May 2020 - Lap-band

If you’re looking into the Lap-Band® Surgery, it’s important to know what to expect. That means understanding how your lifestyle will need to drastically change, what happens during the surgery, how long the recovery time is, and what the rest of your life will look like. Your life will look differently one month after Lap-Band, six months after Lap-Band, and 12 months after Lap-Band. Aftercare is necessary when you have the Lap-Band Surgery. You cannot simply have the procedure and forget about it and go back to poor eating habits. Not only will you have to drastically change the way you eat, but you will have to have the Lap-Band Gastric Band adjusted as you lose weight.

It takes one month or more for your stomach structure to heal from surgery, so your stomach should be healed by the six-month mark. Your first adjustment typically takes place about four to six weeks after your initial surgery, though adjustments vary for each person. Around the 6-month mark, you may be ready for a second, or even third, adjustment. You don’t want to rush an adjustment; your specialist will help you decide if an adjustment is right for you. Typically, if you have no weight loss for more than three weeks, you have an increased appetite, or you feel hungry again less than four hours after a meal, it’s time to adjust the Lap-Band so that you can continue losing weight. You will want to continue to pay close attention to these signals that an adjustment is needed. Otherwise, you may notice yourself plateauing.

The six months after your procedure are crucial. It may be a difficult transition as you adjust to eating differently, both because you will be eating healthier foods and consuming less. At six months, you may have lost a significant amount of weight, but that doesn’t mean you should stray from your healthy diet. To continue losing weight and to maintain weight loss, you will want to continue to follow your healthy lifestyle.

Many factors contribute to the success of a Lap-Band Patient, but those that are committed to a lifelong change and take their aftercare seriously are more likely to experience success compared to those who don’t.

Source:

LAP-BAND Surgical Aid in the Treatment of Obesity: A Decision Guide for Adults

Om…

Meditation has a lot more going on than just repeating “om” over and over again and taking deep breaths. The benefits of meditation positively impact numerous facets of one’s life; it doesn’t just play a role in helping you feel peaceful. Meditation can play an important role in weight loss.

Losing weight and maintaining that weight loss is about more than just eating a healthy diet and getting plenty of exercise. It’s about a change in behavior. That is the reason why many people struggle to keep off the weight they lose. Following a diet, as opposed to just making a healthy lifestyle change, can cause people to feel anxious and low even after they’ve lost the weight. They are then at risk of returning to unhealthy coping mechanisms and gaining the weight back. More often than not, one of our biggest barriers to weight loss is ourselves, but we don’t always recognize that. Traditional weight-loss programs or fad diets certainly don’t address that maintaining weight loss is reliant on changing our behavior, not just our diet and exercise routine.

The mind acts as a person’s foundation; by opening our minds to meditation, the right behavior follows. Far too often, people ignore the inner work that needs to be done as a part of maintained weight loss. There are numerous challenges you’ll face while trying to lose weight, and having the right mindset will help you navigate. Meditation allows you to confront all of the habits you’ve developed through the years that have led to unhealthy coping mechanisms. These unhealthy coping mechanisms may have led to weight gain or a negative relationship with food and exercise. Meditation gives you time to confront how you perceive yourself. It gives you the chance to confront your feelings.

With meditation, you are free to challenge your beliefs and restructure your standards. Ask yourself what behaviors are hindering your weight-loss success or what behaviors are contributing to it. Meditation will help you figure out your motivations for detrimental behaviors. It will also help you get to the place where you’re mentally prepared to accomplish your goals. Some studies are showing that it can even help rewire parts of your brain that can help you lose weight. In addition to positively impacting your mind and behaviors, meditation can positively impact your physical body. After regular meditation, you may notice less chronic pain, decreased inflammation, and increased immunity.

Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli—when these vegetables are listed, do your taste buds tingle or do you experience feelings of disgust? It can be really difficult to transition to a healthier lifestyle if your version of healthy food consists of eating French fries because potatoes are a vegetable. If you have an aversion to healthy food, let’s discuss ways you can overcome it and learn to love healthier foods.

