Weight Loss

The proliferation of fast food restaurants, convenience stores, and vending machines in virtually every corner of residential America has created a serious nutritional problem. “Snacking” – a harmless-sounding verb that deceptively implies something unobjectionable – has reached addictive proportions[i].

Frank Parsons had been dieting for what seemed to be his entire adult life. All this time he had been telling himself, “I’ve got to get rid of this fat,” and in his mind he had been imagining the fat melting away as he ate lettuce leaves and rice cakes. That is, he thought that way until his specialist, Dr. Jacob, gave him a dose of reality: Frank is stuck with the same fat cells he was born with,(1) and all the comfort eating he did in his teens actually caused his fat cells to expand so much that they split to produce more new fat cells. Even worse, fat cells cannot be removed by any diet currently available. For some lucky people, however, appropriate dieting will cause the fat cells to shrink.

The average lifespan has continued to increase as improvements in health care and medications have continued to be implemented. In 1997, the average life expectancy was 73 for males and 80 for females. (Source: Sigelman 1999) Currently, 13% of the population is 65 and older, and the 85 and older population is the fastest growing segment of all. It is estimated that 20% of the population will belong to this group by the year 2030, with the estimated number being around 73 million. (Source: Science Daily: March 8, 2010)

Ask the average dieter to rate how they feel throughout the course of the day and you are likely to hear a lot of negative adjectives like tired, achy, cranky, and more. Ask them about their meals and snacks and you might be shocked by how little you hear from them. Most dieters have some pretty crazy ideas about what to eat and when to eat it. There is even a diet that suggests that you will gain weight if you eat anything after four pm. In theory, then, if you eat a final meal at four and then nothing else for the rest of the night, you can effortlessly lose weight no matter what you are eating in the period before four. So a person who is not making the best food choices anyway may take that to mean they can scarf down a dozen donuts for breakfast, an entire pizza for lunch and a two pound T-bone at 3 pm with a gallon of ice cream to round it all off just before the “magic hour.” It doesn’t work that way!

There are three stages of weight loss surgery- the preparation, the surgical recovery phase and the postoperative phase. Each one is very important and should include the mental and physical preparations so that it goes as smoothly as possible and so that you can get the best possible results for your efforts. The more information that you have, the better you can prepare for your weight loss surgery.