Mix and Match Weight-loss Solutions for Lifetime Success

Obesity is an incurable chronic disease, and you’ll be able to manage yours better if you view it that way.

You can use one weight-loss method for a while, then switch to or add on another, and yet another. That’s a logical and effective way to retain a healthy weight for the rest of your life.

Open Up to Various Weight-loss Options

There is no wrong way to start, or continue, your weight-loss journey. Your best bet might be to begin the process knowing that each method you try likely will work for a period of time, and then you’ll need to move on to a new one. That’s true whether your first step is any of the following:

• Diet
• Exercise
• GLP-1 medications
• Endoscopic procedures
• Bariatric surgery

If you struggle to see this approach as viable, notice that people often say they “failed” after losing weight then gaining it back.

America needs to change its mindset. We don’t say a diabetic patient failed when it’s time to add a second blood-regulating drug. We don’t say a cancer patient failed when it’s time to start a more aggressive regime.

We need to see weight-loss treatments in a similar way, accepting that people with obesity will need to alter their weight-loss and maintenance plans repeatedly. Recidivism — relapse — happens.

How This Applies to Weight-loss Methods

Maybe you hesitate to take the new GLP-1 injections even though you’re told they work well, since you’ll likely regain weight once you stop taking the drug. The same is true for endoscopic procedures, in which doctors change the way food flows through your body without surgery. Some of these choices, too, work at first but cease if they’re reversed.

Even the portfolio of bariatric surgeries have their backtrackers. All the operations involve permanent changes to how you digest food, yet some patients drop large amounts of weight then see inches return.

Double or triple up. Without shame. In fact, you might want to combine weight-loss efforts on purpose. While you can lose 25 percent of your body weight after bariatric surgery, you can reach a similar goal by combining the GLP-1 route with an endoscopic one, even though each alone results in a smaller bodyweight decrease.

Half of the American adult population has obesity. While being severely overweight may, by itself, harm your health, it’s especially important to take a big step when you manifest a comorbidity — another medical condition that can be decreased or eliminated if you shed pounds. There are 150 of these, including sleep apnea, osteoarthritis and liver disease.

This is key information. We don’t hear about people dying of obesity. The death certificate will cite they died from stroke, renal failure or diabetes, for instance, but the root cause may well be obesity.

How To Proceed

If you’re considering weight loss meds, endoscopy or surgery, choose a comprehensive practice that has specialists in all weight-loss areas.

Whether you’re new to medically assisted weight loss or discouraged that you’ve gained back weight you’ve lost, consider individual and combined tactics. Keep in mind that your insurance plan might cover only some options.

Ask about certain combinations that work especially well:

• Gastric balloons + meds. A doctor places a silicon balloon in your stomach via your mouth while you’re asleep. Then the balloon will be inflated. While it’s there, you’ll eat less. Six months later, have the balloon removed and start on GLP-1 medications to take over reducing your appetite.
• Endoscopic gastric plication + meds. Using the same approach, a surgeon will stitch your stomach into a tube shape, which will hold less food. It’s a permanent change. If you want to become yet thinner, add a GLP-1. Both delay gastric emptying — meaning they slow down how you eliminate excrement — so ask your doctor beforehand.
• GLP-1 + endoscopy. Switch the order and start with the meds. When you’re ready to stop, consider an endoscopic or surgical next step.
• Go all the way. For you, the best way might be to use the balloon for a year or two, then progress to an endoscopic plication for  years. If your weight starts increasing, then undergo surgery. That will last another 10 years. After that, you could restart the meds.

The multistep approach is a simple solution for keeping your weight at a healthy level for life.