The secret to loving healthier food isn’t to cover it in something like cheese or dressing. Broccoli covered in cheese or ranch might be delicious, but it won’t necessarily help your waistline. Research that focuses on taste shows that childhood food habits have a larger influence on your taste buds as an adult than you would expect. It also shows that the things we eat determine what we like. For instance, a breastfeeding infant who is exposed to carrot juice because his mother drinks it will enjoy carrot-flavored foods as compared to infants that have never been exposed to it. This is why it’s so important to expose kids to a wide array of foods. Some studies also reveal that genetics may play a small role in what we enjoy eating. If you find yourself hating most healthy foods, or at the very least, feeling nervous about them because you’ve never tried them, the key is to utilize your senses to retrain how you think and feel about the food.

Think about the Brussels sprouts mentioned earlier. They can smell pretty awful when you cook them, and that can be a huge deterrent. You have to fool your nose. Roast or steam cruciferous vegetables; it will remove most of the sulfurous compounds that are responsible for the awful smell. Take it one step further by eating the veggies in a room separate from the one you cooked them in. Similarly, you will need to retrain your taste buds. Do you have a sweet tooth? Gradually cutting artificial sweeteners out—which are much sweeter than natural sugar and make you crave more sweets—will help you lose your taste for sweets. If salt is your go-to, cut down the salt and add a splash of vinegar to food instead. It triggers your taste buds in the same way, but without all that extra sodium.

Does the expression you eat with your eyes sound familiar to you? It’s repeated because it’s true. Are you more likely to enjoy a bowl of plain lettuce, or one with colorful veggies—like carrots and cherry tomatoes—and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar? Adding a slew of colorful foods to your plate will make the food on the plate much more appetizing. Even a colorful plate can make a difference. In fact, a study in the Journal of Consumer Research revealed that eating on a red plate versus a white one encouraged individuals to eat 22 percent more. Getting a variety of colors on your plate also helps to ensure that you eat foods from all the food groups you need. Continuous exposure will help you begin to like healthy foods—try a couple months. Try preparing the foods different ways and utilizing different spices to (quite literally) spice it up.

Most people agree that losing a substantial amount of weight is more like a marathon than a sprint. Though all surgical procedures will help you lose weight during the first year, keeping the weight off over the long-term can be very challenging. Lap-Band® is not just a tool for weight loss; it is a tool that will help you reprioritize your health. The Lap-Band Program helps you take control over your weight, because only the Lap-Band can be tightened or loosened as your body or your physical needs change over time, helping to provide sustainable weight loss over the long-term. When you decide to undergo the Lap-Band Procedure, you make a commitment to improve your health. Not only can the Lap-Band help you lose weight, it can help you renew your health goals and improve comorbid conditions.

Diet changes

The Lap-Band gives you control over your body, because it is the least invasive and safest weight-loss surgery available, with the lowest complication and mortality rates. Unlike other, more drastic weight-loss surgeries, the Lap-Band procedure does not cut out the majority of your stomach or reroute your intestines. It has the lowest risk for vitamin or mineral deficiencies. The procedure is typically performed in less than an hour, and you can usually return home the same day with a short recovery time. If for any reason your Lap-Band needs to be removed, it is easily reversible.

The Lap-Band features an adjustable gastric band that’s placed around your upper stomach to help limit your food intake and promote your feeling of fullness. With regular adjustments that help you continue losing weight, the Lap-Band is a long-term tool that gives you more power over your hunger and more control over your weight loss than ever before. Patients are not as hungry food as they were before the procedure. In order to get the necessary nutrients needed to maintain a healthy diet, patients need to focus on consuming healthy, high-quality foods. Filling up on fattening, sugary, calorie-laden foods may lead to weight-loss plateaus or even weight gain. Dedicating yourself to eating healthy, nutritious food that makes your body and your band happy will help you reach your life-long health goals.

