Gastric bypass surgeries and other weight loss medical procedures being performed in the United States are increasing for the last few years. This may be in response for the increase in the number of people suffering from obesity. According to the American Society of Bariatric Surgery, there are about 140,000 gastric bypass being performed every year.

Those who have undergone weight loss surgeries, lose about 50 to 60% of their body weight, a year after the surgery. Along with the weight loss, they would also be losing ailments associated with obesity like high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, heart diseases and even cancer.

The Procedure

The most common gastric bypass performed is called the Roux-en Y gastric bypass. In this procedure, a small pouch is created on the top of the stomach. It is stapled, to seal it off from the rest of the stomach. This small pouch will no longer digest any food. The upper part of the small intestine, the duodenum, is attached to this small pouch.

When eating, the food would bypass the small pouch in the stomach and the upper portion of the small intestine. The food would go directly to the middle section of the intestine called the jejunum. Since it is the small intestine that does the absorption of minerals, vitamins and calories, the body will absorb limited calories only. A Y formation is formed just below the stomach.

Incisions are made in the abdomen to perform the procedure. Surgeons will be using the laparoscope or a small, tubular instrument with a camera. This will enable the surgeon to see the abdomen and perform the surgery. The laparoscopic gastric bypass actually makes the stay in the hospital and the recovery period shorter and quicker.

There are still open gastric bypass performed, however, there could be wound-related problems with this kind of procedure. The laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is performed under general anaesthesia. The procedure lasts for about four hours. Patients who have undergone the procedure stay in the hospital for about two to six days to be monitored for any complications.

After the Surgery

Having a smaller stomach has effects on how much food the patient can eat. There are special diets that a patient recovering from gastric bypass surgery follows. Every food that the patient would eat will be important for his nutrition. There are times that they are also recommended nutritional supplements to avoid deficiencies like anemia or vitamin deficiency.

There are patients reporting weight loss of as much as 50 to 60 percent a year after the surgery. There are even some who would report an astounding 80% weight loss. However, it is still possible for patients to stretch their stomachs and have that large size again. There is still a possibility of getting back those lost pounds. That is why doctors would recommend dietary restrictions and exercise plant that would keep the pounds away.

There are also tendencies that gastric bypass patients would develop gallstones, stomach ulcers, hernia or nutritional deficiencies. The part of the stomach which was bypassed can get enlarged, it could cause bloating and hiccups. There is also the Dumping syndrome which happens when the food moves quickly to the small intestine. This can happen after eating foods high in sugar or fat.

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Getting A Gastric Bypass: Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

Why get a gastric bypass? It sometimes goes like this: you’ve been looking at yourself in the mirror and are looking at all the flab on you? Have you been laying awake all night as you remember your physical difficulties during the day? Life isn’t exactly when you’re overweight and a lot of people try to rid themselves of the fat on their body. The problem is sometimes alll those exercise programs and diets don’t exactly work out for those doing them. What do you do when your weight yo-yos up and down or, worse, it just won’t go down?

Well, that’s the time when you think about getting a surgical option. Liposuctions are a good stopgap option and they can often do the trick all it takes is a good push and maintaining weight is a lot easier. However, sometimes even that is not enough. The fat keeps on coming back, whether it’s just a genetic predesposition to it or something similar. Some people really need help to get them out of obesity’s tight embrace. That’s where a gastric bypass comes in.

A gastric bypass, or as medical professionals call it a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, is a surgical weight-loss procedure that enables the patient to lose weight on a constant and regular basis. It is one of the more safe options and is because of this the preferred option when any weight-loss surgery is being considered. What it does is essentially make a small pouch in the upper part of the stomach, and connect it directly to the middle of your small intestine. This severely cuts down on your caloric intake by skipping most of the intestinal tract and also reduces your appetite by making your stomach handle less food.

The procedure may sound like an easy thing but a gastric bypass is still a major surgical operation and has its own risks. You’ll be under general anesthesia for this operation and tubes will be inserted via your nose and your abdomen to make sure you recover completely after the operation. The operation itself will only take a few hours.

It may even be shorter if you under go a laparoscopic bypass, a procedure which uses a laparoscope instead of opening your abdomen completely for the operation. This results in less infection and accelerates healing time. After the operation, your doctor will probably keep you in the hospital for three to five days for observation.

Of course, immediately after the operation you will be experiencing a few changes. First of all, in the first three days after the bypass, you’ll be on an IV drip no eating until your stomach heals. Then it’s twelve weeks of reginemnted diet as you progress to solid foods again. You’ll also be feeling the effects of the gastric bypass. When you eat a lot of food or eat quickly, it may cause you to vomit or pain. You will feel yourself losing weight in the next few months but will also have to suffer the side-effects like weakness, hair loss and body aches.

