Gastric bypass surgery is done to primarily solve or treat morbid or severe obesity and other health problems associated with it. With this procedure the stomach is made smaller. The food will bypass part of the small intestine. By doing so, the patient will consume less because he feels full immediately. Getting full easily would reduce the calories taken by the body and eventually lead to weight loss.

Actually, gastric bypass is just among the many similar operations to reduce obesity. To refer all of these procedures, bariatric surgery is the term. These operations intend to reduce accumulated fatty tissues by altering the physiological and psychological attitude of a patient towards food and eating.

How does it alter normal digestion?

What normally happens is that after eating, the food would go through the stomach and then proceed to the small intestine. The nutrients are absorbed in the small intestine before it goes to the large intestine where waste is eventually pushed out of the body. The most common gastric bypass procedure, the Roux-en Y gastric bypass, alters this process.

In the Roux-en gastric bypass, a small pouch is made on the top part of the stomach. The lower part of the stomach, which is much smaller now, is connected directly to the middle part of the small intestine. The stomach was made smaller and at the same time, the intestine was cut short, the upper portion of the small intestine was bypassed. Both the upper portion of the stomach and the small intestine no longer digest food.

Statistics showed that patients would lose 60%, on the average, of their weight after the gastric bypass surgery. There are even who would say that they have lost 80% of their weight. There are studies showing that about 90% of patient who have undergone gastric surgery were able to maintain their weight loss after ten years of having the surgery performed.

Having gastric surgery is not risk-free though. People who have undergone this procedure would report more cases of gallstones, in other studies, they would also report nutritional issues like anemia or osteoporosis.

Every year there are about 140,000 gastric procedure being performed in the United States alone. The results could really be successful, with people being able to get better weight-loss results, however, about 2% of patients would find it very fatal. In the 2%, one percent could be as a result of complications during surgery. The heart in unable to support the pumping it has to do to handle the excess weight or the complication brought by it.

The other one percent cause of fatality among people who gone through the procedure, would be about not following the dietary restrictions that should be followed after the surgery. After gastric surgery, the body could no longer handle too much intake of high-sugar and high-fat food. There is a special diet that those who have just undergone the surgery should follow. Bypass diet would usually include foods that are high in protein but low in fat, fiber, calories, and sugar. There are vitamins and mineral supplements that are required to be taken to avoid health and nutritional deficiencies.

With more and more people turning to gastric bypass surgery as a weight-loss option, it is important to understand not only the procedure and the benefits. It is also important to weigh the risks and if our lifestyle and our body would be able to handle the dramatic loss of weight.

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Something that can make the difference for you when youre trying to shed pounds is finding good weight loss support. This isnt always easy. Often the people closest to us are the least supportive; sometimes they can be downright discouraging. If losing weight is something youve tried to do many times in the past but never managed to succeed, or if you lost weight only to gain it back as so many of us have, then maybe theyve heard you say you were going to do it before. While its not fair that they wouldnt be supportive now, often thats the reason the people closest to us dont get excited about our new efforts.

If you feel the people closest to you might have that discouraging attitude, then consider not even mentioning your efforts to them. You wont get any weight loss support from them if they dont know, but if theyre not likely to be supportive anyway its better to keep it a secret than have to deal with someone discouraging.

Sometimes the people we love sabotage our efforts without meaning to. The husband will start bringing home candy bars when the wife announces her new diet, for instance. When people fear change or worry that a new, slimmer you might make you want them to lose weight or change something about themselves, this saboteur-like behavior can start just when you need weight loss support from them the most. Dont take this personallymost people dont even realize theyre doing it.

If you have friends or family who also need to lose weight but arent currently concerned about it (at least, they dont mention it to you) be careful how much you talk about your own efforts. At best, theyll be happy for you at first but then wonder why you keep bringing it up, at worst theyll feel like your success just points out their own failure in that area. Its one thing to need weight loss support from those we love, but we also have to take into account that everyones human and people will react differently to your efforts and your success.

If all this seems discouraging, take heart! There are two great ways to find weight loss support that pretty much guarantee you wont be unintentionally alienating any family or friends, and you also wont be giving them the opportunity to take the wind out of your sails by unintentionally (or intentionally) being hurtful and discouraging. Look in your local paper for weight loss groups that meet once a week for the purpose of supporting each other. Several that cost a certain amount per week like Weight Watchers exist, as well as meetings that only require a donation like OA or TOPS.

