Trick or Treat?

With the upcoming Halloween festivities underway, we know how tempting it is to indulge on our favorite candy and sweets. Although the idea of biting down on a delicious caramel apple may not seem so bad, especially since an apple is often considered a healthy food choice, these treats are not the best way to stick to our healthy diets.

We at Dr. Feiz & Associates are well aware of the many snack and food temptations that are especially popular around October and spill on to the holiday season. During this time, it's especially essential to reflect on our food choices and make sure that we stay on track. 

While we may sometimes feel at fault for having these cravings and diverging a bit from our regular healthy diets, extensive research points to our hormones and brain as large factors that influence our food preferences. These factors, however, shouldn't dissuade us from thinking that we are unable to combat our obesity. There are a number of cutting-edge bariatric surgery procedures that can really make all the difference in helping us reach our weight loss goals. 

It's also important to remember that even after a a weight loss procedure, such as a gastric sleeve, we have to continue to make efforts to maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle. Luckily, these procedures can make our weight loss goals alot easier to achieve and maintain throughout our lives. 

We hope that you have a happy and safe Halloween and remember not to let those seemingly healthy treats trick you!

The True Cost of Obesity

A recent review which looked at improvements in illness and sick leave by employees who have had bariatric surgery got us thinking about the true cost of obesity. Of course, many of the impacts of being severely obese especially are impossible to put into dollars and cents. Still, there's no getting around the fact that, on top of the non-financial cost of being obese in terms of the length and quality of life, it's also very expensive.

The most obvious part of the equation, as we're keenly sware of of here at Dr. Feiz & Associates, are increased health care costs. Even with a decent insurance plan, prescriptions, frequent office visits, tests, outpatient procedures, and hospitalizations can really add up over the course of a lifetime.

That's just  one aspect of the cost side of the equation. Being severely obese can also really cut into income in a number of different ways. There's the increased number of sick days that may or may not be covered by employers but, more seriously for the individual, there's an increased chance of being out of work entirely. Sometimes there are health reasons for this and, sadly, workplace discrimination is a genuine issue for very obese obese individuals.

Fortunately, modern medical science is here with techniques that really do work, including procedures like a gastric sleeve with it's very many well documented benefits. It's a solution that really does add up.

Combating Obesity and Its Health Risks

As more research and studies are conducted to better understand the causes and risks of obesity, the results all tend to have a similar message; obesity leads to a number of life-threatening health problems. We at Dr. Feiz & Associates stay up to date on the latest discoveries so that we can continue to help patients significantly improve the overall quality of their lives through the latest and best bariatric surgery procedures.

Recently, new research has revealed that obese individuals with type 2 diabetes are at a much greater risk of developing liver cancer. Obesity has also been linked to a number of other health conditions such as osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, and heart disease. That's why, now more than ever, it's important to address obesity so that patients can improve their health as well as their quality of life.

Many of our patients have experienced significant health improvements after losing their excess weight following a bariatric surgery, such as a sleeve gastrectomy. Apart from higher levels of energy and increased mobility, patients have also noticed that a variety of their health conditions have improved or have even been completely resolved.

Losing weight isn't just about looking better, it's also about reducing our risks of developing life-threatening health conditions and living happier and healthier lives. There are a number of bariatric surgery procedures that can provide patients with significant health improvements and long-term results. It's up to us to continue to make solid efforts to maintain our weight and keep our health in check so that we can experience the best that life has to offer.

Of Diet and Delusion

It doesn't matter whether you're dealing with severe obesity or the kind of smaller but still important weight issues that are now facing the majority of Americans, you are probably perfectly aware that you're eating more food than is good for you. Yet, you continue to eat that way. Even those of us here at Dr. Feiz & Associates find ourselves making food choices that may be less than ideal, while giving ourselves an excuse that may not be consistent with reality.

Everyone has their own excuses and it's easy to make fun of them in others, but harder to see in ourselves. For example, we've heard of one older gentlemen who always select strawberry ice cream, not because it's his favorite flavor, he says, but because he assumes it's healthier as there might be a small amount of actual strawberry contained within it. In reality, he might as well go with chocolate, but then why was it we found ourselves saying it was perfectly okay to eat that large bowl of super-rich, butter-laden Indian chicken curry because it had chicken breast and vegetables in it? Of course, the dish would have been fine...without the hugely fattening sauce which we nevertheless consumed in its entirety, while also downing every grain of rice and all the naan on our plate! Oh, did we mention that we walked an extra block before we ate and burned maybe 35 additional calories? Never mind.

Yes, if we're at all overweight, we all delude ourselves to some degree when we eat. There's a reason for it, however, and it's not that we're weak or lacking in self-control. It's actually very largely because of the hormonal impulses which are subtly encouraging us to eat as much as we can. The more overweight we are, the stronger and more difficult to fight those impulses become, which is why procedures like a gastric sleeve have proven to be such a godsend. These surgeries actually appear to address the hormonal impulses -- once useful to mankind when food was scarce, but now something of a curse -- which have been designed to make us eat more than we really need at any given time.

Of course, we humans are pretty good at deluding ourselves about all kinds of things, not just food. It's possible we'll never cure that problem in most areas of our lives, but at least a bariatric surgery can help us to be a bit more realistic about our eating.