Learn About Surgery

Taking Charge of Your Health

Some people are blessed with good health their entire lives. Others have to work hard at improving their health. Shedding excess weight can have great benefits for your overall health and wellbeing. It can be one of the best gifts you can give to yourself. If you find you have to work at good health, sometimes you have to make big decisions to realize big gains.

Weight loss surgery is one of those big decisions that can help spark a lasting change in your lifestyle. Let your doctor know when you are ready to take charge of your health and want to explore weight loss surgery at Natividad.

More Than Just a Surgery

Exploring the idea of weight loss surgery probably means that you have been overweight for a considerable amount of time, and your body may be suffering the effects. Weight loss surgery should be viewed as a tool to help you make a major lifestyle change. The results of that change, we hope, will be improved health.

The weight loss surgery itself will help you to eat less, but it is still up to you to make good food choices. If you are not sure that you can make healthy food choices on your own, don’t worry. Every patient meets with our registered dietitian both before and after surgery. This is your opportunity to learn about an entirely new way of eating, and is another tool to help you improve your health.

Regular, moderate exercise coupled with a healthier diet should help you with your weight loss efforts. We expect all our patients to make regular moderate exercise a part of their daily lives. Moderate exercise can be as simple as taking a brisk walk.

To help make these lifestyle changes stick, come to one of our monthly support groups. Support groups are a great place to network with other weight loss surgery patients, and to ask questions of the nurse and registered dietitian. Research has shown that patients who regularly attend support groups take off more weight, and keep it off better than patients who do not.

Surgery can be an important step, but it is not the only one you’ll take on your road to a healthier you. Food choices, exercise, and a supportive community are all important parts of your journey. Natividad is proud to support its patients through all of these efforts.

It’s a Way of Life

Weight loss surgery is not the cure for obesity. Instead, it is one piece of a puzzle that includes appetite control, decreased calorie intake, making high-quality nutrition choices, and the introduction of regular, moderate exercise. For most people, these elements combined represent a significant change in the way we live our lives.

Weight loss surgery requires a lifelong commitment to diet and exercise awareness.

Without making a lifelong change to your present lifestyle, the benefits of weight loss surgery will likely be defeated. Weight loss will be inadequate – or worse – you may gain your excess weight back.

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