There are so many reasons why going on a diet and getting an exercise routine is the better choice for weight loss that the only question that arises naturally is why do some people consider going through the surgery instead.
The simple reason is that there are a very limited number of cases where the patients have put on so much weight that every day spent at that weight level endangers their lives.
Even in those cases, it could be argued that cholesterol medication combined with high blood pressure medication may provide the few months of stable health that would be required to lose weight.
Still, setting aside the extreme medical cases, a good regimen of diet and exercise is still preferable to weight loss surgery because it is the only way to be certain that you will not put the weight back on. The statistics show that over 50 percent of all people who go through gastric bypass surgery come back to their original weight after two years.
The reason for that phenomenon is very simple: the stomach adapts in time to support any type of eating habit. So the surgery may decrease the volume of the stomach, thus forcing the patient to eat less and to feel satiated faster than before, but that patient will still try to eat that little bit more every time and will get his stomach to grow to the original size.
The other reason why the surgery option rarely works in the long run is that the issue is not always the quantity of food but also the quality. A diet is not only a good way to lose weight but also a way to discipline your eating habits. Most people who are disciplined about what they eat will enjoy a treat a lot more than someone who constantly eats sweets or fatty meals. It is not only about teaching the stomach to adapt but also about teaching the brain to appreciate the food.
That may sound counter-intuitive, but in fact a person who eats a lot of sweets or fats is less capable of distinguishing one taste from another or to really take joy in eating something. In fact, they will eat too much of anyone given stimulant because they are trying to attain a pleasure experience that they were once capable of getting from just one spoonful.
A person who regularly diets, on the other hand, will actually be able to take as much enjoyment from half a cake as an overweight person would from two cakes.
But because these are things that need to be more than understood – they need to be felt by the body and experienced firsthand by the endorphin-producing brain – a person who just went through the surgery will continuously try to eat as many calories as they did before.
And there is another reason why weight loss surgery is not the best idea. Any such invasive procedure will invariably cause a swift loss in weight which, although desirable, will leave flabs of skin that were once covering bulges of fat.
A normal dieting and exercising regime will not only encourage more natural weight loss but will also help the skin readjust to the new proportions.
So if the only reason you are trying to lose weight is that you want to look better in a swimming suit, then surgery may be an even worse idea than just resting comfortably at your current weight.
There are also plenty of dangers inherent in any surgical procedure such as blood clots, aneurisms or septic shock, but any doctor is required by law to talk to you about them. The truth of the matter is that there is very little chance of anyone of these complications appearing during a normal weight loss surgery.
The real problems have to do with the incredible strain that you are putting your body through and the small rewards to be had, combined with the very real chance that everything will be done for nothing since you will put on every ounce of weight back in less than two years.
