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Rapid Weight Loss

Severe obesity is a very real chronic condition – and it’s no easy feat to treat and diets alone don’t work. For many people rapid weight loss can be achieved by means of weight loss, or bariatric, surgery. This type of procedure helps to restrict one’s food intake or interrupts the digestive process.

Rapid weight loss surgery is a serious undertaking so it’s important to understand the pros and cons before you make a final decision.

Rapid weight loss through surgery

Surgery aids rapid weight loss

Digestive Functions

To understand how rapid weight loss works, you need to have an understanding of the functioning of the digestive system.

As food travels along your digestive tract, enzymes and digestive juices seemingly arrive at the right place, at the right time and get to work digesting and absorbing nutrients and calories. Once we chew and swallow our food, the food moves along the oesophagus to the stomach and the acids continue the digestion process.

Your stomach can hold a little less than 1.5 litres of food at any one time. Once the contents of the stomach begin moving along to the small intestine, pancreatic juices and bile aid the digestion process. Those particles that can’t be digested in the small intestine are then stored in the large intestine until your body eliminates them.

Rapid weight loss surgery therefore involves making certain changes to either the small intestine, the stomach or both. That means your body will handle your diet differently and you’ll be on the track to lose weight fast.

How Does the Surgery Work?

Interestingly, the concept of weight loss surgery came about as a result of operations for severe ulcers or even cancer where large portions of the small intestine or stomach were removed. Patients who underwent such procedures tended to experience rapid weight loss post-surgery and doctors realised that this was a successful way to treat obesity.

The very first surgery used to help with weight loss was an intestinal bypass. This operation was first used 4 decades ago and the result was rapid weight loss via malabsorption, or rather, the body became unable to absorb nutrients from foods since the intestines were removed.

The whole idea was for patients to consume big quantities of food that would be rapidly passed along, thus the body wouldn’t have chance to absorb as many calories. The downfall, of course, was that patients lost out on essential nutrients. Needless to say the original form of such surgery is not used anymore.

If you’re still wondering how to lose belly fat and indeed how to lose weight fast, there are other forms of surgery in South Africa.

Other Rapid Weight Loss Surgeries

Today there are numerous techniques available to surgeons to produce rapid weight loss:

  • Malabsorptive surgery involves shortening the small intestine and changing where it connects to the stomach. This limits how much food is absorbed.
  • Restrictive surgery involved making the stomach smaller. A section of the stomach is either closed or removed, limiting the amount of food that can remain in the stomach as you feel full quicker.

Now You Can Have Weight Loss Surgery

If you desire rapid weight loss but prefer to pay cash, or your medical aid doesn’t cover such surgeries, you can apply for medical finance at Incred.

Want to know more about how to lose weight? It’s as easy following the banner above or going directly to the Incred website.