Having to lose weight is not an easy task to do, especially since there are a lot of things that you must sacrifice. From changing your diet to regularly exercising, which would sometimes take seven times a week just so you could lose the flabby arms and waist that you have. When all else fails, there’s always a faster way how you can lose weight–through gastric bypass surgery. However, this should be the last resort of anyone even if a person is extremely obese.
Gastric bypass surgery is a procedure that controls the total size of the stomach by significantly reducing the capacity of the stomach to store food. Along with this, the surgery involves attaching a part of the small intestine directly to the stomach, making it shorter. This will allow the intestine to absorb fewer calories from food.
As amazing as gastric bypass sounds, this is a high-risk surgery and should be at the back of your list. The biggest drawback of this surgery is that there are high chances of nutritional deficiencies such as Vitamin B12, D, and Iron Deficiency.
To be on a safer note, listed below are the alternatives to gastric bypass to help you lose weight:
- Gastric Sleeve
Gastric Sleeve is a perfect alternative for those people who has a BMI of at least 40, which means that you’re over 100 pounds or more to your ideal weight. A gastric sleeve works by permanently removing a generous portion of the stomach, allowing it to reduce its food capacity for you to feel full faster. In addition to reducing the size of your stomach, it also removes a part of your stomach that produces the hunger-stimulating hormone, ghrelin. To make things easier to read, it simply means that it reduces your appetite, allowing you to eat less amount for less frequency.
There are a lot of gastric sleeve considerations that you should know before proceeding with the surgery. Thus, when going with a gastric sleeve, you must be fully committed to losing weight. Just because you’ve found a hack with your body, doesn’t mean that you’ll continue to do your old habits.
With this, you’ll be needing to change your lifestyle and have a gastric sleeve diet, such as only eating three small meals a day (half of a normal food serving), consume protein first with every meal, taking additional vitamin and mineral supplements, and eating slowly. This can be quite difficult if the reason why you gain an extensive amount of weight is that you consume too much food.
- Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty
For a non-surgical and less invasive weight-loss procedure, the endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty would be a better option for you. This works by having a suturing device inserted into your throat and down to your stomach. When it reaches your stomach, the endoscopist will place sutures in your stomach, allowing it to be smaller. This will also allow you to have a smaller food capacity without undergoing surgery as this is an outpatient procedure.
The endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty is ideal for those who have a BMI of at least 30. This method helps limit any complications that can be caused by surgery, allowing you to quickly return to your daily activities.
Like other alternatives, this requires commitment and a healthier lifestyle, so you must be fully committed to changing your diet and maintaining changes to your body for a more successful procedure.
- Gastric Balloons
A gastric balloon is another non-surgical procedure that can help you lose weight. However, this is only a temporary procedure that’ll only last in your stomach for 6 months. During this period, you should’ve adjusted to the new diet and lifestyle so that you could continue to lose weight and maintain a proper BMI.
The gastric balloon works by swallowing a pill or the gastric balloon is placed on your stomach through endoscopy. When the gastric balloon is inserted into your stomach, it helps limit any available space in your stomach that immediately helps you feel full after a short course of the meal.
The average stomach can handle 1.5L in volume and the average gastric balloon size takes close to half of that space, allowing you to have lesser food space but still have the feeling of being full without consuming too much.
- vBloc Therapy
Another non-invasive alternative that could help you lose weight is vBloc Therapy. With this procedure, it blocks certain signals sent by the vagus nerve that can change your urge to eat. This way, you can help get your mind off of eating when you just want to munch on things and aren’t even hungry.
The vBloc therapy works by inserting an implant close to the skin to block the vagal nerve signal that urges you to eat. This can work in two ways:
- This helps to out hungry cues to your brain, reducing the frequency of the time you eat.
- It helps block the production of digestive juices, which results in slowing down the digestive system, helping you to feel fuller for longer hours.
Along with this, you’d also have to change your lifestyle and adopt a healthy food intake so that you could maximize the benefits of this procedure.
- Gastric Bands
Going back to another surgical method of losing weight, gastric band surgery is another great alternative to gastric bypass. The gastric band surgery involves putting a silicone band around the stomach’s upper part to help decrease the size of the stomach, reducing your food intake and helps you feel full even with tiny amounts of the meal.
This is suitable for people who have a BMI of at least 35. The advantage of this procedure is that it still allows your body to digest as usual without the risk of malabsorption compared to gastric bypass.
However, after proceeding with this method, you’re only allowed to intake water and fluids, such as thin soups, for the first few days as your stomach needs to adjust to its new size. You can proceed with a normal diet after six weeks, hence this would require your full commitment.
Conclusion
For most people, having to lose weight is a frustrating place to be, especially when you’ve already tried your best with diet and exercise. With gastric bypass, it’ll be a shortcut to your ideal weight. However, having the procedure done should be at the end of your list for cons outweighs the pros. You should go for the safer alternatives to lose weight and should commit to the new lifestyle changes to maximize the procedure’s effect.
Among all of this, you should still consult with your doctor to see which method would work best for you.