Did you know that there are more than 1.9 billion people worldwide who are overweight? Obesity is a problem for your health for many reasons. It can damage your knees, interfere with your blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and more.
Once you gain some extra weight, it can feel impossible to lose it no matter what you do. However, there are some treatments for obesity that can solve this problem. After sticking with a treatment of your preference for some time, you’ll find that you’ll soon start to lose weight and become ever closer to your goal weight.
Keep reading and learn more about the different treatments for obesity below.
Table of Contents
Change Your Dietary Habits
Dieting may be the most obvious solution for numerous causes of obesity, but it is truly one of the most effective methods. Following a good diet is essential for treating obesity in adults, obesity in children, and virtually anyone else who is overweight. However, what many people don’t know is that there is a right and wrong way to diet.
For example, crash diets are not good for losing weight. A crash diet is a very serious diet that people use to lose a large quantity of weight in a very short period of time. Usually, this diet involves a person eating only 800 calories every day, or less.
Keep in mind that the average recommended daily intake of calories for most adults is around 2,000. When you restrict your intake of calories to 800 a day, this can be dangerous for various reasons. First of all, this number of calories is not enough to fit in all the nutrition you need in a day.
For that reason, people who follow crash diets tend to end up with vitamin deficiencies. Vitamin deficiencies can be quite harmful to your overall health since they can negatively affect your energy levels, mood, skin and hair health, eye function, and more.
More than that, a crash diet can make you feel very weak because you aren’t getting the nutrition your body needs to function.
The Foundation of a Good Diet
A good diet is one that focuses on healthy foods rather than one that focuses on eating as few calories as possible. However, understanding the number of calories you consume in a day is important. For example, depending on your body size and sex, you will need to eat a certain number of calories per day to maintain a healthy body weight.
For example, if you are a short woman, you won’t need to eat as many calories as a tall man. The amount of exercise and activity you perform each day is also important. If you spend most of the day sitting, you obviously won’t need to eat as much as a professional swimmer since you won’t be burning as many calories.
The goal of a healthy diet is to reduce the number of calories you consume in a day to a healthy level. For example, if you should only be consuming 2,000 calories for your body size, but you actually consume 4,000 calories, this amount of overeating is the cause of your obesity.
If you cut down to only what you’re supposed to eat, you will lose weight without having to put in much effort.
Exercise More Often
Feeling sluggish one of the signs of obesity. This is one of the many consequences of being overweight. Carrying around extra weight can exhaust you.
As such, it can be difficult to drag yourself out of bed for some physical activity. Even so, regular exercise is very important if you’re serious about losing weight. Keep in mind that diet and exercise go together.
You could exercise all day, but if you eat a large pizza right afterward, you’re not going to lose any weight. On the other hand, if you cut your intake of calories and combine that with regular physical activity, you will find that you will start losing weight at quite a rapid pace. The great thing about exercise is that there are many forms of exercise to choose from.
Running or jogging is often not a good idea for those who are overweight. This is because putting so much weight, and stress on your knees can be bad for your knee health. A good alternative is swimming.
Swimming works out your entire body, and it is a type of exercise that does not involve any impact on your joints. That way, your joints will stay healthy, and you can lose weight and build muscle all at the same time. Speed walking is another good way to get your heart racing and your body burning calories.
Methods of Exercise
Speed walking will not negatively impact your joints as running or jogging may. You can also incorporate walking not as just a form of exercise but as a way of getting around your town. For example, instead of driving to the store (if it is nearby), you can try walking there instead.
This may seem like an unnecessarily strenuous task, but the simple act of walking instead of sitting and driving in a car will cause you to burn a much larger number of calories for that day. If you don’t want to walk to the grocery store, you can always find other places to walk to, such as the park, a neighbor’s house, or down the street.
Even doing chores around the house can help you exercise and burn calories. For example, vacuuming the floors, gardening, sweeping the driveway, and so on are all ideal for burning calories. Ideally, you should exercise for around 60 to 90 minutes every day.
This may sound like a long time, but if you use exercise as a way to clean your house or get around town, you’ll forget about how much time you’re spending on physical activity.
