Is surgical weight loss appropriate?
If you continue to struggle despite a commitment to healthy living, surgical weight loss may be an option for you. Minimally invasive procedures include adjustable gastric bands and gastric plication surgery, the latter of which reduces the size of the stomach without cutting or removing any of the patient’s stomach.
Dr. Watkins is a board certified general surgeon who specializes in surgical weight loss. He sees patients at the UC Health Weight Loss Center, 7798 University Court, Suite E, in West Chester Twp.
The center is certified by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery as a Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence for safe, high-quality surgical care. Free weight loss surgery information sessions are available Dec. 8 and Dec. 15 through UC Health. For information or appointments, call (513) 939-2263.
By Brad Watkins, MD
Guest columnist
Who hasn’t wanted to lose a few pounds at some point in their lives? Fad diets are tempting because they promise what every person wants: easy, quick weight loss. Losing weight isn’t always easy, but it doesn’t have to be torture either. Jumping to the most extreme measure — like eating 500 calories a day — isn’t sustainable, which means the weight loss won’t be either.
You don’t need expensive diet gimmicks to lose weight. What is essential is a commitment to healthy lifestyle choices that include balanced meals and regular exercise. When you eat right and exercise you feel better — you have more energy, higher self esteem and your overall cardiovascular health often improves.
Here are a few tips I offer my patients when they are ready to kick-start their weight loss:
Track calories
Track calories and watch out for sneaky sources of fat and carbohydrates. All weight loss comes from calorie deficit — in other words, burning more calories than you eat. Read nutrition labels, and make sure to eat a balanced diet with about a third of calories coming from protein, fats and carbohydrates. If you find more than 50 percent of your calories come from carbs or fat, you need to reduce these in your diet.
A few specific examples of healthier choices including:
• Using heart-healthy spreads instead of butter or margarine
• Selecting mayonnaise made with olive oil, which has healthier unsaturated fats
• Avoiding sugary beverages like soda as well as sports drinks
• Eating nuts, olives, avocados, olive oil for great sources of healthier unsaturated fats that can help lower your cholesterol
Free calorie tracking tools are available online to use, including FitDay.com and Livestrong.com. There is also a smartphone app called “Lose It.”
Exercise every day
Burn calories and commit to 30 minutes of purposeful exercise daily. Many people try to lose weight simply by reducing the calories they consume. Even if you do everything right, the body resists starvation weight loss. All successful weight loss regimens include reducing consumed calories while increasing burned calories. Pick your favorite exercise — walking, biking, Appalachian clogging, anything you enjoy and will do —and do it every day. Even a daily 30-minute brisk walk helps. Walking to and from your desk at work doesn’t count. This must be a purposeful, continuous 30-minute brisk walk in comfy shoes. Buy a pedometer and shoot for 10,000 steps per day. Parking further away and looking for any excuse to burn more calories helps because these things really add up over time. It’s OK to start slow and build up over time. If you can only walk for 5 minutes, make it 6 tomorrow, then 7 and build up to 30 minutes over time.
Eat at home more
Restaurants tend to serve large portions and foods high in fats and sugars. By eating at home and packing your lunch, you will eliminate all kinds of “high-tech” fats and sugars from your diet that make us gain weight. Things like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), trans fats and hydrogenated oils are ingredients engineered to increase shelf-life and make food production cheaper. Our bodies don’t know what to do with these ingredients, though, so they get stored and contribute to weight gain. Many drinks are sweetened with HFCS — making gaining weight really easy and losing weight really hard. Look for these ingredients on labels and avoid them.
Exercise in the pool
Our bodies are very serious about maintaining our core body temperature, which is about 98.6 degrees. Most pools are much cooler than this, so being submerged in water that cold causes our body to burn calories and create heat to keep the core body temperature up. Even walking in pool water burns significant calories. You are burning calories with the muscle movement and burning calories to keep your body warm.
Take a daily multivitamin
Many vitamins help with weight loss. Studies have shown that women eating more dairy lose weight due to the calcium; talk to your doctor about what amount is right for you though. B vitamins can help with energy, feeling well and self-esteem.
Dr. Watkins is a board certified general surgeon who specializes in surgical weight loss. He sees patients at the UC Health Weight Loss Center, 7798 University Court, Suite E, in West Chester Twp.