Another great way to meet people on the same journey is through online support groups. This also has the benefit of anonymity, and convenience. An Internet search will lead you to dozens of places where you can find great weight loss support online.

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A weight loss calculator can be a great motivational tool if you look at it with the right attitude. Whether youve got 10 pounds to lose or 200, punching in the numbers and coming up with goals and time lines can help focus you to the task ahead. In fact, a calculator is just one of the tools you can use to help keep you losing weight and getting healthier without getting burned out or quitting because you dont know what to do next.

The Internet contains every kind of weight loss calculator you can think of. You can calculate your BMI, or body mass index. By entering your height, weight and approximate level of activity, youll get a BMI number. This number determines whether youre about normal, overweight or obese. The lower the number, the better, though it does point out the numbers than mean a person is underweight, too.

The BMI calculator is one of the most common youll find, and one of the easiest to use. While youre losing weight, it can also be fun to punch new numbers into the weight loss calculator from time to time to watch the BMI number go down. Especially satisfying is the day when your number moves from the obese range to the overweight range, or from overweight to normal!

Other types of planning and motivational tools youll find on line are calculators for things like figuring your daily caloric needs. These can be used in a variety of great ways to help you lose weight. First, figuring out how many calories you need a day just to maintain your weight is one of the best things you can do when you plan to drop some pounds. Everyone, whether they want to lose weigh or not, should know about how many calories they should eat in a day, just for general health.

One youve used the weight loss calculator figure your daily calorie needs, if youll subtract 500 from that number and stick to the plan, youll lose on average 1 pound a week. Subtract more calories to lose more, without going below 1500 or 1600 calories. Most people need at least that much for proper nutrition and health. If youre extremely short and small boned you could probably go lower; but not by much. Remember, under eating to lose weight pretty much guarantees youll gain it back as soon as you eat normally again.

Another type of weight loss calculator that can be incredibly motivating can be found online, too. You enter your weight, and your goal weight, and it calculates about how many calories you should eat per day to reach that weight by your specified date. Most will even warn you if your date is too ambitious, and that it would be hard if not impossible to achieve the goal by that date. Some let you enter your goal, and they give you a date. This lets you use a weight loss calculator to plan and monitor your success.

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How many diets have you been on? If you are like most people who have been trying to lose weight, then it’s a safe bet that you have tried more than your fair share of diet plans. But, the fact that you are reading this points out one major fact: those other diets didn’t work as well as you had hoped. If they had, you wouldn’t be looking for information on the best diets to lose weight.

When considering various plans, remember that everybody is different. What works for others may not work for you, and vice-versa. See, if you have tried diet after diet, only to put all of the weight back on (if you even lost any), it’s not your fault. You were probably following a diet that worked, it just didn’t work for you. That doesn’t mean it was bad, it just means it wasn’t a match for you. It happens.

Don’t give up though. With the sheer number of weight loss plans out there, you can bet there is at least one that will work for you. If it helps, think of it as a game; a form of hide and seek. The right diet is hiding, and you are going to find it! Besides, having a good attitude about everything will make it that much easier for you.

Aha! That gets to the heart of the matter…how will you know when you have found one of the best diets to lose weight? That’s a great question. Again, everybody is different, but there are a few signs you should be looking for.

Is the diet balanced? Any diet that tells you to eat all the cabbage, cottage cheese or bacon that you want is a sure sign of trouble. No matter how much you love the particular food now; eating it all the time will make that enjoyment wear off. The same concept applies to diets that tell you to avoid whole groups of foods. Low-carb diets are a good example of these. Even if you see good results at first, such a diet is very hard to stick to. Sure, you can eat all the hamburgers you want (as long as you skip the bun), but the craving for carbs will end up being more than you can handle. So, be sure any diet you want to try allows you to eat a variety of foods.

The other reason a variety of foods is so important is nutrition. A lot of people think they can eat anything they like and then take a multivitamin to make everything okay. While you may want to take a vitamin supplement every day, it’s impossible for any pill to contain the full range of nutrients found in food.

Common sense is really the key to finding the best diets to lose weight. It may take a bit of time to find the right one for you, but it will be more than worth it once the weight comes off, and stays off…for good.

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