Gastric sleeve surgery is the world’s most popular bariatric surgery. The reason people love it is clear. With an 80% to 90% success rate, it’s obvious the procedure works. Patients can lose between 60% to 70% of their excess weight within one year of undergoing the surgery. The procedure also treats obesity comorbidities such as type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, hypertension, and fatty liver disease. Gastric sleeve (along with all bariatric procedures) can decrease the likelihood of early death. Sounds enticing.
The surgery gave these Houston twins the mobility and energy required to run marathons.
And this Miami woman chose gastric sleeve surgery because she wanted a healthier pregnancy. She went on to lose 63 pounds. She said, “It changed my life drastically. I’m more confident. I have more energy and am excited to do more things.” She said, “I don’t eat fried foods, and I’m even more active now than I was before. I wish I had done this years ago.”
Gastric sleeve surgery could dramatically improve your life. It could extend your life as well. But the gastric sleeve surgery does take a bit of preparation. This article should help.
You’re about to learn all you need to know about gastric sleeve surgery, the benefits, and how to prepare for the procedure as you look forward to long-term weight loss.
Gastric sleeve surgery goes by a couple of different names. You may hear it called the laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) or simply sleeve gastrectomy. The procedure is the most common globally and makes up nearly 50% of all weight loss procedures worldwide.
During the procedure, the doctor molds your digestive system more conducive to weight loss. The bariatric surgeon makes tiny incisions, which are entry points for a serpentine laparoscopic camera and associated tools. This minimally invasive process allows the surgeon to remove 80% of your stomach. The remaining stomach tissue is fashioned into a thin, banana-shaped sleeve. These changes force you to eat less, and you feel less hungry overall. As you can imagine, the weight falls off fast following the gastric sleeve procedure.
Watch Doctor Babak Moeinolmolki explain the specifics of the gastric sleeve procedure in the following video:
You must make the necessary dietary and lifestyle changes to succeed with gastric sleeve surgery. Your multidisciplinary healthcare team, including a dietician or nutritionist, will teach you how to eat properly. You will also be given easy-to-follow instructions for how to exercise properly by an experienced fitness expert. Maintaining these lifestyle changes can keep the weight off long into the future.
Researchers followed gastric sleeve patients for five years and found that nearly 75% of them managed to keep the excess weight off for five years.
To be considered for gastric sleeve surgery, you will have your body mass index (BMI) assessed by a bariatric surgeon during a pre-qualifying consultation. Candidates for the sleeve gastrectomy have a BMI of 35 or higher with or without obesity comorbidities.
During the initial consultation, the bariatric surgeon’s role is to make sure you are fully informed about the benefits of gastric sleeve surgery and all the risks and that you know how to prepare as the day of surgery approaches. Here is some of the advice you may be given.
Your surgeon will stress that remaining active is one of the key ingredients to being successful with weight loss surgery. Having surgery is not a magic trick. You still must do your part. You can improve your chances of losing the excess weight and keeping it off by establishing an exercise routine you can easily maintain. Start that routine now, before you have surgery. That way, you can quickly pick back up as soon as you feel healthy enough after your short recovery period.
Start with slow, low-impact exercises at first, such as walking. You can always build up later to swimming or jogging, as well as muscle resistance training once you experience the inevitable mobility and energy boost that gastric sleeve surgery provides.
The gastric sleeve procedure gives you a much smaller stomach to work with than you are accustomed to. You can no longer eat heavy portions if you were used to doing so before. Whereas the average stomach holds around 33 ounces of food, the gastric sleeve allows you to eat between 2 and 5 ounces at a time. You also feel less hungry overall, so don’t think you’ll be feeling deprived.
Once you have the smaller portions under control, focus on filling your plate with lean meats, healthy fruits and vegetables, and whole-wheat carbohydrates instead of simple carbs.
Food is fuel, after all. If you start thinking of food as mere gas for your tank instead of focusing solely on taste, you’ll have made one of the biggest lifestyle changes necessary for long-term gastric sleeve surgery success.
How much should you eat? Experts recommend that you eat between 1200 and 1500 calories per day. Use a calorie-counting app until you get the hang of counting calories on your own.
A month before surgery, your bariatric surgeon will recommend that you avoid consuming caffeinated beverages.
Your bariatric surgeon will put you on a pre-op diet three weeks before your procedure. This limited food consumption plan has three primary benefits.
The pre-op diet reduces fatty deposits around your liver. With fewer fat cells around this vital organ, surgical access to the stomach becomes safer.
Suffering from the disease of obesity increases the risk of complications during and after gastric sleeve surgery. Losing a slight weight before surgery lowers your risk of negative side effects and complications.
Limiting your food intake this early on starts you on the path to forming healthy habits that can last for life. By keeping to the pre-op diet, you also gain the confidence to achieve your goals to become much healthier.
During the pre-op diet, you will be encouraged to reduce carbohydrates and focus more on healthy fats and protein. You will also be advised to drink plenty of water while avoiding soft drinks and alcoholic beverages.
