Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend is upon us and while we may take the day to relax and perhaps indulge in some home-made comfort food, it's important to remember that your journey to weight loss should never take a day off. We at Dr. Feiz & Associates understand that there are a variety of reasons that people struggle with obesity and although undergoing a bariatric surgery can certainly help a patient lose a significant amount of weight, the work very definitely doesn't stop there.

Though it's true that a bariatric surgery has proven to reduce lower levels of hunger inducing hormones and has also shown to improve a variety of health complications related to obesity, we still advise our patients to implement a nutritious and healthy diet as well as some exercise into their lifestyle after surgery. The sole purpose of a weight loss surgery isn't just to help you lose the excess weight, it's also about helping you keep it off in the long run and improving your overall quality of life. 

Indeed, a gastric sleeve surgery is an extremely effective method of weight loss, however, paired along with better food choices and more physical activity, you'll not only maintain your ideal weight and enjoy the many health benefits, but you'll feel good doing so too.

Our health is a lifetime project that requires our daily attention, even on holidays. 

The Blame Game

It's human nature to want to blame something or, better yet, someone, for any serious problem we may find ourselves facing. However, when it comes to the question of obesity, even though it's the primary focus of our work here at Dr. Feiz & Associates, it's extremely difficult to tease out one single factor that's truly responsible for the increasing problem of obesity.

To be sure, the fact that calories, particularly empty calories bereft of nutrients, have never in human history been more easily available or cheaper is certainly part of the equation. So is the fact that most of us have sedentary occupations and struggle to find time and motivation to participate in physical exercise. Still, these factors impact almost everyone, but only some of us become obese. That's why some people like to blame alleged character flaws in obese people. The reality, however is that there really seems to be no particular type of person who becomes obese.

Honestly, however, all we know for sure at this point is that, once we become obese, it's extremely difficult to lose the weight. Our bodies appear to be set up to want to maintain our weight -- whatever weight that may be -- and they do everything they can to thwart our attempts to reduce our size, including manufacturing hormones which make us feel ever more hungry and slowing down the rate at which we burn calories.

When it comes to finding an ultimate cause, obesity remains largely a health mystery. Fortunately, we at least have one working solution in bariatric surgery. We've now proven through countless studies and massive anecdotal data that these procedures not only make it a lot less comfortable to overeat, procedures such as a gastric sleeve surgery render metabolic changes that seem to help patients do what many of them previously thought was next to impossible: losing significant weight and keeping it off in the long run.

So, yes, we're not at all sure what to blame obesity on, but at least we have one effective solution.

Food for Thought

There's been lots of talk lately about the effects of bariatric surgery on the brain, particularly in terms of its response to food. We all know that part of the reason why most patients are unable to achieve long lasting results is because of the difficulty for many to keep on making healthier food choices over a long period of time. Yes, it can be incredibly hard to overcome our desires to overindulge in food at times, however, weight loss surgery can change that.

The good news is that recent studies have shown that weight loss surgery procedures, such as a gastric sleeve, not only limit the amount of food that is able to be consumed by severely obese patients, but can also radically change their entire relationship with food. The studies also point out that bariatric surgery patients showed lowered levels of activity in the brain's reward centers when they were exposed to images of food.

At Dr. Feiz & Associates, we work hard so that our patients can safely and successfully lose weight and most importantly, keep it off in the long run. With extremely effective and cutting-edge weight loss surgery procedures showing even more promising results thanks to these studies, you can really see that a healthy lifestyle is achievable.

Choose the Right Tool

There's no getting around it, weight loss is hard; people who think anyone with an obesity issue can easily adopt a healthy lifestyle when it comes to eating have almost certainly never faced a serious battle with their own weight. So, it's no wonder that so many of us keep looking for, and buying, products that claim to make losing weight easier in some way, or which even advertise nearly miraculous properties in terms of helping consumers win the battle of the bulge. The problem is that these products are rarely even mildly helpful and are, more often than not, a complete waste of money and time. Worse, a large number of them can actually be dangerous or, at least, unhealthy.

We obviously spend a great deal of time thinking about weight management here at Dr. Feiz & Associates, and while there are options for people in all kinds of situations, they are relatively limited. For those of us with a relatively small amount of weight to deal with, the battle is hard but achievable with a serious commitment to the right mix of a lower calorie diet and a healthy amount of exercise.

