people think they are "destined to remain fat for life”.

This in not true, Have a look at the Weight loss myths below and

draw your own conclusions.

Exercise on an empty stomach and burn more fat.

Effective weight loss is the total amount of calories

burned during the day, not how or why they were burned.

It doesn't matter if it is night or morning, so exercise

early in the day has no advantage to exercise later in

the day.

Studies show that increased metabolism induced by anaerobic

exercise is actually less after a large meal. Which probably

means that more energy is being used for digestion than

what is being used to repair muscle.

More exercise is better.

Every exercise session is beneficial to each individual,

however more is not always better. It depends on what is

trying to be achieved. There is a level and frequency

required to achieve results.

After this level is reached, additional exercise can

have the opposite effect, not allowing the body to

recuperate and adapt to the stress induced by the

exercise, which can be detrimental to your results.

After stopping exercise muscle will turn to fat.

This in not possible, Muscle and fat are two different

types of tissues in the body and you cannot convert one into the

other. This is like trying to turn water into milk.

If you stop training, the muscles will shrink

in size - and do not disappear. The more calories

taken in that are not burned off will be deposited as fat.

If you’re not sweating, you’re not working hard enough.

Sweating is the body's way of cooling itself down.

Many factors contribute to body temperature, including

room temperature, types of exercise done, body-fat levels,

clothing, and exercise intensity. The intensity for

exercise can't be judged by the amount you sweat.

A well-trained person will often sweat a lot because

their body can more efficiently regulate heat.

Taking sugar before exercise to raise energy levels.

Ingestion of sugar will lead to a rapid rise in blood

sugar levels. This rapid rise stimulates a release of

insulin, which quickly removes the excess sugar from

the blood system, often causing your blood sugar levels

to drop, sometimes below the level that it started at,

leading to faster exhaustion.

Gaining weight is just a part of getting older.

Getting older is not an excuse for gaining weight!

As we age and begin a more sedentary lifestyle we

start to lose muscle mass.

The efficiency of your metabolism is directly linked

to how much muscle you have on your body. The most

efficient way of maintaining your body's muscle mass

and keeping your metabolism from dropping, is by

doing a high intensity strength training workout once a week.

X is the best form of exercise.

Claims like this are usually based on marketing strategy

and personal bias. Even when claims are based on factual

information, they have little practical value to the

average exerciser. The most important thing is to choose

an activity that you like, and perform it properly and

consistently.

If it’s fat free I can have as much as I want.

Unfortunately fat free doesn't mean calorie free.

The word fat free is misleading because if you

overeat on anything, even fat free foods and you

don't burn off those calories, your body will

store the excess as fat.

Don't drink water when you exercise or you will get cramps.

By drinking litres of icy cold water in one go while

exercising you will probably suffer from cramps.

This is why it is important to drink water

continuously before, during and after exercising

to replace the fluid you've lost and avoid any discomfort.

By not having a personal trainer I wont make gains.

Hiring a personal trainer is one way you can use to

reach your goals, but you are an adult capable of

making decisions and setting your own goals once

you have the knowledge of how to go about it.

Following a good exercise program and eating

plan does not require someone standing over

you and telling you how to do it.

By exercising my abs I will lose my pot belly.

Exercising your abdominals will help to tone and

firm the abdominal region, but it will not reduce

fat deposits that are responsible for a pot belly.

Fat reduction comes from burning more calories

than you take in. Fat is reduced uniformly throughout

the body there is no such thing as spot reduction.