How Much Weight Will I Lose After Bariatric Surgery? [Video]
An ongoing Q&A video series allows Doc Pop to talk about common bariatric surgery questions. From questions about having bariatric surgery to what types of procedures are available to patients, revision surgery questions or questions commonly asked by patients. The series is meant to be educational; always speak with your physician or medical care provider before going through any medical treatments.
In this video, Doc Pop answers the question "How much weight will I lose after having bariatric surgery?"
A question that I get asked a lot is, "How much weight am I going to lose?" and today I am going to share my philosophy to that answer.
Ultimately the answer to the question is, that weight loss sucess depends on a lot of things.
If we look at the statistics of weight loss after bariatric surgery, and made a graph of it, weight loss would look like a typical bell curve. It would have a normal distribution, like everything else in nature; Heights of men vary, sizes of amoebas differ. Everything in nature when measured, tends to form this kind of bell shaped curve. I think that in general, weight loss after bariatric surgery tends to follow the same principal.
An average patient that has had a gastric bypass surgery loses approximately 65% of their excess weight, with band surgery that same patient may lose 40-50% of their excess weight. Patients who lose more or less than this, tend to fall on either side of the curve.
Patients with greater weight loss after bariatric surgery fall on the far right side of the curve. Those patients are very active, exercise often, and tend to be more careful about their diet. They make good, healthy food choices. While patients who didn’t reach their weight-loss goals usually lead a very sedentary lifestyle. Maybe they can’t exercise due to health issues that morbid obesity has casued, like a bad knee or hip. They tend to not be as careful with their diet and the bad habits or behaviors that helped them to become obese in the first place remain.
Even the patients that haven’t lost as much weight though, still have a success story. Medically these patients are often better than before bariatric surgery. They may have gotten rid of some of their co-morbid diseases like diatbetes, hypertension, sleep apnea and aching joints. These patients are not failures, their weight loss is simply less.
So when I am asked “How much weight will I lose after bariatric surgery?” I tell my patients that it depends. I explain that how much weight they will lose depends fully on changing their lifestyle choices, dietary choices and behaviors. If they want to be very successful, then exercising and being careful with diet and lifestyle choices are necessary; Where they end up on this bell curve depends on the individual and their behaviors.