For those of us who are definied as severely obese, however, the challenge is all that much greater and many find it essentially insurmountable. For these people, sooner or later, the pangs of hunger that only increase as we lose weight become too hard to fight. Fortunately, bariatric surgery is the one tool that really has been proven to truly help. It's not a magic bullet that makes losing weight a breeze, but patient after patient has found that it lowers the hunger pangs enough to make redefining your relationship with food more easily doable.

Choosing the right tool is important in any job and, for severely obese people, we now have at least one that really does seem to work in most cases.

Finding the Right Balance

Following the hubbug around "The Greatest Loser" reality show study some months back, many of us latched onto the fact that contestants exercised between four and eight hours a day. Of course, that much exercise is not only impractical for those of us with jobs, families, and other responsibilities, it's actually dangerous without serious medical supervision. Worse, as the contestants on the show have learned since, it's unsustainable on a number of levels because of lower metabolic rates following that kind of a weight loss.

At facilities like Dr. Feiz & Associates, we're learning every day about how effective weight loss procedures have been in helping severely obese patients to finally defeat obesity. While we've long since proven that these procedures work, we're still learning exactly why it is that a bariatric surgery seems so much more effective than traditional approaches. Of course, the issue is not that simply eating a great deal less and exercising more doesn't work, it's that the "eating a great deal less" part of the equation seems to be nearly undoable over the long term because of hormones that go into overdrive and push us to resume our old dietary ways.

What we've found, though, is that procedures such as the gastric sleeve fit in with a truly balanced and healthy lifestyle, particularly as they help patients deal with the incessant hunger pangs that sabotage the vast majority of traditional weight loss attempts. The good news is that, with a weight loss procedure, while a healthy amount of exercise is very strongly encouraged, you won't need to exercise an abnormal amount just to lose weight, because you'll be able to consume few enough calories to first lose and then maintain your weight while still living a happy and well-balanced life.

The Pokémon Cure?

Earlier this week we came across a Forbes piece entitled 'Pokémon GO' May Be This Generation's Cure For Obesity." The article describes how it's writer, who was apparently so uninterested in exercise he had, it appears, broken up with a girlfriend rather than accompany her to the gym, starting walking more than he was used to while playing the game. It doesn't really explain how the game could be any kind of a cure for obesity.

Now, don't get us wrong, we strongly encourage our patients at Dr. Feiz & Associates to exercise in any way that they can, and walking is great. It can definitely help with weight loss somewhat, but its health benefits go far beyond the relatively very few calories we burn off when we exert ourselves. At the same time, there are more studies indicating that exercise might be more important for helping to reverse the bad health outcomes of obesity rather than actually causing weight loss.

The point here is that some non-obese readers will undoubtedly argue that people who obtain a bariatric surgery are somehow being lazy because, they might say, all obese individuals really need to do is to find a reason to get out more and walk. The problem is that exercise, as wonderful as it is for both our physical and mental health, does little to reduce the desire to overeat that motivates our patients to get such procedures as the gastric sleeve.

Of course, anything that motivates people to exercise, including Pokémon GO, is a good thing. For children, it's possible the game could be very useful we're sure, in terms of getting kids in the habit of exercising, and possibly could help prevent obesity in adulthood. But, at least for adults, whose weight and eating habits are pretty much set, we're pretty sure a video game craze is not going to single-handedly cure many cases of severe obesity. On the other hand, if an obese person starts exercising more because of the game and continues the habit throughout their life, it really could be a lifesaver. So, we're definitely for people going out in search of cute monsters if that's what gets them to take a walk...just don't expect capturing that capturing Pikachu will make you thin!

An Active Life

We all know that exercise has a variety of health benefits. It can help with weight loss and improve the appearance of our bodies. However, severely obese patients oftentimes struggle to engage in physical activity that can help them reach their weight loss goals. That's why, we at Dr. Feiz & Associates recommend bariatric surgery to our qualifying patients. Besides the proven health benefits provided by weight loss surgery, losing a significant amount of weight also makes engaging in exercise a possibility for the patient.

In addition, increased mobility also motivates a severely obese patient to engage in social interactions that they might ordinarily shy away from. Indeed, a great improvement in the overall quality of life can be possible with a bariatric surgery.

At Dr. Feiz & Associates, we know that losing weight is not just about looking good. Helping our patients feel happy and healthy is also a big part of our focus. Our cutting-edge weight loss surgery procedures, such as the gastric sleeve, can help a patient do more than successfully lose weight. Changing your life with weight loss surgery is possible and we are here to help.