Wieight Loss Surgery vs Weight Management

A recent study concluded that "gastric band and weight management therapies offer similar health benefits for overweight diabetes patients."

With gastric band surgery, a band is placed around the stomach to make it smaller. The band is adjustable and therefore the size of your stomach is adjustable. Logically a smaller stomach leads to the patient eating smaller meals and consequently losing weight.

Patients are counselled that the surgery is a weight loss tool and are encouraged to eat healthy foods and exercise. Generally patients lose an average of 1.5 to 2 pounds per week, after the first few weeks. The average weight loss is similar to what you can achieve with a commercial program or on your own.   

A few years ago, after a lengthy and careful consideration I decided to have gastric band surgery. My main reason was that I was looking to not just losing weight but keeping it off forever. As we all know, the difficulty is maintaining weight loss and not reverting back to old habits. With a smaller stomach, one would imagine maintaining your weight loss should be better than with other strategies.

While some may be surprised by the study's result, I am not.  Everyone's experience is different. For me, the first eight months were what one would expect. The scale was moving in the right direction. However, the following five years, I was either losing weight, but throwing up every day (sometimes after every meal) or gaining weight because I had to loosen the band to avoid being sick.

The gastric band not only dictates smaller meals, but there many foods one must avoid and there are a number of 'rules' one must follow. For example, you must eat slowly, chew, chew, chew your food and you can't have any drinks while eating. Eventually, in my experience, one eats things that 'melt in your mouth', not lean protein, complex carbohydrates, legumes, fruits and vegetables.

Considering the findings of this study and my personal experience, gastric band surgery is not the best solution for long-term weight loss. Once again, there are no short cuts.