Is Gastric Bypass Surgery the Answer?

Have you felt like diets just don't work for you? Tried them all? You lose weight only to gain it back? Are you looking for an answer? You are not and never will be alone. There are multiple scores of people just like you who want and need an answer to their heath threatening obesity.

Gastric bypass surgery seems to be an 'answer' that many people have chosen. They choose it because it appears to be a permanent fix to what feels like a permanent problem. After all, how can you keep from losing weight if your stomach only holds a tiny amount? Why not have this surgery and be done with this overeating thing for good? Makes sense to me.

Except that it doesn't seem to be that easy or that simple. I have heard several reports about gastric bypass surgery and about the necessary post surgery adjustments, as well as talked with people who have had the procedure done.

It is true that gastric bypass surgery does reduce the amount of food your stomach can hold making it difficult to eat more than only tiny amount of food at a time.....for a while.

The problem is that for many of us, we must have more than gastric bypass surgery. We need 'surgery' on our relationship with food. You see, the reason we cannot permanently lose weight is because we are emotionally tied to our overeating. Food is our friend. It comforts us when we are sad. It calms us when we are upset or nervous. It is almost like a companion when we are lonely. That relationship is much harder to change than the size of our stomach.

I believe that for a person to have a successful gastric bypass surgery that permanently fixes their obesity, counseling and behavior modification is as necessary to the recovery process as sutures are to closing the incisions. Their relationship to food must change or the obesity problem will not change.

I am not saying that gastric bypass surgery is unnecessary or will not work. Actually, I have seen it work well when used in tandem with counseling and/or therapy.

If you are considering having this surgery done, I encourage you to actually begin the counseling before surgery. Don't wait until after surgery, thinking that you can 'go it alone', only to find out that urge, no, drive to overeat is still present, and your newly tiny stomach will expand to accommodate your compulsion.