Weight Loss Medications
Pills for weight loss have been popular for years, and while they can help you lose weight, you shouldn’t entirely rely on them to reach your goal weight. Usually, a doctor will only prescribe this kind of medication if dieting and exercising don’t seem to be doing the trick for you. Orlastat (Xenical) is one of the most commonly prescribed weight loss medications on the market.
This medication is a type of lipase inhibitor. What does this mean exactly, you might ask? It all has to do with preventing fat from your diet from being absorbed by your intestines. This keeps the fat from sticking to your body.
Instead, it will pass out of your body through your stool. This may sound like a miracle pill, but it isn’t as great as it might sound. While this medication can help you lose weight, it can’t magically make you drop 20 or 50 pounds.
It will aid you in your weight loss journey. This kind of pill is not a substitute for a healthy diet or physical activity. If you don’t eat healthily or exercise but still take this medication, you likely won’t end up losing any weight. It is only the combination of these different weight loss efforts that will make a difference in your overall weight.
Also, it is usually only prescribed to people who are dangerously obese and need to lose weight right away. So, if you are only slightly overweight, it is unlikely that your doctor will give you this medication or any other medication to lose weight. And remember that many weight loss pills have a hefty number of side effects.
The Side Effects of Weight Loss Medications
The side effects usually involve gastrointestinal upset because of how the pill affects the GI tract in the first place. People using weight-loss medication may experience an upset stomach or changes in their bowel movements. They may also experience side effects unrelated to the gastrointestinal system.
For example, if you take weight-loss medication, you may experience headaches, muscle aches or weakness, changes in your respiratory system, and so on.
These side effects, of course, could interfere with your other weight loss endeavors, such as dieting and exercising. This would only make it harder to lose weight.
Another concern: it is not good to take this kind of medication for a long period of time. If you need to lose weight fast for the sake of your health, then this medication can help, but you should also keep on top of your weight in other ways. For an extra boost, you can always try a medically assisted weight loss program instead of weight loss medication.
Such a program will provide you with much better results since you will have more support from real people instead of a simple pill. You will also have the chance to learn more about losing weight and how to maintain a healthy weight once you reach your weight loss goal.
Weight Loss Surgery
Surgery for weight loss is usually the last treatment that a doctor will recommend. It is usually an option for those who are morbidly obese. This kind of surgery involves changing the structure of a person’s stomach.
Usually, it involves restricting a part of the stomach so that the part of the stomach where food enters is much smaller. This will make it, so the person feels full after eating only a small portion of food. More than that, the stomach won’t be able to absorb as many calories or as much fat as usual, so it will be harder for the body to gain weight and much easier for the body to lose it.
There are different types of weight loss surgery to consider. Some may involve making the stomach smaller, which is one of the most common options. This is known as a gastric sleeve or gastric band.
This is an actual band that encompasses part of the stomach so that the stomach pouch (the area where food sits) is much smaller. Usually, a person with a gastric band can only eat around a cup of food at one time. This will make the person eat slower and eat less food in one sitting, which, of course, will result in weight loss.
Gastric Bypass
Some other types of surgery may involve skipping over an entire part of the GI tract, such as part of the small intestine. This is known as a gastric bypass, and it makes it harder for the body to absorb as many calories. The downside of this surgery, in particular, is that it makes it harder for the body to absorb important vitamins and minerals.
This is because the small intestine is the part of the body that absorbs large quantities of important nutrients. Again, this surgery is usually only done on people who are very overweight with BMIs that are 30 or even more. A gastric bypass can be helpful for these people because it will help them lose weight at a rapid rate.
This is important because having a BMI of 30 is very dangerous, and losing weight as fast as possible would be beneficial for such a person. Of course, if possible, it is always safer and preferable for an overweight person to avoid surgery and lose weight on their own or with the help of a weight loss program.
All About Treatments for Obesity
There are many treatments for obesity that you can choose from if you’re looking to lose weight. Diet and exercise are some of the most important. If you cut back on what you eat and exercise more, losing weight should not be too much of a hassle.
For those who are very overweight, medication or surgery may be viable options. If you want to lose weight safely, we’ll connect you with an UnCraveRx provider who can guide you through a medically assisted weight-loss program. Find a provider