Exercise

With the weight loss that comes with the Lap-Band Program, you may find yourself being able to exercise and move your body in ways that you were previously unable. Patients who reported being tired from normal, everyday activities found themselves with much higher energy levels following the Lap-Band Procedure. They no longer feel tired walking up the stairs or playing with their kids. Patients move from performing adaptive exercises to completely revamping their workout routines and pushing themselves farther physically than they ever thought they could. A regular exercise regimen is an important part of a healthy lifestyle.

Improved comorbidities

The Lap-Band Program can lead to weight loss that can improve serious weight-related medical conditions, from diabetes and asthma to high blood pressure. The Lap-Band can help you take charge of your life and your health conditions. Studies also show that obesity can lead to increased risk for diseases like cancer and heart disease. Controlling your weight can help lower your risk.

When you say yes to Lap-Band, you say yes to a life-long commitment to your health.

Sources:
Dixon John, Chapman Leon, O’Brien Paul. Marked Improvement in Asthma After LAP-BAND® Surgery for Morbid Obesity. Obesity Surgery. 1999.
Dixon John, O’Brien Paul. Health Outcomes of Severely Obese Type 2 Diabetic Subjects 1 Year After Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding. Diabetes Care, Volume 25, Number 2. February 2002.

When you’re upset or stressed, do you find yourself over-eating or eating unhealthy foods? Maybe when you’re happy you give yourself a treat by enjoying a sugary coffee drink. When it’s a tough Monday, you allow yourself an extra slice of pizza. When you’re celebrating and drinking with your friends, you decide to indulge in fast food. If your emotions completely rule how you eat, it may be time to take a step back and learn how to separate physical hunger from emotional hunger.

Emotional eating is a coping mechanism, and not a very good one. While it is a bad habit, it doesn’t mean that you yourself are bad. How can you learn to separate physical hunger from emotional hunger? There are some clear differences. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly, and it’s typically based upon what is going through your head. The craving is usually for a very specific food. This is followed by absent-minded eating, the inability to stop when full, and feelings of immense guilt once you’re finished eating. Physical hunger, on the other hand, comes on gradually and the cravings are for a variety of different foods. It stems from a physical, rather than emotional, need. Deliberate choices are made when eating and you stop when you feel full. Do you see the difference? Eating is a necessary part of life. We eat to fulfill a physical need—to sustain us and power our bodies. Emotional eating is used to fix an emotional problem, and it often makes you feel worse.

You can ask yourself a list of questions to find out if emotional eating has a hold on you. Once you’ve established the problem, it’s time to identify your cycle and determine which emotions trigger you. Is it anger? Sadness? Boredom? What foods make you feel better in the moment? How do you feel when you finish eating? You may notice that your emotional eating is driven by childhood patterns or social settings.

Emotional eating may make you feel powerless, but once you’ve established the difference between emotional and physical hunger and you understand your triggers, you can take the power back. It’s all about practicing self-awareness and finding healthy coping mechanisms. When you encounter negative emotions, acknowledge the emotions and try to work through them. If you aren’t ready to work through your negative feelings, what other sorts of ways can you feed your emotions rather than overeating? Talk with a friend, go for a walk, play with your dog—distract yourself with a healthy activity until you’re ready to deal with your emotions. Refrain from distracting yourself with food. Track your behaviors in an emotional eating diary. When you feel compelled to reach for comfort food, stop, think, and write about it. What do you want to eat? How do you feel? How will the food make you feel after you consume it? Will this craving still be there in five minutes?

Remember to practice kindness with yourself throughout this process. It’s okay to have negative feelings sometimes, and it is okay if you are unable to stop your cravings once in a while. Do not punish yourself. Learn to accept your feelings and eat mindfully. Aim for progress, not perfection. You have more willpower than you think.