At BMI, we don’t generally talk about our successes. We focus, instead, on the science, the details that are not covered in counseling sessions with patients and their families. This is probably why we are on the first page of Google on most of the search terms for bariatric surgery. Once in a while, we [...]
Those who undergo or contemplate bariatric surgery do so essentially as a second chance at life. I mean that the severely obese man or woman feels that he (or she) has lost out in life on multiple fronts. Here are a few examples:
Loss of body contour/beauty: you can’t forget how you were once before the fat started piling on.
Poor self image: you hate the thing you see in the mirror.
Poor quality of life: you can’t dance, surf, skip, run or walk without some kind of pain or discomfort. Going up one floor makes you breathless. You avoid holidays where you would need to walk, especially on hilly terrain.
In the last two decades or so, people have recognised (mistakenly, as you will see) that surgery for weight loss means liposuction. It has become a tiresome but necessary ritual for us to explain to our patients that what we do is bariatric surgery, not liposuction. Liposuction is local removal of subcutaneous fat from a [...]
Hair loss is one of the commonest laments in female patients after gastric bypass surgery (whether for weight loss or surgical cure of Type II Diabetes Mellitus), and is at once one of the least heralded topics in the subject. This is but natural: after all, surgeons are more bothered by complications that are life-threatening [...]
“When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail!” We have all heard of this saying, and all of us agree. A skilled laparoscopic surgeon plots to take out huge tumors and cysts through the keyhole method, while the dinosaur surgeon tends to think of employing his hands to remove organs (like the appendix) [...]
Some of the commonest things I get asked by patients after bariatric surgery is, “So what can I eat now? When can I eat sweets? When can I drink Coke?” Or words to that effect. Each time, I sigh. It means another ten minute lecture is due on my part. I have to teach an [...]
This morning, I was supposed to train with Ranadeep Moitra (the fitness coach of BMI) and a group of youths at his bootcamp (usually sprint intervals and stuff) at a local cricket ground. I was late, and reached the camp when it was on its way. I had brought my kettlebells anticipating this, and started [...]
If you, like me, are interested in fat loss, you could do with a bit of calorie counting! If you don’t know what you are eating on a daily basis, the chances are you count yourself as one of those freaks of Nature who become fat in spite of eating ‘nothing’, someone who grows fatter [...]