This is why you should never undertake a gastric bypass unless it’s truly necessary.

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Though one of the most popular tools used today to determine whether someone is at a healthy weight or not is the BMI, body fat and lean muscle tissue don’t figure into the equation. This has led many experts to discount BMI as an archaic measurement that isn’t accurate for many people. What is BMI, and why is it a good measure for some, maybe, and completely wrong for others?

BMI, or body mass index, was created in the early 1800s by Adolphe Quetelet. Because of that, it’s sometimes called the Quetelet index. It’s nothing more than a way of comparing a person’s weight to his or her height, and determining if his or her weight falls into a healthy and normal range. The BMI is still used today pretty much as it was when Quetelet invented it.

The formula for figuring BMI (body fat, bone and frame size, muscle and body type aren’t included in that) is this: Take your height in meters squared (your height times itself) and divide your weight in kilograms by that number. For example, if I’m 5 feet tall, that’s about 1.5 meters. To square that number, take 1.5 times 1.5. The result of that is 2.5. So if I weigh 120 pounds, that’s about 54.5 kilograms. Divide 54.5 by 2.5 and I get 21.8 as my BMI. The normal weight range is from 18.5 to 24.9, so 21.8 is classified as a normal weight. Underweight is considered 18.5 and below, while overweight people will calculate a BMI of 25 to 29.9. A BMI of 30 or greater indicates obesity.

BMI, body fat and general health can all be used as signs of how fit a person is. But where general health is pretty self-explanatory and the percentage of body fat clearly shows whether a person gets enough exercise or not, BMI is a bit trickier.

People with a lot of muscle don’t show accurate BMI readings. Because muscle weighs so much heaver than fat but takes up less space, a relatively small statured person can carry a lot of muscle weight without looking huge. BMI doesn’t take that into account. Football players, professional wrestlers, bodybuilders, and virtually any athlete who has a lot of muscle is going to measure as overweight and even obese according to the BMI. So it’s not accurate for them. Is it accurate for everyone else?

The answer to that is yes, and no. It depends on you. The BMI typically doesn’t show an accurate result for children. And extremely tall or large-framed people will show overweight or obese classifications more easily because of the extra weight from their bones and muscles. So for very short, tall or muscular people, the BMI appears to not be a good tool.

There’s also no distinguishing between men and women in the BMI. Body fat is more natural for women who are supposed to have more than men, so some sort of distinction in the measurement of the sexes would help the BMI’s accuracy

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Many people think about the Atkins diet and imagine all the horror stories you can think of, about tasteless bars and unexciting meals twice a day. Contrary to popular belief, someone on an Atkins diet eats five times a day, and each dish can be made in a healthy way that is still very appealing to people with all types of preferences.

The meals go in the following order:

Breakfast

Snack

Lunch

Snack

Dinner

When you eat as suggested above you are more likely to get the nutrition you need for your day and to make more energy throughout your entire day rather then having spurts of energy until you are hungry again. This also helps you to limit yourself because when you eat smaller amounts more often a person tends to not feel the need to eat as much in one sitting and rather to simply make sure they get the nutrition that they need while still getting to be full and able to function.

Many people feel as though they need coffee or other items to wake them up in the morning before they go to work or start their daily activities. With this diet you should no longer feel as much of a need for sugar or caffeine and will have more energy on a regular basis as long as you stick to the diet as it is mapped out and keep on schedule for eating.

The Atkins diet was originally created by Dr. Robert Atkins to try and battle against obesity and help people to stay healthy so that they will be able to live longer and healthier. People do not have to be obese or even heavy to go on this diet, you can simply want to get to a healthier brighter you who is able to have more energy and be able to get in shape. When a person feels the need for caffeine is can many times be because they feel a need for energy that they do not have because they do not have a healthy diet that gives them the nutrition that they need.

In many ways the Atkins diet is easily compared to many other normal diets where you are mainly trying to eat in a more nutritious fashion to become healthier. Many people think of the Atkins diet as being very different then other diets when in many ways the only difference is that they try to encourage you not to eat as much cholesterol while still trying to keep you as healthy as possible. The Atkins diet is primarily tying to help a person be at their key weight and be able to be as active as they want but more importantly to keep them healthy. With the delicious recipes that are available for everyone to try, you are sure to be able to get to your best weight while still eating things you enjoy.

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