12 Jan Why Weight Loss Surgery Is Not The Answer
Weight loss is a common goal and topic among many households in the United States. Overweight and obesity is about 2/3 of our population. It’s become such an epidemic that weight loss surgery is being done at 200,000 per year! This is crazy! As I started to research further into what happens during weight loss surgeries, my heart broke. Why the heck are we trying to rewire and outsmart nature and it just doesn’t work that way. As everyone has their own journey and struggles, I feel that we need to dig for a deeper root cause obesity. Only this will create that long-term truly healthy lifestyle.
I personally know people that have had chosen this route and while quick “results” were given, long-term results were never great. Stomach pains. Limited eating = limited nutrition. New health problems that arised because of the limited nutrition. We don’t solve problems by addressing the symptoms or the outcome. We only solve problems by addressing the root.
With overweight and obesity in this country, it’s our diet, environmental factors, medications. We are messing up our hormones, we are overeating and undernourishing, we aren’t solving health problems anymore, but our society just throws medications at symptoms.
I’m just as frustrated as you are because I truly want a better life for YOU. I know your health journey is out there, but it’s time to work hard, do things we don’t like to do, get your hands dirty with real food, and start creating a lifestyle that we are meant to have.
What Are Weight Loss Surgery Options?
There are a couple options with weight loss surgery. (And please bear with me, as I’m frustrated even thinking about some of these options, but trying to show grace as well.)
Gastric Bypass – By the ASMBS, a gastric bypass is done by….
There are two components to the procedure. First, a small stomach pouch, approximately one ounce or 30 milliliters in volume, is created by dividing the top of the stomach from the rest of the stomach. Next, the first portion of the small intestine is divided, and the bottom end of the divided small intestine is brought up and connected to the newly created small stomach pouch. The procedure is completed by connecting the top portion of the divided small intestine to the small intestine further down so that the stomach acids and digestive enzymes from the bypassed stomach and first portion of small intestine will eventually mix with the food.
Gastric Band – A band that is placed on the upper part of the stomach to create a pouch. The band is supposed to make you feel full faster, hence consuming less food. The band can be adjusted.
Gastroectomy – They remove 80% of your stomach to create a smaller stomach. (ARE YOU KIDDING ME?)
The Downfalls That Need To Be Talked About
Let me just get into my biggest pet peeve right now is that the foods that are still mentioned someone could eat or drink after surgeries are NOT real food. Low-fat food. Low-fat dairy. Sugar-free Jello. Like, are you seriously kidding me? The whole idea to end obesity and overweight problems is to get back to our ancestral real food. QUALITY MATTERS TOO MORE THAN YOU THINK. Food that aren’t in boxes or processed. Food that doesn’t have ingredients – it IS the ingredient. Some people may even have to avoid fibrous vegetables, like broccoli and celery, or good fats like butter, because it’s not easily digestible anymore. This is unacceptable.
These surgeries aren’t solving anything – they are treating a symptom. Some of the reasons that doctors state that surgery outweighs the positive versus the negative is the dangers obesity can cause. Yes, I completely agree the dangers of obesity are dangerous and losing weight WILL reduce the risk of many chronic diseases, but there are different, safer, natural ways to reduce the weight and will lower risk of all chronic diseases in the future without side effects.
Throwing out most of the food pyramid, government recommended ways to eat is the first place to start. Eat good fat. Stop eating processed/refined foods. Stop eating artificial junk. Eat tons of vegetables. Buy only quality pasture-raised organic meats (yes, this matters!). EAT REAL FREAKING FOOD. Being able to listen to your body’s natural hormones, like leptin and ghrelin, that tell you you’re full because you just ate a full plate of delicious nourishing food is so important. When you start to rewire things, the probability of a secondary health issue increases.
Any of these weight loss surgeries affect the way we can digest and absorb vitamins and minerals. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are common. When we are deficient in vitamins and minerals, our body is thrown out of wack. Your body doesn’t have what it needs to work correctly. Chronic diseases stem from that. I love supplements, but SUPPLEMENTS DO NOT REPLACE REAL FOOD. It will never touch the way real food works in our body.
The whole point of these weight loss surgeries are to try to rewire your brain to feeling full and eating less and less calories. WHEN YOU EAT LESS CALORIES, YOU ARE STARVING YOUR BODY FROM NUTRITION. Food isn’t just calories. Food isn’t just what we eat because we are hungry. IT’S FUEL FOR YOUR BODY. IT NOURISHES YOU TO LIVE. If you have a bad relationship with food and view it in a not healthy way, you need to work with someone on a psychology level, so you can fix that relationship with food first. If you don’t get down to the reason of why you gained weight in the first place, you won’t fix the problem.
I also want you to understand that, even though you may have ‘genes’ that can create a higher chance of obesity, that doesn’t mean that it is your life sentence. A beautiful thing called epigenetics is the study of how our body can change gene expression – gene expression in a healthy way. And guess what influences epigenetics? Nutrition. Real food.
I can’t express how important it is to focus on a complete lifestyle change. It’s going to be hard. Really freakin’ hard. You’re probably going to want to cry some days depending on where you start out. But, I know you can do it. I know we are all craving that healthy lifestyle without having any interventions. It’s possible.
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