Your surgeon will put you on an all-liquid diet a few days before gastric sleeve surgery. You will consume water, broth, gelatins, and low-calorie sports drinks. The liquid diet will continue post-operation for a full week. After two weeks, you’ll eat thicker foods such as cream of wheat, applesauce, and protein shakes. You will gradually introduce more solid foods to your diet until you feel well enough to eat normally, whereby you should have established healthy eating habits.
The mental health evaluation is explained in the book Essentials and Controversies in Bariatric Surgery, edited by Chih-Kun Huang. “The interview consists of a standard psychological evaluation, evaluation of the patient’s appropriateness for surgery, an assessment of eating behavior, stress, coping mechanisms, and social support. It is also used to confirm that the patient can consent and evaluate all the potential risks and possible benefits of surgery. A credentialed expert in psychology and behavior modification for all patients should perform the psychosocial evaluation. Screening for eating disorders can involve using standardized assessments.”
As the book mentions, mental illness and eating disorders are not necessarily contraindications to surgery. Your bariatric surgeon will connect you with a bariatric psychologist conducting the assessment. You are encouraged to discuss depression, anxiety, food addictions, and other concerns, such as being overstressed.
The psychologist can give you the tools to be successful with bariatric surgery. You will also learn healthy coping mechanisms for sloughing off unhealthy habits like an old pair of smelly shoes.
By succeeding at gastric sleeve surgery, you can look forward to improved cardiovascular health, improved blood pressure, and long-term remission for type 2 diabetes, but you can also potentially find relief from mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
Please read our article: How to Prepare Yourself for Weight Loss Surgery Emotionally
Signing up for bariatric surgery like sleeve gastrectomy gives you access to a multidisciplinary support team. This team includes your bariatric surgeon, clinical nursing staff, psychologists, nutritionists, behaviorists, and exercise specialists.
Your team will assist with knowing what, how, and when to eat. You will be advisedow to exercise regularly and how tout for your body type and goals. Unhealthy habits such as binge eating, overeating, and stress eating can be worked through with healthy coping mechanisms, and your bariatric surgeon and staff will continuously support you as you traverse your weight loss journey.
Weight loss surgeries like gastric sleeve are a major life investment that requires some preparation. This is particularly true if you hope insurance picks up the tab.
The average cost of laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy is $9,350, which is only the base cost. That fee may not include additional costs such as anesthesia, surgeon’s fees, medical facility fees, preoperative lab fees, and follow-up care.
Health insurance companies have come to recognize the health-boosting and life-saving nature of weight loss procedures. Many policies today include weight loss surgery coverage. Your health insurer will likely pick up the cost if your doctor proves gastric sleeve surgery is medically necessary.
As a stipulation of coverage, some insurers require you to attend nutrition and exercise classes for several months. Doing so proves that you have done everything possible to lose weight but to no avail.
If you are denied insurance coverage, appeal your decision. Medical financing is another option to consider if you exhaust all of your appeals and still can’t get covered.
Care Credit and Prosper Healthcare Lending are two examples of medical finance companies that can make gastric sleeve surgery affordable when you can’t cover out-of-pocket fees. If paying interest on weight loss surgery fees sounds like more of an investment than you are willing to make, consider that remaining obese may be more expensive in the long run.
Studies have shown that those suffering from obesity spend thousands more in medical fees and prescriptions over their lifetime than those of a healthier weight. When you factor in these costs, you soon realize that weight loss surgery pays for itself over time.
Read our article: Is It Possible to Finance Bariatric Surgery?
The book Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies by Marina S. Kurian, Barbara Thompson, and Brian K. Davidson has some food for thought for those considering gastric sleeve surgery. “Weight loss surgery is a life-altering experience you don’t want to pursue without much thought and careful consultation with your doctor. It would be best if you weighed the potential benefits versus the surgical risks personally. Usually, weight loss surgery is the last resort – after you’ve pursued many other options and failed.”
The lesson is that gastric sleeve surgery is for those who have tried all the diets. You know what it’s like. You’ve ridden the diet roller coaster so often that you’re about to be entirely banned from the amusement park.
You’ve also tried all the exercise routines, and all you end up with is tired and hungry (hungry plus angry).
You hate your scale (even though it’s the one that is constantly stepped on). And you want to change.
The bottom line is that if you have tried everything humanly possible to lose weight, it’s time to do something different. It’s time to step into the driver’s seat of your destiny.
Signing up for gastric sleeve surgery is like getting ready to trade your old body for a sleeker, more attractive model. But it’s not solely about appearance. Losing excess weight is the best way to get healthy finally.
One of Doctor Moeinolmolki’s patients lost over 150 pounds with gastric sleeve surgery and has kept the weight off for a full two years.
If you want results like these and find yourself waiting for a sign to change your life for the better, here it is. Schedule a consultation today.
Book a discreet consultation with world-renowned bariatric surgeon Doctor Babak Moeinolmolki by calling Healthy Life Bariatrics in Los Angeles, California. Dial (310)881-8503 now to get started. If you suffer from the disease of obesity and have tried everything to get healthy, this may be the most important phone call you make all year.
