How The LapBand Works
The LAP-BAND works by allowing you to eat less, and be satisfied.
Weight loss is a simple concept — if you eat less, you lose weight.
Every diet does this — whether it be pre-packaged meals from Jenny Craig, Nutri-System, or Weight Watchers. The problem is that eating less isn’t easy. Often times, attempting to eat less makes you hungry later.
Imagine being able to eat less and feel satisfied, not only for
that meal, but having that sense of satisfaction (satiety) last until
your next meal. That is what the LAP-BAND can do for you.
People gain weight because they eat slightly more than they burn. If you eat 96 calories a day more than you burn , by the end of one year, you will have put on 10 extra pounds. Do that for five years and you’ve put on 50 pounds!
Do you know how many calories you burn a day? Here is a fun exercise. Calculate the amount of calories you burn a day now, and calculate how many calories you would need at your ideal body weight. Check the weight loss calculator here.
You might be surprised to find out that to be a 150 pound person you have to eat like a 150 pound person. The difference in calorie intake isn’t that big, but the results can be.
DIETS DON’T WORK. How can you eat less and maintain
the weight you want? The LAP-BAND. It’s been show in clinical trials to be much more effective and long-lasting than diet alone. The results were in patients who were not morbidly obese, either. The data came from patients who only had 50 pounds of weight to lose!
To have sustained weight loss, you need the LAP-BAND.
The LAP-BAND fools your brain into thinking that you are full.
What makes your brain suppress your appetite? It is the nerves that are in the top part of your stomach. When the top part of the stomach is stretched these nerves send a signal to the brain saying that you have eaten a large meal.
Without the LAP-BAND, when you eat a large meal, you fill the stomach from the bottom to the top. When the food reaches the top part of your stomach, and the stomach is stretched, the nerves send a signal to your brain, and your brain then sends a signal out . The signal does two things — it suppresses the appetite, decreasing a hormone called ghelin. It also increases a hormone called leptin — and that hormone allows your body to more easily utilize its fat as fuel.
The LAP-BAND is placed below this part of the stomach so that as you eat food, the band keeps the food in the top part of the stomach. You eat a small amount of food and your stomach signals the brain that you have eaten a large meal — and then the brain suppresses appetite and makes your body fat more easily used as fuel. We can adjust the band allowing you to feel full between meals, or we can loosen the band entirely and allow you to eat normally.